KPOP on Broadway. Photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Two Broadway shows written and performed predominantly by artists of colour, recently announced dramatically fast closures only weeks after opening. Howard Sherman deep dives into their struggles and asks what they tell us a
Stories of bygone Broadway days often include tales of shows that closed on opening night, or, in a few cases, didn’t even make it there. These are all but unheard of in recent years. Advances in marketing and promotion, shrewd pricing and capitalisations that budget for losses in early weeks are meant to ensure that shows can have a few weeks to build up a head of steam rather than throwing in the towel if reviews aren’t sufficiently laudatory.
That’s what makes the recent announcement of the rapid closings of the play Ain’t No Mo’ and the musical KPOP so surprising. While they managed short runs following their previews, the former will have played only 28 regular performances when it closes on December 23, while KPOP, which finished on December 11, eked out 17. Those are uncharacteristically fast departures.
As we get further out of the pandemic shutdown, we will have more data about what is working and what is not, and whether the anecdotal perceptions around works by artists of colour – that they face an even steeper climb than other shows – are borne out across multiple seasons. At a post-performance discussion at KPOP on Sunday, scheduled before its closure was determined, playwright David Henry Hwang spoke of the progress he’s seen for Asian-American artists over the course of his 40-year career, beginning before the term ‘Asian American’ existed and Asian roles were still commonly performed in yellowface. At the same time as recognising progress, he also spoke in revolutionary terms about how to really change what’s possible on Broadway.
“Blow it up,” said Hwang, “to build it better.”