A boundary-breaking Broadway revival of “Gypsy” starring Audra McDonald will end its run on Aug. 17, much earlier than its producers had hoped.
The run was originally open-ended, meaning that no closing date had been set, and tickets were on sale through Oct. 5. But on Wednesday night, the production announced the new closing date; at the time of its final performance, it will have played 28 preview and 269 regular performances at the Majestic Theater.
The show is the sixth musical to announce a closing date since last month’s Tony Awards (following “Boop!” “Cabaret,” “Dead Outlaw,” “Real Women Have Curves” and “Smash”), reflecting Broadway’s difficult financial dynamics (nonmusical plays have been faring much better). “Gypsy” was nominated for five Tony Awards, including as best musical revival and for McDonald’s performance, but won none.
The revival, directed by George C. Wolfe, was highly anticipated because McDonald, with six Tony Awards, is Broadway’s most-honored contemporary performer, and she is the first Black actress to play on Broadway the lead role of Rose, the ur-stage mother whose daughter becomes a stripper. The musical, with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, was inspired by the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee; it first opened in 1959 and is generally considered one of Broadway’s best golden age musicals.
When the revival opened in December, it received overwhelmingly positive reviews. In The New York Times, chief theater critic Jesse Green named the show a critic’s pick and wrote of McDonald, “Doing a psychological striptease, showing more of the character’s rage than her predecessors, she is stupendously affecting.”
At the box office, the show seemed to be selling well for much of its run, grossing well over $1 million most weeks in its early months, and peaking at $1.9 million during a week in mid-January.
But the show is costly to run, thanks to a large orchestra and sizable cast that includes children, who can be costly to employ because they require supervisors who need to be hired by the production.
“Gypsy” also lost a substantial amount of potential revenue over the normally lucrative Christmas holidays when illnesses forced the cancellation of seven performances. Its weekly grosses have been heading in a troubling direction — last week the show sold only 61 percent of its seats and grossed $816,086.
And musicals have been fetching much lower ticket prices than starry plays. For example, during the week that ended June 1, when all three shows were running, the average ticket price at an “Othello” revival starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal was $425, and at “Good Night, and Good Luck,” starring George Clooney, it was $339. The average ticket price for “Gypsy” was $114.
Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for The Times.
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