The Phantom of the Opera is closing after 35 years

Courtesy: @PhantomBway Twitter

By: Austin Bryner

SUTV News

Shocking news coming out of Broadway this week as the longest-running show in Broadway history, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera is closing after 35 years.

Phantom of the Opera also known as "Phantom" debuted in January of 1988 at the Majestic Theatre, where they have had over 13,000 performances to this date. Over the years of the musical, the show has won seven Tony Awards for topics such as Best Musical. The seven awards were just a few of the many major theatre awards the musical received, including 70 major awards in total. This year will officially mark 34 years of the musical being on Broadway.

It was first originally reported by the New York Post that the long-running musical was rumored to be closing from what they heard from multiple sources. The reason for the closure was said to be money related, as the show had struggled to get back to where they originally were financially before the COVID-19 pandemic closure in 2020. After returning from the closure the show was losing nearly $1 million a month, which became the tipping point in the life of the show as they were losing more money than they were profiting.

When discussing the current cost of around $950,000 it took to produce the musical, the producer of the show, Cameron Mackintosh stated, “Everyone thinks these shows can go on forever, but you can’t run a big show at these margins anymore.”

While this iteration of the musical production may be closing, the producer said there is a chance that the show comes back with a cheaper iteration of the theatrical production.

“I’m sure ‘Phantom’ will come back at some point…after I took ‘Les Miz’ off, it came back twice,” he said.

The final performance of the long-time musical and its main characters Christine Daae and the phantom will be taking place at the theatre it started at the Majestic Theatre on Saturday, February 18, 2023, shortly after celebrating 35 years of the musical. As of now, tickets for the final performances are available up until January 22, 2023. However, it is expected that the final block of tickets for shows will be available soon according to the official website for the production.