Broadway Features and Reviews
Closing Time: Some Big Curtains Coming Down
By Christopher Moore, Broadway Magazine
Despite all of the excitement of the current season just getting started and some new shows being announced (Waiting For Godot with Nathan Lane), it is already apparent that this season will also be remembered for the shows that have closed or were cancelled before arriving on Broadway. Of course, the Broadway titan RENT left in September. Most recently, To Be Or Not To Be announced that it will close its doors in November. The dark comedy was up against a sea of tough reviews, and so news of the show's closing was not entirely unexpected. However, with Legally Blonde, Xanadu, [title of show] closing this month, and the announcement that Hairspray and Spamalot will both be closing in January, it seems that October is not only an austere month for the financial industry, but also a rough month to be a Broadway show.
Actually, according to an article in the UK's Independent, it is just a rough month to be a show period. The paper has outlined a laundry list of shows that have posted sudden and early closing notices this past weekend. Among the high-profile productions was Philip Seymour Hoffman's West End directorial debut Riflemind, the highly anticipated Girl with A Pearl Earing, and Broadway classic Avenue Q. Other shows listed as "casualties" are less Broadway-destined. They include Eurobeat, a spoof musical, and Never Forget about the boy band Take That (did you forget about them?), and Joan Rivers' London run.
If you include the shows that didn't make their scheduled runs on Broadway, it truly can be a bit grim. Godspell, Brigadoon, Angels, just to name a few of the "almost weres." Still, the shows do go on, and there is a silver lining. We just had an invite to attend an upcoming event for backers for Angels, Rivers will be performing in New York starting on election night, and you have a few months left to enjoy Clay Aiken in Spamalot and Hairspray too.
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