Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “Bad Cinderella” ends on Broadway about four months after opening night. The producers have announced that he will play his last show at the Imperial Theater on June 4.
It was difficult for “Bad Cinderella,” which suffered from poor reviews and lackluster ticket sales. He was also snubbed at the Tonys, not receiving a single nomination. By the time the curtain falls for good, “Bad Cinderella” will have played 33 preview performances and 85 regular performances.
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It’s the latest in a long line of recent Broadway closings, including Webber’s classic “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Beetlejuice,” “KPOP” and “Ain’t No Mo.” The closure of “Bad Cinderella” and “Phantom,” which was the longest-running show in history before ending in April, breaks Webber’s 43-year streak of Broadway shows. He has scored 13 productions during four decades, starting with “Evita” in 1979 and continuing with “Jesus Christ Superstar”, “Cats”, “Starlight Express”, “Sunset Boulevard” and most recently “School of Rock”.
A feminist retelling, of sorts, of the classic fairy tale, “Bad Cinderella” opened in London’s West End in the summer of 2021 after several pandemic-related shutdowns and restarts. The show, about an outcast who finally realizes looks aren’t everything and develops a new take on the concept of “happily ever after”, wrapped the following June before moving to Broadway in March. Emerald Fennell, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Promising Young Woman,” wrote the original story and book, which were adapted by Alexis Scheer. Webber wrote the music and David Zippel wrote the lyrics.
Critics weren’t kind to “Bad Cinderella,” with VarietyNaveen Kumar says the series lives up to its name…literally. In his review, he called the musical “a confusing, momentum-less retooling of the familiar fairy tale in search of a cohesive point of view as if it were a glass-shod foot”.
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