Last week I told you two Broadway musicals were in trouble. They were the Neil Diamond musical, “A Beautiful Noise” and the Britney Spears jukebox musical, “Once Upon a One More Time.”
Now the new numbers are out for this past week. One improved, and one show nosedived.
Neil Diamond fans rallied a bit, sending “A Beautiful Noise” up $50,000 in receipts. So maybe they’ll be singing “Sweet Caroline” a little longer.
But the Britney Spears show should now be on death watch. “Once Upon” fell another 12% to just $514K. The show played at 52% of capacity. This means half-empty houses.
Spears, who has nothing but time on her hands, has yet to show up at the theater or even mention the production to her millions of social media followers. If she doesn’t want to see it, why would anyone else?
Most everything else was up in receipts and capacity last week. “Back to the Future” overcame mixed reviews and played to full houses. Only Tony winner “Kimberly Akimbo” is a little soft, which isn’t surprising since it’s not a mainstream crowd pleaser. But over all, Broadway is having a good summer and waiting for new shows this fall.