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Artist News
Sting’s Broadway musical to close after failing to cover costs
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 7 January 2015
Try as he might, Sting just can’t make New York interested in the Newcastle shipbuilding industry of the 1980s. Not even with singing and dancing. Poor Sting. Poor Newcastle. Poor ships.
The former Policeman’s musical ‘The Last Ship’ opened on Broadway in October to good reviews, but has subsequently failed to pull in a sizeable enough audience to cover its $625,000 per week running and $15 million set up costs, reports The New York Times. This despite Sting himself joining the cast in November, replacing Jimmy Nail. Poor Jimmy.
In an email to staff and other supporters obtained by the NYT producers Jeffrey Seller and Kathryn Schenker said this week: “We have been bewildered and saddened by our inability to sustain an audience for this musical that we deeply love. There are no easy explanations. [We are] heartened that we have been able to share this work with 140,000 theatergoers since our start last summer in Chicago and that Sting’s herculean participation on stage since 9 Dec has lengthened our run, filled the theater with enthusiastic audiences and helped to burnish ‘The Last Ship’ in the canon of beautiful, original new musicals. Our ability to persevere has helped ensure a viable future for the show in licensing”.
‘The Last Ship’ will close on 24 Jan. The producers are now hoping to secure licensing deals to help cover some of the losses.
