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‘Merrily We Roll Along’ Takes $1.3M, Breaks House Record & Sells Out With Big $225 Average Ticket

The Broadway season of the revival of Merrily We Roll Along starring Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez, broke the six-performance house record at the Hudson Theatre with a $1.3 million gross in its first week of previews.

Filling every seat in the venue, the revival carried an eye-popping average ticket price of $225.07, besting the $166.11 of the usual frontrunner Hamilton by a wide margin for the week ending September 24.

Merrily, the Off Broadway transfer from New York Theatre Workshop, grossed, to be exact, $1,304,508 for its first six Broadway previews, breaking the previous six-performance week record of $1.18 million set by David Byrne’s American Utopia. Merrily opens on October 10.

The success of Merrily, along with the Josh Groban-led Sweeney Todd revival, prompts Playbill to ask Are Sondheim Revivals Broadway's Newest Cash Cow?

2 comments

  • Pretty pleased to see one of my favorites doing well, especially when its original run flopped. At least according to Wikipedia, that was because of its plot and themes, which I find surprising since it’s the plot and themes that made this a favorite for me. Maybe because it can be depressing, despite (or for some, maybe partially because of) the final song?

    I’m also a sucker for how the reverse chronology interacts with reprises. Our last encounter with the song is the characters’ first time with it. We know what happens the next time this song comes up in the characters’ lives, what happened the last time we heard this song, and probably can’t help but compare what’s in store for these characters with where they are now. Most reprises I can think of at the moment don’t make you painfully aware of dramatic irony, although I’m sure there have to be some reprises outside of Merrily that do.

    Before I saw anything of this show, I thought the title song would be a version of Mary Had a Little Lamb because I’ve heard that tune done to the lyrics “merrily we roll along.” Wikipedia backs me up on those lyrics having been set to the Mary Had a Little Lamb tune before:

    The "Merrily We Roll Along" chorus has the same melody as "Mary Had A Little Lamb".

    • Pretty pleased to see one of my favorites doing well

      Merrily is my favourite Sondheim show and I'm really looking forward to seeing this production in a couple of weeks. But I have mixed feelings about the commercial success it's had, because that success has been due to the outrageously high ticket prices they are extracting. As the article states: "the revival carried an eye-popping average ticket price of $225.07, besting the $166.11 of the usual frontrunner Hamilton by a wide margin for the week "

      Let's put it this way, I saw the original run of this Maria Friedman-directed production at the Menier Chocolate Factory back in 2013, and I'm paying literally ten times as much for my ticket to this Broadway run, for a comparable seat (ie a few rows back in the Stalls/Orchestra). Granted, you have to account for a decade's worth of inflation, the inherent structural differences between mounting a show in New York versus London, and the fact that Chocolate Factory season didn't feature big name stars like Radcliffe and Groff, but even so: what makes the show special isn't the cast, but the nuance and clarify that Friedman's direction brings to it. I would have been happy to see this production with a bunch of no-namers if I could have paid a fraction of the price.

      according to Wikipedia, that was because of its plot and themes, which I find surprising since it’s the plot and themes that made this a favorite for me

      Yeah, I wouldn't put much stock in Wikipedia in this case. Personally, I think the original production flopped because Hal Price never quite got a handle on how to direct it. There's a great documentary on the original production, called Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened which is definitely worth checking out.

      I’m also a sucker for how the reverse chronology interacts with reprises. [...] make you painfully aware of dramatic irony

      Exactly. The show is built around dramatic irony (which is also why it's a show that gets better on repeat viewings). "Our Time" is heart-breaking even thought the song itself is hopeful and uplifting because the audience by this time knows what's in store for the characters.

      The "Merrily We Roll Along" chorus has the same melody as "Mary Had A Little Lamb".

      I never noticed that before!!!