Elton John’s Broadway musical announces closure after less than a week
Tammy Faye, the $25 million Broadway musical co-written by Elton John has announced that it will be closing, just five days after it opened in theatres.
The musical, based on the life of American former televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, opened in the New York theatre district on November 14th. However, it had poor showings on its opening few days and failed to attract the expected number of ticket sales.
So far, it has only filled auditoriums to 63 per cent of the full capacity at the New York venue, and as a consequence, it will only continue to run until December 8th.
The show had previously enjoyed sell-out success at the Almeida Theatre in London in 2022, where it ran for three months. Katie Brayben, who played the titular character in the original London shows, had reprised her role as Bakker for the Broadway performances and was starring alongside Christian Borle as her former husband, Jim Bakker.
John contributed the music for the show, with the lyrics penned by Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears, and the book written by playwright James Graham, who is known for his plays Dear England and Labour of Love.
Reviews for the show were poor and were met with derision from critics at the New York Post, who called it “a disaster of biblical proportions”. Similarly, the New York Times called it “strangely bland,” asserting that they made a larger-than-life personality “smaller than life”.
Bakker had been notable among Christian evangelists during the 1970s and ‘80s for her flamboyant style and was considered a polarising figure for speaking out on many subjects that were considered taboo by the church, such as LGBT advocacy and support of HIV/AIDS patients.
Her then-husband, Jim Bakker, was a controversial figure for his own reasons, having been accused of rape in 1987 by church secretary Jessica Hahn, and was later convicted of mail fraud and embezzlement that saw him serve five years of an eight-year prison sentence. Bakker and his current wife, Lori, are still active televangelists.
Elton John announced last year that he would cease touring indefinitely and that he has no intention of returning to the road, but did suggest in his tour diary book that he would be open to the idea of performing one-off shows again. His farewell tour, Farewell Yellow Brick Road, finished its 330-day run in Sweden in July 2023.
John is yet to comment on the closure of Tammy Faye on Broadway.
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