Corey Cott and Laura Osnes in Bandstand at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, New York. Picture: Jeremy Daniel
The ranks of the past season’s new Broadway musicals are thinning considerably, with closing dates recently announced by four of them: Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, Bandstand, Groundhog Day and On Your Feet.
Bandstand, which began previews on 31 March and had its official opening on 26 April, will wrap up on 17 September. The show dealt with the downs and ups of a group of Second World War veterans who form a jazz band.
It won a Tony Award for the vivid choreography of Andy Blankenbuehler, who also directed, but apparently lacked the marquee magnetism to pull in sufficient audience. At its closing, the run will have counted 166 regular performances.
Groundhog Day has also set 17 September as its final performance. The show, which won an Olivier Best Musical Award in London, didn’t fare as well in the Broadway award competitions. While nominated for seven Tony Awards, it had zero wins.
Its star, Andy Karl, however, won universal kudos for gamely continuing to perform after tearing a knee ligament in a preview performance. The show also had a recent burst of publicity when Bill Murray, who
starred in the movie that the show is based on, turned up in the audience two nights in a row, lavishing praise on the company. Apparently, however, the PR wasn’t seen as lifting the box office to sustainable heights.
Andy Karl in Groundhog Day. Picture: Manuel Harlan
With its final curtain, Groundhog Day, whose official opening was 17 April, will claim 32 previews and 176 regular performances. The closing announcement was also accompanied by talk of plans for a national tour in the US next year and a new London production.
The closing of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, scheduled for 3 September, is a somewhat more abrupt and contentious affair, coming after a well-publicised brouhaha over diversity casting.
The show has also until just recently been pulling in more than respectable box office returns. It also had the distinction of being the season’s most Tony-nominated show, gaining 12 nods in all, although it achieved only two wins, for lighting and set.
The casting controversy stems from the scheduled departure in early July of its marquee-magnet star Josh Groban, who played the titular Pierre. He was succeeded by the African-American actor Okieriete Onaodowan, who had appeared in Hamilton.
However, looking to boost ticket sales during the usually sluggish August, the producers announced that Broadway luminary Mandy Patinkin would be taking over the role of Pierre from 15 August to 3 September.
The announcement ignited a barrage of criticism on social media and elsewhere over the deployment of a black actor for the hiring of a white actor, even though the show has a notably diverse cast, including its female lead, the Tony-nominated Denée Benton. The uproar was followed by Patinkin’s withdrawing from the show.
Onaodowan has also departed as of 13 August, as did another recognisable replacement cast member, singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson.
With a standby, Scott Stangland, playing Pierre through the first of the three final weeks, the show’s composer and creator Dave Malloy will assume the role for the last two weeks.
Denée Benton and Brittain Ashford in Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. Picture: Chad Batka
Malloy embodied Pierre when Comet first saw the light of day in an Off-Off-Broadway venue in 2012. That initial run was followed by a long stretch of Off-Broadway performances, culminating in its Broadway stand, which started previews on 18 October for an official opening on 14 November. With its closing, the Broadway production will count 32 previews and 336 regular performances.
Another closing – coming this month – is a holdover from the 2015/16 season: On Your Feet, the undulating romp telling the story of Cuban-American singer-songwriter Gloria Estefan and her husband Emilio, closes Sunday (20 August).
It opened 5 November, 2015, after 34 previews. It will have played some 746 performances and next month embarks on a national tour. The Broadway shuttering was announced in May.
These four closings follow the earlier departure of Amélie, A New Musical, another of last season’s new musicals coming in with open-end runs. Amélie, adapted from the frothy French film of the same name, closed 21 May after failing to win a single Tony nomination. Other casualties of the season included Paramour, the Cirque de Soleil spectacle, which closed 16 April, and In Transit, which cut short its struggling ticket sales on 16 April.
Meanwhile, two formidable farewells from performers have been sounded on Broadway, coming from a pair of this year’s Tony winners. One of them in Bette Midler, the other is Ben Platt.
It was announced at the start of August that Midler would play her last performance as Dolly Gallagher Levi in the box office bonanza revival of Jerry Herman’s classic Hello, Dolly! on 14 January. There’s been no word as to a replacement. Donna Murphy has been a Tuesday evening alternate in the role and also takes it over during other selected performances.
Platt will be leaving his lead role in the Tony-crowned Best Musical of the season, Dear Evan Hansen, on 19 November. The Tony for his tear-inducing turn as a teen outsider was one of the six in total taken by show. A replacement for Platt, who originated the show in its premiere engagement in Washington, D.C. in 2015, is still to be announced.
Ron Cohen
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