Broadway’s longest-running show The Phantom of the Opera is set to close in February 2023 after 35 years.
The musical has been a key fixture on Broadway since 1988 and its final performance will be February 18. The final performance will round-off 13,925 shows across more than three decades.
Since the show reopened after the pandemic, Box Office grosses have reached as high as $1m (£870,000/€1m) according to the Guardian.
However, ticket sales have also dropped to as low as $850,000 and last week sales hit $867,997.
Phantom of the Opera was based on the 1910 novel by Gaston Leroux, with the music created by composer and impresario Andrew Lloyd-Webber. It first opened in London’s West End in 1986 before heading to Broadway two years later.
Producer Cameron Mackintosh said in a statement: “As a producer you dream that a show will run for ever. Indeed, my production of Andrew’s Cats proudly declared for decades ‘Now and Forever.’ Yet ‘Phantom’ has surpassed that show’s extraordinary Broadway run. But all shows do finally close.”
The show has been seen by more than 145 million people across 183 cities. There have been over 70,000 performances of the show and it has been performed in 17 different languages. On Broadway alone, the musical has been perfumed over 13,500 times to 19 million people at the Majestic Theatre in New York.