“And the money kept rolling in,” is how Tim Rice’s lyric puts it in a song from “Evita.”And that aptly sums up the Broadway season of 2014-2015, which officially ended on Sunday. The cumulative box-office tally for its forty theaters was a record-breaking $1.65 billion, while attendance — the proverbial “asses in seats” — was 13 million, which constituted a rise of 13.3 percent over the last two years.Chalk up the attendance record to tourists who account for a whopping seventy percent of the tickets sold, and the rise in grosses to premium pricing, which has pushed the average ticket price for a Broadway show to over $100. Of course, the recent parade of stars on Broadway has helped enormously. Much of the revenue has to be attributed to such draws as Bradley Cooper (“The Elephant Man”), Jake Gyllenhaal (“Constellations”), Hugh Jackman (“The River”), Larry David (“Fish in the Dark”), Helen Mirren (“The Audience”), and Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick (“It’s Only A Play”).For those who accuse Broadway of pandering with marquee names and familiar fare based on hit films or existing song catalogues, there are more than a few shows that contradict that argument. Chief among them is “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” a London import about a young man with Asperger’s Syndrome who solves the murder of a neighbor’s dog. Since opening last September, it has grossed $29 million and is also a front-runner to win the Best Play Tony Award when Broadway’s highest honors are doled out on June 7 at Radio City Music Hall.Topping that tally is the revival of Terrence McNally’s “It’s Only A Play,” which will have grossed more than $36 million before it ends its run on June 7. Not bad for a comedy that had middling runs off-off-Broadway in 1982 and off-Broadway in 1986. An all-star cast drew the throng, including Matthew Broderick, Megan Mullally, Stockard Channing, and F. Murray Abraham. But much of the credit must go to Nathan Lane. The protean performer always makes it look so easy that the Tony nominating committee once again ignored him. They did, however, single out a breakout performance by Micah Stock in an impressive debut as a star-struck actor-cater-waiter at a jittery opening night party.These grosses for plays, however, pale in comparison to those for musicals, and it was the long-running hits that accounted for more than 25% of this season’s revenue. “The Lion King” led the way with a record-breaking $102 million followed by the perennially popular “Wicked” ($92 million), “The Book of Mormon” ($84 million), and “Aladdin” ($76 million). The theatrical folks at Disney should find big bonus checks in their stockings at year’s end. Among the newest offerings in the genre, four shows have already joined the $1 million-per-week club: “Something Rotten!” “The King and I,” “Finding Neverland,” and “An American in Paris.” The latter and “Something Rotten!” are both in the running for the prized Best Musical Tony Award, while “King and I” is the front-runner for Best Revival with “On the Twentieth Century” nipping at its heels. “Finding Neverland” was shut out from the Tony competition in what was widely regarded as a slap to its lead producer Harvey Weinstein. But he may well have the last laugh. The musical, based on Weinstein’s 2004 Johnny Depp-Kate Winslet film about the creation of J. M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan,” has shown solid box-office appeal since it started previews.To those who argue that none of the above musicals move the art form in new directions, there are a couple of rebuttals: “Fun Home” and “The Visit,” both of which are also vying for the Best Musical Tony Award. Their respective fortunes on Broadway are emblematic of a season which as been feast or famine. “Fun Home” — about a young lesbian caricaturist coming to terms with her sexuality and her father’s suicide — appears to have found an audience for its challenging fare. It has been selling out at Circle in the Square, one of the most intimate of Broadway houses. On the other hand, “The Visit,” starring the indestructible Chita Rivera as a woman bent on revenge, has been struggling to fill seats.Indeed, the total amount of red ink for the season may ultimately reach nearly $100 million with the quick demise of “Holler If Ya Hear Me,” “The Last Ship,” “Doctor Zhivago,” “Side Show,” “The Heidi Chronicles,” “Living on Love,” and “Honeymoon in Vegas.” More closings are sure to follow in the next weeks. Conventional wisdom holds that only one of four Broadway shows eventually reaches profit. Still, that’s a vast improvement. A decade or so ago, that ratio was one out of every six or seven. This season’s impressive numbers are likely to draw ever more producers and investors to the table. Consider that “The Lion King” has grossed nearly $6.3 billion globally, with “The Phantom of the Opera” not far behind. And both are still running strong and probably will continue to do so well into the next millennium. Compare that to the highest grossing film of all time: “Avatar, at a meager $2.7 billion.
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