“Tammy Faye” has fallen harder than, well, Tammy Faye.
Elton John’s dreadful new Broadway musical about 1970s and ‘80s televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker posted its closing notice Tuesday — just five days after it opened at the Palace Theatre.
“Tammy Faye” was reportedly capitalized at $25 million, and will lose every penny.
When the show shutters Dec. 8, it will have played 24 previews and a scant 29 regular performances.
John knows his way around a flop. But even his 2006 vampire debacle “Lestat,” which The Post’s Clive Barnes declared as “bloody awful,” ran a little longer — 33 previews and 33 performances.
Although Broadway is an increasingly harsh business, it’s become rare for underperforming shows to bite the dust so fast. The last musical on the Great White Way to have such a short run was 2022’s “KPOP,” which lasted just 17 performances beyond opening night.
With music by John, lyrics by Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters and a book by James Graham (“Ink”), “Tammy Faye” stars Katie Brayben as the title TV talker, Christian Borle as her husband Jim Bakker and Michael Cerveris as Jerry Falwell.
In a one-star review last Thursday, I called the musical “amateurish with lots of dead air and little focus.”
The review added, “Go in cold, and you’ll leave with no idea about how famous Jim and Tammy were or why you’ve just sat through a musical about them.”
“Tammy Faye” began in 2022 at London’s smaller Almeida Theatre, which seats just 350, some 1,300 fewer chairs than the Palace.
Reviews in Britain were more chipper than those stateside, although I gave the UK production 1.5 stars at the time and said it was “an unsatisfying surface-level examination of an icon.”
“Tammy Faye” was nominated at the Olivier Awards — London’s Tonys — for best musical and best actor in a musical (Andrew Rannells).
And Brayben won best actress in a musical while Zubin Varla, who does not appear in the New York production, took home best supporting actor for playing Falwell.
John, who is responsible for the hits “The Lion King” and “Billy Elliot,” is not finished with musical theater.
His “Devil Wears Prada,” starring Vanessa Williams, musical is about to open in London after a dismally received Chicago run two years ago.
In a one-star review, The Post called “Prada” “a dud about duds” and “a haute mess.”
article credit
