Broadway is struggling right now. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
A day after “Waitress” announced it would shutter this, Carole King’s “Beautiful” has annoucned an end date of October 27th.
The two shows join a slew of others that have closed or will end between now and the end of the year.
Ticket prices are so high, and non-Disney or movie tie in shows like “Beautiful” are suffering because of it.
Last Saturday night, a blackout on the west side at 7pm made all the shows skip their biggest night of the week. The worst hit was “Book of Mormon,” which posted a big loss on Monday. For the first time that anyone can recall, “Book of Mormon” took in less than $900,000 last week.
“Beautiful” has been teetering for some time. They actually played 8 shows last week, and still took in only 50% of their potential.
Nine other shows are set to close before the end of the year– either planned limited runs or wrap ups of shows that couldn’t make it.
One word on “Beautiful”– go see it if you haven’t already. It’s very, very good. The music is classic, and the book by Doug McGrath was one of the best of recent years.
