The coronavirus pandemic brought down another Broadway show: “Mean Girls”.
The musical’s producers, led by Lorne Michaels of “Saturday Night Live”, announced on Thursday that they would not seek to reopen in New York as soon as the pandemic subsided. However, the producers plan to restart the show’s national tour.
The show is the fourth closing of Broadway due to the pandemic: Disney announced last spring that it would not reopen “Frozen” and the producers of two pieces that were previewed, “Hangmen” by Martin McDonagh and a revival of “Who’s Com” afraid of Virginia Woolf? ”, decided not to wait for the closure.
The closure of “Mean Girls” was driven by the costs of keeping production intact while the cinemas are dark. Broadway has been closed since last March and it seems likely that most shows will not return until the fall or later.
The musical, adapted from a 2004 film, features a book by Tina Fey; music by Jeff Richmond, who is married to Fey; lyrics by Nell Benjamin; and directed by Casey Nicholaw.
It opened in 2018 and was a success, recovering its capitalization costs of $ 17 million and raising $ 124 million in 834 presentations, according to the production. But he won none of the 12 Tony Awards for which he was nominated, and his weekly box office declined over time.
The national “Mean Girls” tour began in Buffalo in 2019, and a production in London, which was underway before the pandemic, is still planned, according to Michaels. Paramount Pictures announced last January that it would make a film version of the stage musical, produced by Michaels and Fey.