Source : the age
In a shattering blow for Australian live performance, the Broadway hit musical Waitress has announced it is axing its Sydney shows due to softer than expected ticket sales, just one week after the abrupt cancellation of national dates for Beetlejuice.
Waitress, which starred Rob Mills and Natalie Bassingthwaighte in the title role of the pie-making waitress Jenna, was to have opened in Sydney’s Lyric Theatre on August 1.
The show made history on Broadway with the four top creative spots filled with women and a storyline that embraces feminine power, but the cast was told the devastating news on Sunday that the show will not travel to Sydney at the end of its Melbourne premiere run.
The show’s producer, John Frost, confirmed the “difficult decision” that Waitress will play its final performance in Melbourne’s Her Majesty’s Theatre on July 19.
“This decision was not made lightly. As many of you know, live theatre is deeply connected to audience demand, ticket sales, and broader economic conditions,” the Crossroads Live Australia chief executive said in a statement.
“While we remain incredibly proud of the production and grateful for the dedication and passion of everyone involved, the challenging economic conditions currently facing audiences have had a significant impact on the live entertainment industry.
“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.
“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.
“I’m disappointed we can’t take this production further and am immensely grateful to the exceptional Waitress company and everyone who has embraced the show so wholeheartedly.”
The cancellations leave musical theatre venues across Australian cities with large gaps in their schedules and is a further sign of growing distress in Australia’s live performance sector which had strongly rebounded following pandemic shutdowns. Foundation Theatre’s chief executive officer, Graeme Kearns, said he expected his theatres to be dark for 30 weeks over the next 10 months.
“We are a canary in a coalmine as discretionary spending disappears.”
Foundation Theatre’s chief executive officer, Graeme Kearns
In a sprawling country with just a handful of major theatrical hubs – mostly arrayed on the East Coast – the economics of freight, interstate travel, and high-spec technical setups are proving difficult to sustain. This is especially true during a cost-of-living squeeze that has turned a premium theatre ticket into a discretionary buy for families. This has played havoc with advance sales which underwrite a producer’s confidence to tour stage productions.
“We are a canary in a coalmine as discretionary spending disappears. As consumer confidence declines, the brutal reality of what that canary experiences is starting to hit very close to home,” Kearns said. “On the flip side, theatre is usually the first to experience a rebound, and we remain optimistic that 2027 will be brighter for show business.”
Last week the Michael Cassel Group announced the abrupt cancellations of the national tour of Eddie Perfect’s Beetlejuice The Musical. Two days ago, the producers of the Italian opera Aida, which was included at the Adelaide Festival next February, cancelled performances due to exorbitant rising costs.
Sydney Theatre Company’s chief executive Anne Dunn warned on Thursday price sensitive and risk-averse theatregoers are delaying ticket purchases and increasingly want the reassurance of a hit before they buy.
Members of the performance and entertainment sector were in Canberra last week to launch the new Parliamentary Friends of Live Performance group. They were also making their case for live performance production incentives for commercial and not-for-profit producers to create original work, and a broadening out of the fringe benefit tax legislation to include cultural organisations.
The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance had said abrupt cancellations like Beetlejuice highlighted the need for stronger protections, greater accountability and better government support to ensure cultural work is valued and workers are not left exposed.
Based on the 2007 indie film, Waitress The Musical follows Jenna Hunterson (Bassingthwaighte) who works at an out-of-the-way pie diner in the American South.
Bassingthwaighte was also juggling the 21st Anniversary Tour of Australian dance-rock band Rogue Traders, and some Melbourne audiences noted her absence from some shows.
But it was the economy and war in the Middle East that had unsettled audiences, and was the final straw. “Giving three weeks notice to a company is never easy,” Frost told this masthead. “They are a lovely company, and they’re very good and audiences love the show, but it hasn’t kicked on the way it should have which is unfortunate financially and to come to Sydney would have been difficult, and so we had to be tough about it.”
