Jodie Comer poses in the press room with the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play for Prima Facie at the 76th annual Tony Awards at the Radio Hotel in New York on June 11.Evan Agostini/The Associated Press
New Broadway musicals Kimberly Akimbo, Shucked, Some Like It Hot and & Juliet – as well as the play Leopoldstadt – all saw nice bumps at their box offices after the Tony Award telecast.
Data from The Broadway League released Tuesday shows many of the musicals and plays featured on the June 11 awards show benefited financially from getting valuable exposure in front of millions.
The top Tony winner, Kimberly Akimbo, about a teen who ages four times faster than the average human, won five awards including best new musical and grossed US$695,405 over eight performances following the telecast, an increase of US$169,229 over the previous week.
Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, which explores Jewish identity with an intergenerational story, won the best new play Tony and did even better: It earned US$273,804 more than the week previously, ending up with US$924,033 in the week after the Tonys.
The Hollywood writers’ strike left the storied awards show without a script but the Writers Guild of America allowed the show to go on without a picket line.
& Juliet, which reimagines Romeo and Juliet and adds some of the biggest pop hits of the past few decades, took in US$205,694 more over the previous week, ending with a very healthy US$1,339,854 after a rousing telecast performance and zero Tonys. while Shucked, a surprise lightweight musical comedy celebrating corn and featuring newly minted Tony winner Alex Newell, earned US$162,233 more than the previous week, finishing with a respectable US$862,188.
Some Like It Hot, a musical adaptation of the cross-dressing comedy film, only saw a modest US$103,039 increase despite J. Harrison Ghee’s historic win, and New York, New York, a love letter to Manhattan inspired by the 1977 film directed by Martin Scorsese, took in US$141,105 over the previous week to a final US$995,844 gross.
Prima Facie, which stars best actress winner Jodie Comer, saw a bump of US$161,576 to help it cross the US$1-million threshold. Producers earlier Tuesday announced that the show had recouped its US$4.1-million capitalization costs after 10 weeks and the show had set an eight-performance per week house record for the Golden Theatre with US$1,107,829.
The telecast featured performances from all the nominated musicals and Will Swenson – starring on Broadway in a Neil Diamond musical – led the audience in a vigorous rendition of Sweet Caroline. Lea Michele of Glee and now Funny Girl fame also performed a soaring version of Don’t Rain on My Parade. The data was mixed on the last two entries: The Neil Diamond musical actually saw its take drop by almost US$91,000 despite the exposure, while Michele’s show earned US$1-million over the pre-Tony week, when Michele was absent.
Not all the numbers pointed to a telecast bump. Parade, a doomed musical love story set against the real backdrop of a murder and lynching in Georgia in pre-First World War, got a US$108,734 increase to end last week with US$1,168,463 after earning best revival of a musical and a Tony for director Michael Arden. But Peter Pan Goes Wrong, a farce that wasn’t featured at the awards show, go the same increase – US$109,853.
The good news for many shows was tempered by some sad, including the imminent closing notices for two shows – Life of Pi, about a shipwrecked teenager who spends hundreds of days afloat in the Pacific in the company of a Bengal tiger, and Fat Ham – James Ijames’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet set at a Black family’s barbecue in the modern South.