‘Bad Cinderella’ to Shut on Broadway, Ending Lloyd Webber’s Streak
“Bad Cinderella,” a revisionist riff on the basic fairy story, will shut on June 4, bringing to an finish, a minimum of in the intervening time, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 43-year-long streak of reveals on Broadway.
The newest musical, which opened March 23, was not the top of that profession — it was greeted on Broadway by hostile reviews, garnered zero Tony nominations and struggled on the field workplace. Last week it performed to homes that have been solely 54 % full and grossed simply $326,303, which made it the lowest-grossing musical on Broadway.
It had fared barely higher in London, and never simply because “dangerous” was not a part of the title there — critics had regarded on it extra favorably when it opened within the West End after a number of pandemic-related delays, but it surely had solely a modest run and a closing clouded by the way in which the cast was informed and some of the words Lloyd Webber used to explain the flip of occasions.
The musical is, like most Cinderella tales, a couple of shabbily handled younger girl whose fortunes change when she meets a prince. The twists, on this manufacturing, are that the protagonist is rebellious, Prince Charming is homosexual, and wonder requirements are oppressive.
In addition to music by Lloyd Webber, who’s greatest generally known as the wildly profitable composer of hit musicals like “Cats,” “Evita” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” the musical contains a e-book created by Emerald Fennell (the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Promising Young Woman”) after which tailored by the playwright Alexis Scheer (“Our Dear Dead Drug Lord”), and lyrics by David Zippel (who gained a Tony years in the past for writing the lyrics for “City of Angels”). “Bad Cinderella” is directed by Laurence Connor, who beforehand loved extra success directing Lloyd Webber’s 2015 musical, “School of Rock.”
“Bad Cinderella” was capitalized for as much as $19 million, in keeping with a submitting with the Securities and Exchange Commission; that cash has not been recouped. The musical’s lead producer is Christine Schwarzman, a lawyer; collectively she and her husband, the Blackstone billionaire Stephen A. Schwarzman, are main gamers in New York monetary and philanthropic circles. Christine Schwarzman has turn out to be more and more energetic as a producer on Broadway by her manufacturing firm, No Guarantees; she can be a lead producer of “Fat Ham,” which gained the Pulitzer Prize in drama and is nominated for the very best play Tony Award.
At the time of its closing, “Bad Cinderella” could have performed 33 preview performances and 85 common performances.