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The real reason why CABARET is closing on Broadway | The truth behind Billy Porter and the lawsuit
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Frankly, none of us should be surprised by this news. It's right there in the show. Money makes the world go around and sometimes it closes shows on Broadway a month earlier than planned. That's right. Not the intense public scrutiny of Billy Porter's performance as the MC in his subsequent withdrawal from the production amidst health issues. Nor the headline grabbing, recently issued and potentially industry altering lawsuit issued against the producers. The answer, my friends, as it so often is, is simply money. Life may be a Cabaret, but sometimes the business of Broadway is anything but. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening to this on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a theatre content creator, a professional theatre critic and a pundit here on social media and today we are going to be talking about the breaking Broadway news relating the revival of Cabaret. Now, earlier this year I shared a comprehensive overview of that production's lack of critical and financial success in comparison with the ongoingly very successful original London staging of the same production, which continues to run here in the West End, reaching milestone performances. While the Broadway production announces that it is sadly due to close now, at the time when I spoke about that closure, it was scheduled for October 19th of this year. In a recent update, it has now been announced that the production, which is running at the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway, will now close on September 21st. This amidst something of a swirling storm of social media conversation, unsettling TikTok trends and headlines relating to a lawsuit levelled against the producers, all of which, understandably, has left the wider theatre community intrigued about the real reason behind the show's premature closure on Broadway. And so today, and what I hope is going to be my final piece about this particular Broadway production. That is to say, I hope that it doesn't generate any more headlines and has a relatively peaceful and successful final few. Having seen the show on either side of the Atlantic more times than I can remember offhand, having previously spoken with the producers of this and other Broadway shows, and having gained many insights from them about what is understood to be a rapidly changing landscape, I hope to bring you a little bit of clarity as to why exactly this production is closing early and now even earlier. Spoiler alert. The truth behind it all isn't quite as exciting as you might think, but that doesn't mean that we aren't going to discuss every aspect of the drama surrounding this show right now, including the Billy Porter of it all, including the heinous way that this is being received on social media, and including a full explanation of the exact grievances listed in the lawsuit. Now, of course, these are all just my interpretations, insights and opinions, and as always, I would love to hear yours. Make sure to share all of your thoughts about this early closure in the comments section down below. And if you want to step to date with all of the latest theatre news on Broadway in the West End and worldwide, make sure you're subscribed right here on YouTube turn on those notifications so you don't miss any other upcoming installments about this and hopefully other shows. I'm running out of black shirts. I can't keep talking about Cabaret. Or if what I'm wearing doesn't matter to you, then you can also go and listen to me on any and all podcast platforms. In the meantime, let us hopefully for the last time talk about why Cabaret is closing early. Now, before we talk about anything else and before I get to what is the real reason for the premature closure here, and if you want to skip straight to that, you can click on the chapters down below and you can skip right to that section if you choose to. But there is valuable stuff we need to discuss First, I would like to acknowledge the Billy Porter of all because I made another recent video recently where I spoke about the reaction to Billy Porter's performance and the way that it was becoming a dangerous and harmful and needlessly cruel social media TikTok trend participated in seemingly by many, many people who had not actually experienced his performance in person, but who were reacting to a small out of context audio bootleg clip and for a brief period a sort of mocking caricature of his performance even became a social media trend with making fun of the fact that his enunciation of the lyrics seemed poor through this muffled audio bootleg at the end of the song Vilkamen, as well as dancing around in a sort of brainless fashion on the spot, all of which I thought was more than a little bit gross. And if you want to hear all of my initial multi layered thoughts about the reaction to Billy Porter's performance in the show from the perspective of someone who saw him do the show here in London. Then you can go and check out everything that I had to say in that original video. There is plenty of dialogue there in which I talk as well about the utterly clumsy comment that he made during a press interview in the run up to him joining the Broadway production when he said the blacks have replaced the Jews, as well as the notion that performers of color replacing in roles on Broadway that have traditionally only been played by white actors have something of an uphill battle when it comes to being publicly scrutinized, especially in the age of social media and instant widespread availability of clips of their very early performances. When they replace on Broadway, they don't have the benefit of preview performances, at least as far as social media is concerned, and the reality their interpretation of that character may have inherent cultural differences. They may sing it a different way. They are going to very possibly look different in that costuming elements of the character's cultural identity may be reworked. And ultimately, not that I think that this was the most effective interpretation of the mc, the best way that the role has ever been cast, nor necessarily a particularly cohesive and generally strong and insightful performance. I still assert that a lot of the commentary made on social media around it was inherently microaggressive because there was little consideration of the fact that no one is used to the MC sounding like this. No one is used to the MC having to reckon with different character choices and to insist that a performer does not understand the role. And that you can infer that from a short out of context audio clip is just wildly ignorant to me, especially when it comes to a character whose material is written to be to a certain extent deliberately ambiguous, especially in a revival production in which that character is reconceived in a slightly different context text and serves a slightly different purpose. But I'm repeating myself at this point. All of this is ground that I have trodden already and it's not a subject that I'm interested in rehashing. Especially because the most important thing here is to wish Billy Porter a speedy and successful recovery. It is reported that he has been incredibly unwell with sepsis, which is no joke. It is no joke at the best of times. It is often deadly and in conjunction with previous acknowledgments of Billy Porter's pre existing health conditions, it's incredibly troubling. Per the press release that I received earlier this morning about the show's earlier final performance date, the little statement here about Billy Porter's health clarified, Billy Porter must withdraw from the production. Porter is recovering from a serious case of sepsis. Happily, his doctors are confident that he will make a full recovery, but have advised him to maintain a restful schedule these next couple of weeks. With a few more words here from producer Adam Spears who said Billy was an extraordinary mc, bringing his signature passion and remarkable talent. We wish Billy a speedy recovery and I look forward to working with him again in the very near future. Future. So fantastic news there that Billy Porter seems set to make a full recovery. That of course is brilliant. I wish him nothing but peace and recovery. And on that subject, I do find speculation about his health to be a little bit deplorable. We could all be cynical if we wanted to and come onto the Internet and suggest that this is all some kind of PR spin because he wanted to depart the production and you know, we ultimately have no way of knowing whether or not that's the case. It's theoretically possible. I just don't think when it comes to adverse health conditions, especially ones of this severity, that it's ever worth being that cynical, that it's ever worth speculating like that. I don't think speculating about anyone's ill health is ever a good idea or a smart thing to do or for what it's worth, and not that anyone seems to care all that much, a particularly decent thing to do. I'm reminded of what happened with Chadwick Boseman and the way that he was criticized before anyone realized that he was struggling with cancer in the final few months of his life. And I think as well, and this is bigger than Billy Porter and this is bigger than Cabaret, the way that we talk about celebrities and actors and people in the theater community online seems increasingly oblivious of the reality that these are real people with real lives and real families who have access to these terrible things that you are publicly sharing about them, who have access to this relentless personal criticism and these ill informed attacks on their character. And to think that all of the stuff being shared TikTok was playing out in real time while Billy Porter was experiencing a major health downturn is horrifying. And people at the time obviously weren't aware that that was happening. But even now, even after this news has been shared and has been reported sort of semi carelessly by a handful of outlets who have in one headline acknowledged simultaneously that Cabaret is closing and that Billy Porter is withdrawing from the production and is sort of equating the two in a way that is not honest and truthful. There are comments below saying I don't w Billy Porter any ill health but and when somebody is recovering from sepsis, when somebody has presumably been hospitalized, there is no it's not a time for but that is not the moment for but it's not like well, obviously it's vitally important that I bring my opinion about his performance to this comment section relating to news about his life threatening health condition. Like dear God, when did we stop being decent human beings? What the hell does any of that matter when it comes to a life or death health battle? If you're having to even start a sentence with I never wished death on Billy Porter when I said all of this, you need to take a long and harrowing look at yourself for the things that you have shared publicly on the Internet as if they were never going to be seen by that individual. Do you know what you are? You're not a theater fan at that point, sharing your enthusiasm and your passion about an industry that you care about. You are a schoolyard bully. You are a playground bully whispering unkind things about somebody else who is sharing the same playground that you are and presuming that that's never going to get back to them when we know that does. And you almost want it to in the first place. Because otherwise what's the point of posting an entire TikTok? What's the point of queuing up that little sound bite that you're going to dance around to preparing a space, putting your camera somewhere so that you can dance around and do the little impression? Is it worth the engagement? Is it worth the likes? Is it worth it to take your TikTok account from 170 to 177 followers and by the end of the thing to stay in the world of this metaphor, it's not just you bullying this kid on the playground, it's half the playground. And the uncomfortable reality here is people can try and shield that behavior by saying I've heard that he has a a difficult personality. I've heard that he is difficult to work with from a friend of a friend of a friend's hairdresser's niece's dog walker. And you can try and extrapolate that one incredibly inarticulate comment made in that one interview appearance into an entire perspective of anti Semitism and label Billy Porter with that. Similarly, you can extrapolate his historically limited, evidently ill informed and peace advocating commentary on Israel and Palestine into a label of Zionist. But guess what? Fabricating a social shield out of all of these character flaws of his doesn't make the thing that you did in the first place any less cruel. It doesn't excuse you from participating under the umbrella of cultural commentary in something that turned into a needless witch hunt anyway, as I allow my blood pressure to subside just a little bit. One other thing that I shared in that previous video about the reaction to Billy Porter's performance is that I was very concerned there would be a little bit of revisionist history happening here and people would blame Billy Porter for Cabaret closing on Broadway. And guess who? What? That's exactly what's happening. I'm seeing it in comments all over social media that Billy Porter destroyed the show, ruined the show, comments under articles acknowledging that he is recovering from sepsis. The one thing that people have to say to that is he destroyed a Broadway show. Like that's the most important thing. It's also false. It's also ignorant. It's also just completely incorrect because the show announced closure at the same time that Billy and Marisha were announced in the roles. I recall this specifically because of friend of mine, the brilliant Kate Reinking said, thank goodness they announced those things simultaneously so that we can't have yet another Broadway show finally cast black actors for the first time, only to announce that it's closing very shortly afterwards. This has happened on an unfortunate number of occasions with a handful of other shows, and that shamefully does seem to be a reality of Broadway. But is the fact that the closing date has now been brought forwards by a month related to Billy Porter having to withdraw from the production due to his adverse health? Well, it's a possibility, but it also seems unlikely because the grosses were frankly tanking prior to that. Even when Billy was in the show, the show was bleeding money. It was not making nearly enough money. And for anyone who has been paying attention to the weekly grosses of Cabaret and observing that the numbers aren't horrific in comparison with other Broadway productions, the key factor here is that the running costs are extraordinarily high, and that has been a huge issue for this production since the beginning of its Broadway run. It has has for some months now not been making nearly enough money to be considered profitable, let alone, you know, hugely successful in a way that is going to keep them safe on Broadway when it comes to those more challenging months which we are entering into right now. And rather than continue to lose money on a weekly basis, they are simply going to cut their losses a little bit faster. They weren't going to run long enough to be able to enjoy the more lucrative time of year to enjoy tourists at Christmas. The reason why so many shows close in January, they were already going to close in late October. Between now and late October, what can Broadway offer them? Not much. So instead they closed on September 21st as promised. Let me give you the full explanation as to exactly why that is. Is the poor word of mouth surrounding Billy Porter's performance as the MC potentially a factor in lower ticket sales during his run in the show show? That's a distinct possibility. At which point everyone else on social media can thank themselves for being culpable in the early closure of a show that results in the mass unemployment of a bunch of other actors and creatives and crew members and PR representatives and marketing teams and everyone else in and outside of the August Wilson Theatre? Once again, I ask you if all of those TikTok likes and the five extra followers were worth it. But if we're looking at the bigger picture here, as I outlined when Cabaret first posted that October closing notice and I spoke fully about its Broadway life cycle. The show has never found the success that it was hoping to. It has never been as successful in New York as it was here in London. It was always, to a certain extent, rejected by the New York theatre community. This was what the conversation was. Even when it was opening, even during the most financially prosperous weeks of that show's life, there was always a sense of resistance. That was the conversation on the street about this production. There was an indifference to the way that it grappled with Cabaret's Jewish cultural identity and whether it did enough to depict that. There was an indifference to what is put across by the meaning and this interpretation of the show and the way that it asserts its themes. And I think by the time that it's run has now finally come to a conclusion, there is a little more understanding about this being a Cabaret that speaks the concept of becoming complicit inside a fascist dictatorship government. That is what I believe is invoked by the final image of this production. And as a result of that, it's incredibly relevant to a America in the world right now. But Cabaret arrived in New York at the beginning of a very difficult time for the Broadway theater industry, with production costs spiraling and ticket prices being driven up. As a result, the production was hugely ambitious, not just because of what they were delivering on stage, but also because of the renovation of the August Wilson Theatre, the reconfiguring of the auditorium so that the production, like it is in London, could be staged in the round, but also the semi immersive atmospheric redesign of the bar and foyer spaces beforehand, the inclusion of a prologue cast before forming in those spaces, all of which represented an awful lot of investment. And while other shows faced similar problems, the solution that many of them found was a list Hollywood stars. Now, Cabaret opened in New York like it did in London, with Eddie Redmayne as the mc, but with Gail Rankin alongside him. It wasn't quite enough star power to compete with the other star names that would be close behind him on Broadway. And when it came to the replacements in both of those roles, I would argue that at no point during the run have they really found the A list names that they needed. And that isn't to diminish the talent of any of those performers who succeeded them in those roles, or the casting team who I think did a great job in finding exciting people who changed the narrative about this production and created new interest in it. When Adam Lambert was brought in, when Orville Peck was brought in, when even Oblizada was brought in. There have been some really fantastic performances in those roles. I also, before I forget, have to tell you how astonishingly brilliant I think Marisha Wallace is as Sally Bowles and how she is creating a Sally Bowles the likes of whom you have never on a major stage. I have never seen Sally Bowles played like this and I understood exactly who she was. And also that I was meeting a new version of this character who still made sense in this material, who still had humanity and fragility and grit and vulnerability and naivety and determination and all the qualities that we recognize in Sally and all the qualities that we expect in Sally, but fused together in a completely different and very successful way. And. And I am devastated for her. Not only that, her Broadway Homecoming because she was an ensemble member in productions like Something Rotten years ago before moving to the UK and becoming a very successful Olivier Award nominated star. I'm sad that that Broadway Homecoming has been cut short, but I am more sad that her star turn in the show has been overshadowed by the negative commentary around Billy Porter. And once more I ask you, what is the more responsible thing you can do with your social media after seeing a show in which you loved one performance and hated the other? Do you go on TikTok and make a TikTok about how great that person was and how brilliant they are and how everyone should go see them and celebrate them, or do you focus on the negativity? That's not what I've ever tried to do on here. I try and uplift the positive things about the show while acknowledging the things that left me disappointed. I just think during that couple of weeks when the theatre community online was like a moth to a flame with the negativity about Billy Porter, we could have chosen instead to focus on how great Marisha is in this show and we didn't. And she deserved far better than that. She deserved way better than the treatment that she has received from musical theater fans during this time. They both do. But like I was saying, fantastic performers in the show. None of them, I would argue, a list named and you can disagree with me about that and you can say they're huge stars and huge talents and people were flying in from around the country and all of that can be true. It doesn't make them a listers. It's not George Clooney being on Broadway. It's not even Adina and Kristen returning really. And I'm not sure that they count as mainstream a list either. This was a production that because of how expensive it was and because of what it was asking in terms of premium ticket prices, always needed, like major Hollywood talents and ought to have been able to attract major Hollywood talents because these are sought after roles. A lot of people who are in movies who started in theater want to play Sally Bowles, want to play the mc. Anytime they do those little press junkets and they ask actors who have never been on stage before, if you could do a musical, what part would you like to play. They were doing this with like the Fantastic Four cast recently and Vanessa Katie Kirby said Sally Bowles, and I'm pretty sure that Pedro Pascal said the MC or one of the others said the mc. Like these are roles that come up. But I think the early critical response to the production alienated them from wanting to be involved or alienated their managers and their publicists from wanting them to be involved. Because like it or not, Cabaret on Broadway did not get the same glowing reviews that it got in the West End. And it kind of began to spell the end for the production there. And then once the West End theater had been refurbished, it was reported the show would need to run, I think, for at least five years in order to pay back the investment just on the theater. With the Broadway production being so much more expensive, it can be assumed that it would have had to have run longer. And with those opening night reviews, the writing was already on the wall, which is hilarious because in the redesign of the theater, they've literally written on the walls that the show was not going to last as long as it needed to, even with it having run longer than many other revivals. I do think it's telling ultimately that this product production didn't attract, even in its opening casting, the kind of caliber of star name that replaced in the last production. And it's the comparison between the two that has not served this one well the entire time it's been on Broadway. I guess if we wanted to create a slightly reductive flowchart or timeline, we could say this Broadway revival of Cabaret opens too soon after the last one and is unfavorably compared, or can't live up to the memory of that hugely successful Alan Cumming led, Sam Mendes directed production. Production, therefore, is not reviewed well, therefore can't sell as many tickets as it needs to amidst a financially challenging Broadway landscape, can't attract the star names that it needs to in order to kind of rewrite that narrative, and slowly declines over the following months in an inevitable path towards closure. And once you look at it that way, Billy Porter and Marisha Wallace being cast at the end, by the time they already know they're going to close in a few months doesn't really have any kind of an effect on the show. Show. And Billy Porter having to step away from it permanently two weeks before an even earlier closing notice feels honestly moot. Yay. That the MC understudies are going to get more shows. They're going to get the chance to perform a fantastic role on Broadway. That's great for them. It sucks for them and everybody else in and outside the building that they're all losing their jobs a month earlier than they thought they were. So as they say, when you hear hoofbeats, expect horses and not zebras. And unexciting as it may be, the reason that Cabaret is closing now, even earlier on Broadway, is because ticket sales have declined, declined. It is not making enough money and so the show closes. That has been the reality for Broadway for as long as Broadway has existed and it is nothing new. What is perhaps new is that it is becoming more prohibitively expensive than ever before. And it is within the context of that particular spotlight that we have to talk about this final element of Cabaret's Broadway run and that is its brand new lawsuit. So I am reading from Broadway World here where this has been reported on by Joshua Wright. Investor files lawsuit and demands financial transparency from Cabaret Broadway producers. This is all unfolding alongside the new closing date announcement and I assume that there is little coincidence when it comes to the connection of that timing. Most likely the show's co producers and investors have been notified of the earlier closure and have been left to understandably disappointed with a lack of return on their investment from a show that was never really profitable, but critically not profitable because it didn't make a lot of money. The grosses were there, they were illustrated, they were reported on and they were impressive for a time, but they were also not enough from a show that was simply too expensive from the very beginning. Now, the complaint accuses producers of concealing profits and breaching fiduciary duties, though the allegations have not been proven in court. And as I tell you about this, I have also, because I'm not a legal expert and I wanted to make sure I was reporting on this responsibly reached out for some informed legal advice from an anonymous source within the theatre community who was particularly eager for me to convey to you all that everything that has been shared so far is only one half of a conversation. These filings were drafted by the plaintiff, signed by the plaintiff and filed by the plaintiff. There has been no response filed by the producers. And so it has been suggested that drawing conclusions based only on what has been filed so far is akin to only hearing from one spouse in divorce. But nevertheless, we will read a little more about it. An investor has filed a lawsuit against the lead producers of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club on Broadway, alleging fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty and mismanagement of funds tied to the revival, which reportedly cost upwards of $24 million. Do you remember when New York, New York was being produced on Broadway? I think that was a $25 million initial budget and that was then like the most expensive Broadway show ever and it only seems to be climbing since. The complaint filed September 4th in New York Suprem, caught by attorney and investor James Lorenzo Walker Jr. Asserts that producers engaged in a deliberate scheme intended to strip him and other investors of their investments in and partnership profits from the Broadway production. Their investments obviously being the amount of money that they give to the producers in order to help finance the show, partnership profits being the money that they get back once the show begins to generate grosses. Now the way that this should work is they invest their money ahead of time and once the show is running and once the show is exceeding its weekly running costs and therefore generating a profit profit, a pre agreed percentage share of the profit from what I understand is then to be dispatched back to the investors. However, I am given to understand that the reality of it is never quite that straightforward and I will explain why as we read on a little further in this particular case. So Walker invested $50,000 into the show just days before it opened in April 2024. According to the filing, the production has grossed more than $90 million, but the plaintiff has not received a return of his investment nor a share of profits from the production. The lawsuit alleges that investors were induced to invest cash into multi layered structures designed to conceal revenues, divert payments and facilitate self dealing among insiders and their affiliated entities. Which all sounds incredibly confusing and I have been enlightened because I didn't understand what that meant either. But I will explain to you in just a moment. We then have various defendants named, various personal producers, various LLCs going on here. None of this is particularly interesting, I'll be honest. Walker's council has also accused the producers of failing to produce financial records despite repeated written requests and of concealing profits, including revenue from ticket packages in violation of Article 14F of the Partnership agreement. Now, Walker has shared comment with Broadway World and said that this lawsuit is about financial openness rather than personal conflict with the producers. This is a case about transparency, he has said. For several months I tried to get an idea of what was going on financially and where the revenues were going. I repeatedly asked for full transparency, including access to records, and got no cooperation operation. He noted that while weekly wraps provided by the production show gross box office figures, they don't explain where anything goes. All we've asked repeatedly is for full financial transparency and where the approximately $90 million was spent. It's not personal and it's not meant to attack anyone or shake the credibility of the Cabaret brand. Investors simply deserve honest answers. Meanwhile, there is something of a statement here from the producers of Cabaret, who dispute that Walker was not provided with the opportunity to review financial statements, writing, while we are incredibly proud of the artistic success of Cabaret at the KitKat Club on Broadway and deeply saddened by the fact it has to close early, the production has not been in a position fiscally to make any distribution to investors. We've offered to engage in a constructive dialogue with Mr. Walker regarding his financial expectations and to give him access to our accounts, but unfortunately he has instead decided to file a lawsuit that lacks any merit. No court has ruled on the case and all of Walker's claims remain out allegations at this stage, and it will be interesting to follow, which is where my expert legal advice comes in. And for us to understand what's going on here, we have to gain a little bit of an understanding into the way that Broadway investing works. Like I said, they invest money, they get a return once the show is successful, once it is grossing sufficiently. However, there is, so I hear, a certain amount of flexibility written into this financial agreement and written into these contracts to allow the producer producers to withhold the repayment of certain funds in order to steady the show against more trying financial months. In other words, they may choose to withhold some of the profits from the more successful summer months as we head into a little bit of an autumnal slump before once again, things pick up during the holiday period, and that is for the benefit of the show. The producers are empowered, per these contracts to act in the best financial interest of the show, which ultimately is also the best thing for investors. However, there is presumably an expectation that at some point when the show is grossing these enormous amounts of money that the investors are going to get paid. I think what is changing here in the investor producer relationship is that no one is anticipating that these shows are going to get so, so expensive and that such enormous numbers when it comes to the published grosses could still not be enough to really repay producers. When you see a show making that many hundreds of thousands, making more than a million, you assume that that is an enormous profit. And for a show whose running costs. I think Cabaret's running costs were reported to be close to a million dollars a week. It's just not realistic for them to be able to do so because they're not actually retaining that much as the show heads towards a more uncertain future. That's presumably their position at least anyway. There is also, I'm told, often explicit wording around the fact that investors are investors give discretion to the producers regarding their use of that investment, which makes it very difficult to dispute it after the fact. It has been suggested to me that the big question where this lawsuit is concerned is whether or not the producers acted reasonably by withholding the amount that they did or whether they were acting beyond the scope of what is considered reasonable within the industry. Where it gets a little more complicated, however, is in the other aspect of the claim and this relates very specifically to Cabaret as a production. This is where we were talking about investors being induced to invest invest cash into multi layered structures designed to conceal revenues, divert payments and facilitate self dealing among insiders and their affiliated entities. This also related to the inflated production and renovation costs to benefit affiliated entities through non arm's length transactions and preserves general partner compensation while failing to return capital to limited partners. Basically what all of that is talking about is the renovation made on the theatre itself. Now the show is being produced by ATG Productions. The theatre is also now owned by ATG Productions. There are allegations that money from investors has been used to renovate the theatrical space, which is obviously to the benefit of the theatre owners. And some areas of the theatre are obviously inclusive with the production itself, including the bar areas, including the auditorium, including the route by which audiences now access the theatrical space. But backstage areas, dressing rooms wouldn't be. They would be beyond the scope of that. Understand a little bit of frustration about the selling of ticket packages involving food and beverages in which revenue was redirected through the theatre. But grosses from that wouldn't have necessarily been made available to investors and to co producers on that level. There is plenty more that I've been told about this case. There's plenty more that I could say. I am always incredibly reluctant to talk about any kind of ongoing legal process or try and shape the public narrative around it in any type of way. So I am going to refrain from doing so. There are a couple of interesting aspects of it, however, because I do think it's indicative, and I feel like I'm saying this in almost every Broadway related video recently of the pending reckoning that there is on Broadway. We are hearing this spoken about by investors, by producers, by big, huge transatlantic producers and theaters theatre owners. Everyone is saying that it is becoming ridiculously expensive, it is becoming impossibly expensive to mount productions on Broadway and a huge reckoning is coming. We have seen real legitimate issues. I know it is constantly said that the sky is falling on Broadway, but within the next few years the sky might just be lowering a little bit. And I think this is another indication of problems because it's going to only get harder when the relationships between producers and investors become strained like this, when productions can be generating this much income but still aren't necessarily profitable. And you can understand the frustrations when the producers continue to get paid regularly, but the investors who are further down the line aren't getting paid because there isn't quite enough money to start to repay their investments. And what's unusual about this particular lawsuit in comparison with some of the other ones that we see on Broadway is it's being brought against ATG Productions who aren't neophytes in the theatrical sphere. They are massive heavyweight venue owners and producers on either side of the Atlantic. They are a huge juggernaut. They are potentially buying today ticks. They are potentially being acquired themselves. None of this is great timing for that in terms of PR and optics, by the way. Neither is the high profile early closure and financial disappointment of Cabaret. But so often when we see Broadway producers getting successfully sued, they are relative newcomers in the sphere or they are individuals who have been been criticized or who have had legal action brought against them throughout their careers. And it's not as though ATG Productions at this late stage in the game are going to start suddenly defrauding investors for the first time. It seems a little inconceivable. And it's for that same reason that ultimately I don't think this lawsuit relates to the closure of Cabaret. For one thing, the timing seems as though it's probably after the fact. Yes, it was filed on the 4th and the early closure was. Wasn't announced until something like the seventh or the eighth. By that point, the closure would have already been set in stone. And we had all, I think, been hearing whisperings about the fact that Cabaret might be closing even earlier weeks back. And this is absolutely speculation from me. But the lawsuit feels retaliatory in response to an early closure notice being communicated to Understandably disappointed investors. And it's not the only time that we've heard about disappointed investors. Recently, when Sunset Boulevard announced that they were going to be closing on Broadway, I reported on some disappointments. Disappointment from investors behind the scenes that the show was not going to even attempt to recast the leading role of Norma Desmond, but would conclude with Nicole Scherzinger's departure from the show, therefore not allowing it to run longer and recoup its initial investment. A very similar kind of situation there. And once again, it is a very troubling time for Broadway. When a show can be, you know, a Tony Award winning, celebrated, hugely talked about revival and can have huge, huge grosses and they still aren't enough. When so few shows, musicals in particular, are recouping their investments, then it's really indicative of a financial landscape that just isn't working. And amidst those kind of numbers, how many investors are going to want to willingly burn their money supporting these shows? That's not something that I want to say because I want these shows to be produced and financed. But you know, it would be foolish of me to to look at this and not acknowledge that it's not a really great financial landscape for those investors. It's not a great prospect for them. And just like I believe a Broadway reckoning is on the horizon, there is also on the horizon another update from me about what is happening on Broadway and the possibility that it might be slowly dying. But until then, to relate all of this back to today's conversation, I don't think that this lawsuit is the reason that Cabaret is closing early on Broadway. It is coming to too late. It is not going to be financially devastating for the atg. And I think it's more indicative of a fractured relationship between producers and investors that is going to be interesting to observe moving forwards. I do not think that Billy Porter's departure from the show is the reason that it's closing early in the same way that his being cast in the show did not affect it closing early. So much of this was already inevitable by the time that Billy and Marisha had returned back to New York from having played the role in London. The reason that Cabaret is closing early is because it simply was never set to be as successful almost from the beginning as it needed to be during a time on Broadway when only the most extraordinary success for these wildly expensive productions can make them even a little profitable. That is everything that I have to say about the closure of this Broadway production of Cabaret for today, hopefully forever. As always, I would love to hear what you have to say in the comments section down below. If you have any insights that you can share about this particular story, any perspectives that you can bring to the conversation, I would love to hear them. In the meantime, let us all do what we can to support an industry that we care about, to support the careers and livelihoods of individuals that we care about who deserve support. Let us uplift the performances that we love and not take time out of our limited, limited lives to tear down those who are already being bullied across social media and are recovering from deadly infection. Affections. Maybe that's uncool of me to say, but apparently I'm old school. If you have the opportunity and the inclination to do so, and you haven't yet seen Marisha Wallace's extraordinary performance in the Broadway revival of Cabaret, I urge you to go and see it over the next couple of weeks. And I wish nothing but the best for her, Billy Porter and the rest of the company at the show. Thank you so much for listening to my thoughts about this. I hope, as always, that you are staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.
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