‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ wants to make it right

MY column last week about the nonmusical plays struggling at the box office prompted all sorts of emails and calls from producers. Nobody likes to come out of the gate a dud.

“Our numbers are growing — word of mouth is great!” one producer said.

“We’ll be just fine once our advertising kicks in,” another said.

“Our advance is bigger than ‘Hamilton’s,’ ” an investor told me. I think he was kidding. The cast of “The Play That Goes Wrong,” a British comedy that begins previews next month at the Lyceum, wrote an e-mail. Here’s what they say:

“Thank you for your extremely diligent reporting. Until we read your column this morning, we had absolutely no idea the box office had even opened. So we phoned up the Lyceum to see what we had sold and we discovered that information in your column was inaccurate.

“We have NOT sold $180,000 in tickets. We have sold $1,800. Sure, the ticket-holders are our mums — but if they can convince our dads to buy tickets as well, we know we can double our advance by next week.”

The cast acknowledged that “The Glass Menagerie,” starring Sally

Field, is leaps and bounds ahead of them at the box office, with its advance of nearly $3 million.

But they added: “We are not panicking. After reading about our follies in your column, Sally Field contacted us and offered to let us stay on her couch so we can save money. She likes us. She really likes us.”

If you’ve never heard of “The Play That Goes Wrong,” it’s a farce about an amateur college production that goes disastrously awry.

It tips its hat to the greatest backstage farce of all time, Michael

Frayn’s “Noises Off.” Written and performed by Henry

Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, “The Play That Goes Wrong” started at a little pub theater in London and then transferred to the West End, where it won the 2015 Olivier Award for best new comedy.

It’s being produced on Broadway by J.J. Abrams.

I love a farce, so I wish “The Play That Goes Wrong” well.

And, given the influence of my column, this plug is going to send that advance of $1,800 soaring to $1,850, maybe $1,875, by the end of the day.