The Broadway musical “Nice Work if You Can Get It,†a venture involving the heirs of George and Ira Gershwin and several veteran theater producers to showcase famous songs by the brothers, will close on June 15 after 27 preview performances and 478 regular performances, the producers announced on Wednesday. The Jazz Age-style show, which originally paired Tony Award winner Matthew Broderick as a playboy with Tony nominee Kelli O’Hara as a bootlegger, opened last April to mixed reviews and never caught real fire at the box office. (Ms. O’Hara’s role is now played by Tony nominee Jessie Mueller.)
The musical, which cost approximately $10 million to mount on Broadway, will not recoup that original capitalization by its closing date; a spokesman for the producers said that “Nice Work†will earn back a majority of its investment, but he did not have precise figures. The show’s lead producers - Scott Landis, Roger Berlind, Sonia Friedman and Roy Furman - also announced that a national tour of the show will begin during the 2014-15 theater season.
The closing of “Nice Work†will free up the Imperial Theater, a house that many producers covet for its size and prime location near Times Square. No new shows have been announced for the Imperial, but several Broadway producers say that Cameron Mackintosh’s revival of “Les Miserables†- which is due to open in March 2014 - is a likely future tenant. The original “Les Misérables†ran at the Imperial for nearly 13 years before closing in 2003.
