Waitress: The Musical abruptly axes rest of Australian tour
“I better look for a job”: Another major show with an all-star Aussie cast has just been abruptly axed, leaving the industry reeling.
Yet another major musical has been abruptly axed midway through its Australian run, in another grim sign for the Australian theatre industry.
The Australian stage production of the musical Waitress will no longer continue its national tour, with the show now ending in Melbourne in the coming weeks and abandoning a planned stint in Sydney.
The news comes only a week after another major US musical, Beetlejuice, also abruptly axed the remainder of its dates.
“Regrettably, the Sydney season of WAITRESS will not proceed,” a brief statement on the show’s website reads.
“We understand that this is disappointing news and we sincerely thank you for your understanding and ongoing support.”
The website now states the show “MUST CLOSE” at Melbourne’s Her Majesty’s Theatre on July 19,
Based on a 2007 movie of the same name and with music by singer Sara Bareilles, Waitress came with an all-star cast, including leads Natalie Bassingthwaighte and Rob Mills.
Mills shared a news article reporting the cancellation on his Instagram stories overnight.
“Oh s**t. You better come see it and I better look for a job!” he wrote.
The show’s producer John Frost told the SMH that the decision to axe the rest of the run was “not taken lightly” but that the “challenging economic conditions currently facing audiences” had greatly contributed to the show’s downfall.
“Cost-of-living pressures, interest rate rises and domestic and international economic uncertainty have contributed to softer box office performance across the country placing considerable pressure on productions of all sizes,” he said.
“Unfortunately, we have not been immune to these challenges. Whilst audience enthusiasm for our work remained strong, attendance levels and box office have not been sufficient to support the cost of the production.”
Tickets for Waitress start at $69.90, up to $179.90 for the premium seats.
It was a similar story just one week earlier when news came that the Australian touring production of Beetlejuice The Musical would close early, skipping planned stops in Perth, Adelaide and Sydney.
In a statement first published by the Courier Mail, the show’s production company Michael Cassel Group pointed to rising costs as the reason for axing the rest of the tour.
“For a production of this scale, the current logistical realities of touring across vast distances between Australian cities have created increasing cost pressures that ultimately made continuing the run unsustainable,” the MCG spokesperson said.
Earlier, the Sydney season of Back to the Future: The Musical closed in January with producers abandoning plans for a national tour.
Again, costs were blamed, with the show’s producer telling The Daily Telegraph at the time that only when tickets were heavily discounted were they able to shift seats: “The minute we stopped discounting, the sales dropped back down.”
