Phantom of the Opera saddened New Yorkers with the news of its final show on the Broadway stage originally set for February 18th, 2023. However, they just announced an extension date on their Instagram, granting people a few extra months to catch before it closes.
Making history as the longest running show to ever grace the Broadway stage, New Yorkers will now have until April 16, 2023 to see it.
Based on Gaston Leroux’s 1910 horror novel, Le Fantôme de L’Opéra, the thrilling romance first debuted on stage in 1988. Set in Paris, the storyline follows a lovesick Phantom (currently played by Ben Crawford) who grows fond of a young soprano (Emilie Kouatchou as Christine) in the Paris Opera, where he haunts the stage.
Overtime it has won seven Tony Awards® including Best Musical, and features one of the most recognized scores in history, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s. January 2022 will mark its 35th anniversary in NYC.
The end of such a monumental production comes as a result of Broadway audiences never quite returning to their pre-pandemic numbers, and “Phantom’ has not been selling enough tickets to cover the weekly costs of production, reports the New York Times.
Tickets for the extended shows will be available for purchase starting Wednesday, November 30th at 10 am ET. However, tickets to the final performance have yet to go on sale.
According to Broadway World, Phantom of the Opera “has played to over 145 million people in 41 countries and 183 cities in 17 languages for more than 70,000 performances,” in addition to generating the largest sum of income and jobs in Broadway history.
Though the production will cease shows in NYC, fans can still catch the love story in places like London, Sydney, and China for its first-ever production in Mandarin set to open by 2023.