Boxwish Blog

High School Musical show a flop down under

Posted by Team Boxwish on 13 January 2009 at 11.55AM

It seems the magic of Troy, Gabriella and Sharpay has failed to cast a spell over Australian audiences as the Sydney stage version of High School Musical is coming to a premature close. The curtains will come down on the toe-tapping teenage musical at the Sydney Capitol Theatre on January 25th which means it will have only been running for five weeks. This is four weeks earlier than the scheduled close date and has put an end to plans for a national tour. The unexpected decision has come after poor ticket sales, but begs the question: why hasn’t the Disney sensation caught on in Oz?

Co-producers Kevin Jacobsen and Tim McFarlane believe the slump is due to “the current economic situation”, adding that: “The last few months have been a difficult time for all families. It is not surprising that family entertainment, including large-scale musicals such as ours, are experiencing a drop in ticket sales.”

Other industry brains have theorised that it must be the young target audience that is responsible as other big name shows such as Billy Elliot, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Wicked continue to thrive. It’s a kick in the teeth for the young cast who for many, this is their first taste of theatre life and sadly makes HSM another of the many stage casualties of these tough times as nine Broadway shows closed last week alone.

Definitely sad news for Aussie Wild Cats.

[via The Australian]

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Comments (2)

What a shame, the credit crunch sucks :-(

Posted by Bridget_Jones24 on 13 January 2009 at 12.04PM
I don't get the whole high School Musical thing - Twilight is much better!

Posted by Shazee on 14 January 2009 at 12.58PM