Broadway’s Cats revival posts record weekly gross before closing
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Cats: The Jellicle Ball posted its best-ever weekly box office takings on Broadway, with new figures showing it grossed $1,405,709 for the week ending 2 August, up $216,278 on the previous week, as audiences rush to see the show before its early closing on 8 August. Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber brought the closing forward last month, citing high production costs and difficult financial conditions, cutting short a planned extension to January 2027.
The new data also situates the show within a fuller Broadway picture: the week's 29 productions grossed $33,889,856 in total, down about 3% on the previous week but up 13% year-on-year, with Hamilton topping the list at $2,363,268. Several other shows also sold out, including Death of a Salesman ($2,222,450), Hadestown ($939,448) and The Lion King ($2,160,847), while Every Brilliant Thing, starring Tracee Ellis Ross and closing 9 August, took $657,451 at 99% capacity. Ragtime broke its own house record for the third time at Lincoln Center, and ten weeks into the 2026-27 season Broadway's cumulative gross stands at $351,725,557, down about 5% on the same point last year.
- Cats: The Jellicle Ball posts its best-ever weekly Broadway gross before closing.
- Show closes 8 August, cut short by Lloyd Webber over rising costs.
- Broadway's weekly total takings hit $33.9m, up 13% year-on-year.
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Cats: The Jellicle Ball is a stage reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats, staged as an immersive dance event on Broadway in New York. It had been due to run into January 2027, but Lloyd Webber, who wrote the original show's music, brought the closing date forward to 8 August, citing rising production costs and tough financial conditions for live theatre.
Broadway box office figures are published weekly and closely watched as a barometer of how commercial theatre is faring, tracking ticket revenue and how full venues are across the roughly 29 shows running at any time. Individual show and citywide totals are usually compared with the previous week and the same period a year earlier to gauge whether audiences are growing or shrinking.
It is common for a production to see a surge in ticket sales once a closing date is announced, as theatregoers rush to see a show before it disappears. This pattern, sometimes called a "closing bump," matters because it can distort short-term figures and does not necessarily reflect a show's popularity over its full run.
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Originally published by Deadline as “‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’ Scores Best Week Ever As Closing Date Nears – Broadway Box Office”.