Robert Downey Jr.'s 'McNeal' Sells Out First Four Broadway Previews

T he new Broadway play McNeal, starring Robert Downey Jr., had a spectacular opening with taking in $746,230 from just its first four performances last week. The production presented at the Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater was sold out for every show, and it had an average ticket price of $170.37. This promising opening may have hinted the fact that if McNeal had played the standard eight shows, it could have yielded almost $1.5 million, positioning it among the top-grossing plays. The play, Ayad Akhtar's words and Bartlett Sher's direction, is Downey's Broadway début. It revolves around a skilled writer who, despite his aptness, fails to win the Pulitzer Prize, but becomes highly interested in artificial intelligence. McNeal started previews on September 5 and is set to open on September 30.

In other Broadway news, Cole Escola’s comedy Oh Mary! continued its successful run at the Lyceum Theatre, setting a box office record for the fifth time with $1.1 million in earnings and reaching 100 percent capacity.

Broadway shows overall experienced a dip in grosses as the industry moved past the Labor Day holiday and into the promotional Broadway Week period, which runs from September 3 to September 15. Total grosses for the industry dropped by 9.5 percent compared to the previous week, although attendance only fell by 1.4 percent.

Cabaret was an exception to this trend, with grosses for the revived musical increasing by $50,000 week-over-week. The production earned $1.5 million, making it the third highest-grossing show of the week. Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin, who have been playing the lead roles, will step down after September 14, with Adam Lambert and Auli’i Cravalho set to take over.