The highly-profitable Broadway show, Phantom of the Opera, in the Majestic Theatre has been a great draw for tourists to New York, pulling in full houses for the last 13 years.

On Monday, however, after thousands of tourists had fled and as New Yorkers still huddled round their televisions for news of the calamity which had hit their city, there were only about 380 people in the 1,636-seat auditorium.

Only 555 tickets were sold for the matinee on Tuesday.

As the smoke clears from the ruins of the World Trade Centre, theatre-goers may slowly come back, but for now many Broadway lights are dimming and some are going out.

Since the attack, five New York shows have decided to close with a week's notice, including Marie Jones's Stones in his Pockets, which has been running for five months at the John Golden Theatre.

The others are The Rocky Horror Show, If You Ever Leave Me, I.

The biggest money spinners like Les Miserables at the Imperial, Rent at the Nederlander, and the Music Man at the Neil Simon Theatre all took loses of more than $100,000 (€109,361) during the last week.

"This is probably the bleakest moment in Broadway history, and we all have to get through it; Manhattan needs people to come back to Broadway to say yes, we're behind you," Cameron Mackintosh, producer of Phantom of the Opera, told the New York Times.

Only the wildly popular Producers is still drawing full houses. Some theatre-goers who made bookings for the hit Mel Brooks musical as long as six months ago did not turn up for performances but their seats were filled by people queuing outside. Sales of tickets for Mama Mia which opens on October 16th are also steady.

Most of the big losses were suffered in the immediate aftermath of the attack, when for two nights Broadway closed down.

Theatre people are hoping that the need to escape from the horrors of last week will drive play-lovers back, and that people will heed Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's advice to New Yorkers trying to recover their equilibrium: "Go see a show".