One place it's on record is in the Times article from June 18, 1972, the day after it became the longest-running show in Broadway history. It was noted that the weekly nut was 51K, and the show had been taking in 40K in recent weeks.
This is hardly unusual. Lots of shows have money-losing weeks and keep going. I'm pretty sure that Merrick kept Hello, Dolly! going through money-losing weeks in order to pass My Fair Lady, at minimum during Phyllis Diller's run in the lead. Even with Merman, I suspect there were money-losing weeks. I was at the record-breaking performance, a Wednesday matinee. I was very surprised to see LOTS of empty seats. |
