Broadway League Releases Season End Statistics

 The Broadway League has released end-of-season statistics for the 2007-2008 Broadway season, which began May 28, 2007 and ended May 25, 2008, showing a slight decline in both paid attendance and grosses.  

Thirty-six new productions opened on Broadway during 2007-2008 (eight new musicals, one musical return-engagement, four musical revivals, 11 new plays, and 12 play revivals). This compares to 35 new productions (12 new musicals, five revivals, 11 new plays, and seven play revivals) in the previous season.

Paid attendance and grosses dropped slightly in the period ending May 25, 2008, in large measure due to the 19-day Local One Stagehands work stoppage that shut down Broadway in the fall of 2007.

For this 52-week period ending May 25, 2008, paid attendance at Broadway shows was 12.27 million, down 0.2 % from last season (12.3 million).  Broadway shows grossed approximately $937.5 million, compared to the previous season's record of $938.5 million (includes estimate for "Young Frankenstein").

League officials estimate that had the strike not occurred, all-time records for both box-office grosses and attendance would have been set with an estimated $975 million in grosses, and 12.9 million tickets sold.

"While we are disappointed that we didn't exceed last year's record-breaking season, we are confident that in the coming season, with such big name shows on the horizon as Billy Elliot, Shrek, West Side Story and Equus, to only name a few, that we will have the best season in recorded history," commented Charlotte St. Martin, Executive Director, The Broadway League.

Below is a complete list of the 36 plays and musicals that opened during the 2007-2008 season.

2007-2008 SEASON
The 39 Steps  (M), Is He Dead? (P), August: Osage County (P), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (P), A Bronx Tale (P), The Little Mermaid (M), Boeing-Boeing (P), Macbeth (P),  A Catered Affair (M), Mauritius (P), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (P), November (P), Come Back, Little Sheba (P), Old Acquaintance (P), The Country Girl (P) , Passing Strange (M), Cry-Baby (M), Pygmalion (P), Cymbeline (P), The Ritz (P), Cyrano de Bergerac (P), Rock 'n' Roll (P), Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (M), South Pacific (M), The Farnsworth Invention (P) Sunday in the Park with George (M), Glory Days (M), The Seafarer (P), Grease (M), Thurgood (P), Gypsy (M),  Top Girls (P), The Homecoming (P)   Xanadu (M), In The Heights (M) and Young Frankenstein (M)

M=Musical
P=Play

List of Long - Running Shows for 2007-2008 Season:

A Chorus Line
Avenue Q
Chicago
Curtains
Hairspray
Jersey Boys
Legally Blonde
Mamma Mia!
Mary Poppins
Monty Python's Spamalot
Rent
Spring Awakening
The Lion King
The Phantom of the Opera
Wicked
                   
The Broadway League, founded in 1930 as the League of New York Theatres, is the national trade association for the Broadway industry.  The League's 600-plus members include theatre owners and operators, producers, presenters, and general managers in 240 North American cities, as well as suppliers of goods and services to the theatre industry.

Broadway industry programs initiated by the League include Kids' Night on Broadway, Broadway On Broadway, an annual outdoor concert in Times Square, The Broadway Line, a national toll-free Broadway information hotline (888-BROADWAY), Broadway Ticket Center, BroadwayLeague.com, ILoveNYTheater.com, a multilingual Broadway website, and IBDB.com (Internet Broadway Database).

Each year, League members bring Broadway to nearly 30 million people in New York and across the U.S. and Canada, contributing $5.1 billion to the New York economy and 3.25 billion more to the national economy.

For more information please visit http://www.broadwayleague.com.

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