Broadway’s “Hell’s Kitchen” will close far sooner than many expected.
Alicia Keys’ coming-of-age musical—built around her catalog of songs and inspired by her upbringing in the Manhattan neighborhood adjacent to the Theater District—abruptly announced that it will play its final performance at the Shubert Theatre on Feb. 22.
The musical earned strong reviews, multiple Tony Awards, and box-office success that pushed it past $100 million in ticket sales. And yet, according to Deadline, the production has reportedly recouped only about 60% of its $22 million capitalization—a figure that underscores just how unforgiving the economics of new musicals have become.
The timing does open an intriguing possibility. The Shubert Theatre is among Broadway’s most desirable houses, and a February vacancy theoretically allows another production to move in before the end of the current season. One wonders, however, whether there is another new musical with the capitalization, readiness, and institutional backing to seize that opening. In the days before the pandemic, producers would be circling such an opening like sharks.
Jim Parsons takes supporting comic role in ‘Titanique’
The iceberg was already in sight. Now “Titanique” has welcomed a very recognizable star aboard.
The cult musical comedy—set to the songs of Céline Dion and built as a gleeful parody of James Cameron’s “Titanic”—was never an obvious Broadway transfer. Its humor is aggressively niche, its storytelling deliberately chaotic, and its downtown success depended on intimacy rather than scale.
That’s what makes the arrival of Jim Parsons significant. Parsons will join the Broadway cast this spring in a knowingly cheeky supporting role as Ruth Dewitt Bukater, the frostily judgmental mother who functions as the show’s commentary track, delivering snarky asides while Céline Dion hijacks the narrative. It’s a featured role built on timing rather than dominance—one that allows Parsons to have fun without carrying the show as a marquee star.
From the producers’ perspective, the casting looks like a gift. Parsons brings instant name recognition to a show whose cult appeal does not automatically translate to mass-market Broadway audiences. Even in a supporting role, his presence meaningfully improves the show’s commercial odds.
For Parsons, the appeal may be refreshingly uncomplicated. His recent Broadway work has skewed serious and exacting, including Paula Vogel’s “Mother Play” and the revival of “Our Town.” Against that resume, “Titanique” reads less like a chance to drop in, be funny, and trust an ensemble that already knows how the joke works.
He joins a cast that preserves the show’s downtown DNA. Marla Mindelle reprises her Olivier-winning, star-making performance as Céline, while Deborah Cox brings vocal authority to Unsinkable Molly Brown. Frankie Grande returns as Victor Garber, and co-creator Constantine Rousouli reprises his swaggering Jack Dawson.
Dylan Mulvaney to play Anne Boleyn in ‘Six’
“Six” is crowning a new Anne Boleyn. Beginning Feb. 16, Dylan Mulvaney, one of the most visible transgender performers working today, will make her Broadway debut as Henry VIII’s most notorious wife.
Mulvaney arrives on Broadway with a public profile shaped as much by backlash as by fandom. She became a national lightning rod following the Bud Light advertising controversy, which abruptly pulled her out of the realm of social media celebrity and into a broader cultural fight over gender, visibility, and corporate risk. Long before that moment, however, Mulvaney had built a following through her Days of Girlhood TikTok series documenting her transition. She recently appeared Off-Broadway in the solo show “The Least Problematic Woman in the World.”
Also joining the show is Abigail Barlow, who will make her Broadway acting debut as Katherine Howard. Barlow is best known as a writer, having won a Grammy as one half of Barlow & Bear for “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical Album,” and later co-writing the songs for Disney’s “Moana 2.”
