Cry-Baby/ WireImage
With the "good" always comes the "bad". Tonys = good. Shows closing after the Tonys = bad. We had talked a bit about this last week - the likely hood that shows would close after the Tony Awards - and now it has happened. News comes this weeks that two B'way shows will shutter in the coming days and weeks; Cry-Baby and A Catered Affair.
End of the Affair
A Catered Affair, with music by John Bucchino and a book by Harvey Fierstein, will perform their last vows on July 27th. The show will have marched down the aisle for 27 previews and 116 regular performances, by the time it closes. The star and producer were waxing nostalgic and offer great praise for this little show that made it BIG.
Author and star Fierstein said, "Our team set out to create a new form of musical storytelling. What we achieved was raw, honest, emotionally daring theater. I couldn't be prouder of A Catered Affair. And, from all indications, the show will have a long and prosperous life in every sort of venue around the globe. That ain't chopped liver!"
Mr. Fierstein was slightly less kind when speaking to the NY Post. Check out these quotes from the Post from Harvey...
"We set out to do something different, and we did it," Fierstein said. "We wrote a show that is for the real theater audience, not for the audience that watches 'You're the One That I Want' - not that there's anything wrong with that! But we're not a summer show for the tourists. After July, we go off the cliff."
Things might have been different, he adds, "had we gotten one of those f - - - ing breaks. Like a Tony. Or a critic who had a social life and an emotional life. That would have helped.
"But instead we have those critics who have never had a boyfriend. Or a date since 1912. They don't know what love is. They go to the theater every night. How do they get laid?"
Yikes! Yikes! Yikes! I wonder who he is talking about. Hmmmmmm. It is not hard to quess.
I have to say that this one is a bit of a surprise to me. I hadn't thought it would go so quickly. The ticket sales have been strong (despite being shut out of a Best Musical Tony nomination). I thought that with a low overhead and a healthy stream of audience trickling in over the summer - that this chamber musical might survive until Fall. But, alas, that is not the case; so we say goodbye to A Catered Affair.
No More Cryin'
The other, less shocking, Tony casualty is Cry-Baby. The John Waters' musical will have its final performance on June 22nd - having wept for 45 previews and 68 regular performances.
Until mid week I think that most on "the Broadway" held out hope that the Tony nomination and the feature on the CBS telecast might boost ticket sales for Cry-Baby and turn it into a hit. However, it became clear this week that this was not going to happen and the producers decided to pull the plug.
I know people in the show and I am sad to see it close, I think it just never found its "legs" in the B'way market. It all sounded like a good idea (another Hairspray, perhaps) but audiences never seemed to respond in the way that producers had hoped - who knows.
I will take a moment to congratulate all the folks involved in both shows (creating a Broadway show is a HUGE undertaking and even playing for a week is an amazing accomplishment). I am sure everyone is headed to new and exciting things.
~ See You On The Aisle
Reader Comments
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Pardon me for being uninformed but what's with the daily ad for the adult website.? Maybe I'm naive but I don't get it. Is this the proper forum for these posts? Perhaps you could explain or at least comment in your column.
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