Broadway Posts Record Revenue, $748.9 Million

New York’s Broadway theaters posted a record $748.9 million in revenue this calendar year, 3.2% more than in 2003, according to the League of American Theaters and Producers, a trade group.Paid attendance, or the number of tickets sold for Broadway shows, reached 11.3 million. That’s up 2.2% from last year, the league said. Midway through the 2004-05 season, which runs from June to June, revenue and ticket sales are both little changed.“It’s been a pretty busy holiday season, and it was a busy summer,” the league’s president, Jed Bernstein, said in an interview. “The fall was a little bit slower than usual. But things seem to be building momentum for a big second half of the year.”More than 20 plays and musicals will open in the next six months, a boon as the weak dollar draws tourists to New York at levels not seen since before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Mr. Bernstein said. Foreign visitors make up 11% to 12% of Broadway audiences, he added.One-person performances continue to be popular, with comedians Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal, activist Eve Ensler, Dame Edna Everage, and actor Mario Cantone of “Sex and the City” all headlining their own shows.“The biggest hit, by far, has been Billy Crystal’s ‘700 Sundays,’ a nostalgic and very emotional look back at his childhood,” Mr. Bernstein said. The show’s producers reported $600,000 in single-ticket sales the day after its December 5 premiere, which appears to be a record for a play.Among the shows opening this spring are three adapted from films: “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” starring John Lithgow; “Spamalot,” based on “Monty Python and the Holy Grail;” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” based on Ian Fleming’s novel and the movie of the same name.Other producers hope to replicate the success of “Mamma Mia!” which weaves songs from the 1970s disco super group Abba through the story of a young girl searching for her father.“All Shook Up” will bring music by Elvis Presley to the stage, while “Good Vibrations” uses the songs of the Beach Boys.“Those are completely original stories, using the music of those particular artists,” Mr. Bernstein said.Also planned for the spring are a new production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” starring Denzel Washington as Brutus, and revivals of “A Streetcar Named Desire” with Natasha Richardson, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” with Kathleen Turner, and “The Glass Menagerie” with Jessica Lange.

Broadway Posts Record Revenue, $748.9 Million

Broadway Posts Record Revenue, $748.9 Million

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