Gettin’ the Band Back Together sets Broadway closing

Picture: Joan Marcus

The new 2018/19 Broadway season is already claiming its first casualty. Gettin’ the Band Back Together, which officially opened on 13 August after 30 previews, has posted a 16 September closing notice.

The show, whose book was developed in improvisational sessions with actors and writers, deals in comic fashion with a group of middle-aged men who get back together to restart their high school rock band. The aim is to save some of their homes in danger of being foreclosed and of course to reignite the glory dreams of their youth.

Without marquee names in the cast or a brand-name title and with a failure to please some important reviewers, particularly the New York Times, the production has been struggling at the box office. With its final chord, it will have played 40 regular performances.

Gettin’ the Band Back Together will not be alone in its closing on 16 September. Two holdover musicals from the 2017/18 season earlier announced they’ll be saying goodbye on that same date: Carousel and SpongeBob SquarePants.

The highly regarded Jack O’Brien-directed revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic Carousel opened on 12 April after previews that started 28 February. With its last go-round, it will count 47 previews and 181 regular performances.

SpongeBob will have soaked up 29 previews and 327 regular performances at its final finale. The show, developed over years by director Tina Landau around a favourite animated kiddie character on television and in movies, started previewing on 6 November 2017 for an official opening on 4 December. One reason cited for the closing is a planned renovation of the venerable Palace Theatre, where it’s playing. A national tour is planned for next year.

An earlier casualty of the 2017/18 season was the Jimmy Buffet jukebox musical Escape to Margaritaville which took its last gulp on 1 July, claiming 29 previews and 124 regular performances. It began previews on 16 February for a 15 March opening. Despite the legions of Buffet fans, the show failed to ignite ticket sales. As with SpongeBob, a tour will start next fall, bringing Margaritaville perhaps closer to the habitats of Buffet enthusiasts.

Finally, an emphatic Broadway hit that has recently posted a closing date, but one still months away, is School of Rock. This Andrew Lloyd Webber offering said it will sound its final blast on 20 January 2019. The show opened in 2015, with previews starting on 9 November for an official opening on 6 December of that year. At its final bow, it will count 31 previews and 1,307 regular performances. The show continues to tour in the US, and as I’m sure you all know, its London production continues to rock and in October, as recently noted in Musical Theatre Review, Australia will have its own School of Rock to attend starting in October.

Ron Cohen

Readers may also be interested in:

Gettin’ the Band Back Together – Belasco Theatre, New York – Review