Bette Midler in 'Hello, Dolly!' Smashes Broadway Record

Tickets for the spring musical revival produced by Scott Rudin went on sale Saturday, exceeding $9 million on the first day of availability.

If there was ever any doubt that the return of beloved Broadway star Bette Midler in a canonical American musical long overdue for revival was going to be a hit, the first day of ticket sales for Hello, Dolly! erased it.

Box office for the spring production at the Shubert Theatre opened Saturday, chalking up a record first-day haul for Broadway of $9,082,497.

"We are thrilled with the tremendous response from Hello, Dolly! ticket-buyers," Philip J. Smith and Robert E. Wankel, chairman and president of the Shubert Organization, respectively, said Monday in a statement. "The combination of this show and Bette Midler has proven irresistible to theatergoers."

Produced by Scott Rudin and directed by Jerry Zaks, Hello, Dolly! begins previews March 15 at the Shubert, with the official opening set for April 20. Midler will star alongside David Hyde Pierce, Gavin Creel, Kate Baldwin, Taylor Trensch, Will Burton, Melanie Moore and Jennifer Simard.

The show is one of three starry productions being shepherded to Broadway by Rudin this season, along with John Slattery, Nathan Lane and John Goodman in The Front Page and Sally Field in The Glass Menagerie.

Rudin and fellow lead producer Barry Diller on Monday announced that their Broadway transfer of the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of The Humans, the 2016 Tony Award winner for best play, has recouped its $3.8 million capitalization. That includes the $600,000 cost of moving from the Helen Hayes Theatre to the Gerald Schoenfeld after the original house became unavailable.

The Stephen Karam drama about the anxieties and affections of a middle-class family in post-9/11 America, which also won Tonys for featured actors Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell, as well as for set design, had its biggest box-office week ever last week, earning $670,967. The production has grossed $13.6 million to date, which is remarkable for a play without a marquee-name cast or a pre-established title.