‘Mean Girls’ won’t return to Broadway



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The coronavirus pandemic caused another Broadway show to fail: “Mean Girls.”

Producers of the musical, directed by Lorne Michaels of “Saturday Night Live,” said Thursday that they would not seek to reopen in New York once the pandemic has abated. However, the producers plan to resume the show’s nationwide tour.

The show is the fourth Broadway shutdown caused by the pandemic: Disney announced last spring that it would not be reopening “Frozen,” and the producers of two premieres, Martin McDonagh’s “Hangmen” and a cover of “Who’s” by Edward Albee Fear of Virginia Woolf? », Decided not to wait for closing at all.

The shutdown of “Mean Girls” was driven by the costs of sustaining production while theaters are dark. Broadway has been closed since last March, and it seems likely that most shows won’t return until the fall or later.

The musical, adapted from a 2004 film, features a book by Tina Fey; the music of Jeff Richmond, married to Fey; words of Nell Benjamin; and directed by Casey Nicholaw.

It opened in 2018 and was a hit, recouping its capitalization costs of $ 17 million and grossing $ 124 million from 834 performances, according to the production. But it didn’t win any of the 12 Tony Awards it was nominated for, and its weekly box office had mellowed over time.

The “Mean Girls” nationwide tour kicked off in Buffalo in 2019, and a London production, which was in the works before the pandemic, is still on the schedule, Michaels said. Paramount Pictures announced in January that it would make a film version of the musical, produced by Michaels and Fey.

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