Citing financial difficulties, the revival of the Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Cats” that turned the show into a ball – “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” has announced a closing date for the show. With less than one month remaining to see the show with the final performance on August 8.
Producers Michael Harrison and Mike Bosner issued a statement on the show saying, “three years ago, Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch began the remarkable process of reimagining ‘Cats’for a new generation. They assembled a visionary creative team that fused their passions for Ballroom and theatre to create something thrillingly new. With a truly superhuman cast bringing this vision to life, New York has once again discovered the phenomenon that has become Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’. The joy that radiates from the stage each night is unlike anything we’ve experienced in our careers. It has been a true honor to help bring Ballroom to Broadway.”
After debuting on Off-Broadway last year, the show moved to Broadway in March with an official opening on April 7.
While “Ragtime” won out for Best Revival of a Musical at the most recent Tony Awards, “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” earned three Tony’s of their own for Best Choreography, Costume Design, and Direction.
Debuting in 1982, the original “Cats” by Andrew Lloyd Webber won seven Tony Awards and ran until 2000. It’s first revival ran from 2016 to 2017. The current show is the second revival of the musical.
After the announcement of the show’s closing, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber sounded the alarm on financial issues on The Great White Way.
Calling it “symptom of a problem he’s seen coming for some time now”, Webber issued a statement on social media saying, “the truth is that, for any show, it makes practically no financial sense to come to Broadway with things as they are. Creators, writers, and directors have been forced to take minimal royalties from new shows, often surviving on a fixed weekly fee rather than a royalty. It makes it impossible for young creatives to make a living from theatre alone.”
He added, “as someone who is still as in love with Broadway as I was when I was a teenager, I beg the theatre owners, unions, and producers to come together urgently to address what is a crisis coming to a head. Broadway is in dire danger of rivaling Hollywood’s empty soundstages with increasingly dark theatres.”
Case in point, musicals that opened this year “Beaches”, “The Queen of Versailles”, and “Ches” have all closed.
While still running; “Schmigadoon!”, “The Lost Boys”, “Titaníque”, “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)”, “Ragtime”, and “The Rocky Horror Show” none of them have broken out as monster hit shows.