‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ Becomes First American Play To Gross $2M In Single Week
EXCLUSIVE: Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird has hit another Broadway milestone: The production, starring Jeff Daniels and directed by Bartlett Sher, has become the first American play to gross more than $2 million in a single week.
The new record was announced today by producer Scott Rudin. The record-setting number was made during Week 4 of the new theater season (the week ending June 23), with Mockingbird grossing $2,018,314 for the week.
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The overall record holder for any play is Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, playing at the larger Lyric Theater (1,622 seats versus the Shubert’s 1,435). Potter grossed $2,525,850 for the week ending Dec. 30, 2018.
Mockingbird‘s box office performance has been noticeable of late not only for that well-publicized lack of empty seats, but for its steady, even unrelenting increases – at this point, the production breaks its own previous week’s record on an almost expected basis. This despite the show’s snub from Tony’s Best Play category and Daniels’ loss to Network‘s Bryan Cranston (Celia Keenan-Bolger won this year’s Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance as Scout Finch).
So with Broadway ticket prices ever climbing, and the show’s popularity seemingly unconnected to its Tony collection, the Sorkin adaptation likely has more than a few records left to smash.
(Average ticket prices for Mockingbird are not out of line with other shows: For the week following the June 9 Tony broadcast, the average ticket for Mockingbird was $167, Harry Potter was $116, Hadestown was $172, Oklahoma! was $123; all were well below Broadway’s top dog Hamilton, which carried an average ticket price of $296.)
Mockingbird‘s cumulative grosses to date stand at more than $58 million. The production recouped its investment 19 weeks after its December 13, 2018, opening. Since previews began November 1, 2018, attendance at the Shubert has been at capacity for every performance.
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