[title]
Me-ouch. One of Broadway’s biggest artistic triumphs of the season is preparing to take its final bow much sooner than anyone expected.
The producers of Cats: The Jellicle Ball announced on Monday that the acclaimed revival will close at the Broadhurst Theatre on Saturday, August 8, ending its Broadway run just four months after officially opening on April 7. The production earned widespread critical acclaim and won three Tony Awards for Best Choreography, Best Direction of a Musical and Best Costume Design of a Musical, but its commercial run will conclude after 123 performances.
RECOMMENDED: Paris is purring in Cats: The Jellicle Ball
Directors Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch transformed Andrew Lloyd Webber’s famously feline musical into a celebration of New York City’s ballroom culture, replacing the junkyard with a dazzling runway-inspired competition filled with voguing, house music influences and fierce fashion. The production originated at the Perelman Performing Arts Center in 2024 before transferring to Broadway this spring, where it quickly became one of the season’s most talked-about shows.
Despite glowing reviews and a devoted fan base, the revival struggled to maintain the kind of box office numbers needed to sustain a large-scale Broadway musical. According to reports, weekly grosses had declined significantly in recent weeks, prompting producers to announce the early closing despite extending ticket sales into 2027 just weeks ago.
The good news for theater lovers is that the production won’t disappear entirely. Before closing, The Jellicle Ball will be filmed by the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, preserving the production for future researchers and theater artists.
For anyone who’s been waiting to see what all the fuss is about, this is your last chance. The production became one of the rare Broadway revivals that managed to reinvent a beloved musical rather than simply reproduce it, proving that Webber’s much-maligned cats could thrive in a wholly New York setting. Its blend of Broadway spectacle and ballroom culture made it unlike anything else currently on the Great White Way.
Tickets for the show’s final weeks are on sale now, and if Broadway history is any indication, those last performances are unlikely to stay available for long.