"The event was Bette, not the show itself, no matter how well it has been produced, as can be evidenced by the contrast between the highly priced, sold-out performances she starred in and the TDF-friendly performances that featured Donna Murphy."
I think it'll be hard to compare Donna box office to Bernadette box office because of the Bette factor. With Donna in the show, Bette is still performing 7x a week, which means some ticket buyers may have the "don't buy for a Donna performance--I can go on a Bette night" way of thinking. With Bernadette, there is no "I'd rather see..." distraction. People going to see the show Jan 20 or later will be going specifically to see either the hit revival or the new stars.
A similar thing happened with Shuffle Along--people ONLY wanted to buy tkts to an Audra performance. Once that Audra cutoff date was listed, ticket sales for after that date basically halted. |
