‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ to End Broadway Run in May After Third Engagement

Mrs. Doubtfire is closing on Broadway just over a month after returning in April following Broadway’s winter omicron surge.

Producers announced the news early Friday morning. “Even though New York City is getting stronger every day and ticket sales are slowly improving, theatre-going tourists — and, especially for our show, family audiences — have not returned as soon as we anticipated,” producer Kevin McCollum said in a statement. “Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to run the show without those sales, especially when capitalizing with Broadway economics on three separate occasions.”

Along with the closing announcement, which comes just days after star Rob McClure earned a Tony nomination for best actor in a musical, producers announced a British run from Sept. 2 to Oct. 1 in Manchester, England as well as a National Tour currently slated to launch in October 2023.

“I would like to express my profound and unending admiration for our extraordinary Broadway cast, crew, orchestra, creative team and entire company who brought the show to the stage,” McCollum added in his statement, which also encouraged audiences to see the show during one of its 20 remaining performances. “They have risen to every challenge thrown at them over the last two years with a remarkable amount of resilience, good humor, passion, and love for one another.”

Mrs. Doubtfire was originally scheduled to open on Broadway in spring 2020, having started preview performances on March 9 — just three days before the global COVID-19 pandemic shut Broadway down for 18 months. The show weathered the nearly two-year live theater pause, resuming previews on Oct. 21 before opening officially on  Dec. 5 at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. But a month later on Jan. 9, the show closed, in what was described at the time as a nine-week “hiatus” prompted by the omicron variant wave that hit Broadway.

The musical was not the only production to make the experimental call in an attempt to save itself from permanent closure on the Great White Way. Aaron Sorkin’s To Kill A Mockingbird as well as the Tony-nominated Girl From the North Country also closed in January, with plans to return in the spring. (To Kill A Mockingbird is set to return in June, moving from the Shubert Theatre to the Belasco Theatre, while limited engagement Girl From the North Country reopened on April 29 at the Belasco.)

Mrs. Doubtfire‘s closing comes amid yet another wave of COVID on Broadway that has seen a number of spring shows cancel performances after stars have contracted the virus. That includes company members of MacBeth, including Daniel Craig, and Plaza Suite leads Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick.

Still, other shows are extending their runs amid potential audience bumps thanks to the Tony nominations. The Manhattan Theatre Club’s revival of the How I Learned to Drive starring original leads Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse announced it was extending its limited engagement run by two weeks to June 12.

The Camille A. Brown-directed revival of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf also extended the end of its run to June 5 at Booth Theatre following a series of Tony nominations, including Brown’s nods for best direction of a play and best choreography. On May 3, the show had been announced to close on May 22.  

And on Friday, Girl From the North Country announced a one-week run extension to June 19, including best new musical among its seven Tony nominations.