‘New York, New York’ Will End Its Broadway Run

“New York, New York,” a big-budget musical that tried to position itself as a nostalgic love letter to the city, will close on July 30 after underwhelming critics and failing to find a sufficient audience to sustain a Broadway run.

The musical was the costliest swing of the last theater season, with a $25 million capitalization, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission; that money has not been recouped. The show’s budget was bigger than that of other musicals currently arriving Broadway, although costs have been rising, and the musicals with the largest companies and the most stage spectacle are increasingly costing more than $20 million.

“New York, New York” started off respectably at the box office, with weekly grosses initially hovering around $1 million. But the musical has been expensive to run, with a large cast and a sizable orchestra, and its sales have been dropping problematically this summer. During the week that ended July 16, “New York, New York” grossed $692,051 and played to houses that were only 68 percent full, according to the most recent figures released by the Broadway League.

At the time of its closing, “New York, New York” will have played 33 preview and 110 regular performances.

Very loosely based on Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film of the same title, the musical tells the story of a young couple — he a musician, and she a singer — trying to find work and love in the city just after World War II. The book is by David Thompson and Sharon Washington.

The show features songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb, some of which also appeared in the film. The title song, which is the musical’s closing number, has become a standard. Ebb died in 2004; for the stage musical, Lin-Manuel Miranda contributed lyrics, working with Kander, who is now 96 and who won this year’s Tony Award for lifetime achievement.

The musical, directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, opened on April 26 and faced mixed to negative reviews. In The New York Times, the critic Elisabeth Vincentelli called it “sprawling, unwieldy, surprisingly dull.”

The show was nominated for nine Tony Awards, and it won one, for Beowulf Boritt’s scenic design.

Sonia Friedman and Tom Kirdahy are the musical’s lead producers. In May they announced plans for a national tour of the musical starting in January 2025, but on Sunday evening, when they announced the closing date, they said only that “discussions are underway for a North American tour.”

The closing announcement comes amid a tough stretch for Broadway shows, many of which have struggled as the industry rebuilds following the lengthy closing of theaters at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. On Sunday, three shows played their final performances: a musical revival of “Camelot,” a stage adaptation of “Life of Pi” and the comedy “Peter Pan Goes Wrong.”