Broadway box office: 'Motown' musical joins Million Dollar Club

Motown Dixon Lekae — Photo: Andrew Eccles

The producers of Motown: The Musical must be dancing in the street. In its first week of previews, the Broadway show about Berry Gordy’s legendary R&B label grossed $1.03 million over just seven performances, according to figures from the Broadway League. Motown (featuring Brandon Victor Dixon and Valisia LeKae, pictured above, as Gordy and Diana Ross) seems primed to become a regular member of the Million Dollar Club of weekly high earners, especially since it begins a standard eight-performance schedule this week. Of course, critics will also weigh in when the show officially opens April 14. In the words of the Temptations, get ready.

Two other new shows cracked the $1 million mark for the week ending March 17. Lucky Guy, the soon-to-open drama penned by the late Nora Ephron, starring Tom Hanks, played to standing-room-only houses and grossed an impressive $1.29 million, representing 115 percent of its potential gross in the Broadhurst Theatre thanks to premium ticket sales. Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella took in $1.1 million, a strong 68 percent of its potential earnings in the larger Broadway Theatre.

This week’s other top performers were old standbys Wicked ($1.95 million), The Lion King ($1.78 million), The Book of Mormon ($1.67 million), Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark (1.26 million), and The Phantom of the Opera ($1.07 million).

And in its first full week since its March 7 opening, Holland Taylor’s tour de force Ann politicked its way to $376,134 — about 35 percent of its potential gross. Granted, this is a one-woman show (relatively cheap to produce) and the nonprofit Lincoln Center Theater doesn’t live or die on box office performance. But Taylor may have to stump for bigger audiences (and Tony nominations) to win an extension into the summer. (Tickets are currently available through June 9.)

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