Posted on: July 4, 2024, 12:57h.
Last updated on: July 4, 2024, 01:15h.
“Jersey Boys,” the Tony-winning musical chronicling the 1960s rise of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, is abruptly closing at the Orleans in Las Vegas, where not that many people were apparently aware it had been playing since January. Its final curtain call will be Sunday, July 7.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, producer John Bentham notified the company on Wednesday night of the closure, blaming it on “circumstances beyond our control.”
When a show closes in Vegas, the only circumstance beyond its control that’s ever responsible is low ticket sales. And indeed, on June 29, Vegas411 publisher Sam Novak posted a screenshot on Facebook of the following night’s seating availability for the show that revealed that 90% of the seats were still unsold.
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“Jersey Boys” was a huge hit on Broadway from 2005 to 2017, winning four Tony Awards, including Best Musical in 2006. It was repurposed (shortened and punched up) for its Vegas debut at The Palazzo on May 3, 2008, playing to mostly packed houses at the newly built Jersey Boys Theatre until it closed on Jan. 1, 2012.
The Vegas production scaled down from 1,600 seats to 1,100 when it reopened at Le Theatre des Arts at Paris Las Vegas on March 5. The four years it spent there made it the longest-running show at that casino resort.
The production shrank even further to open in January at the Orleans Showroom, which only seats 850. “Jersey Boys” was the first resident production in that casino hotel’s 28-year history,
According to the R-J, the closure announcement came two days after the show’s consulting company and co-producer, Red Mercury, pulled out of the production after investing $600,000-$700,000 into it.
As recently as Monday, Bentham reported that cast and crew of “Jersey Boys” were signed on for six more months.
