Twice-failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton just got some bad news about her feminist Broadway musical, Suffs. It totally bombed at the box office. The play did so poorly that it has already announced its closing date after failing to produce a profit after six months worth of shows. Clinton was one of the main producers of the show. Normally, I don’t celebrate the failures of others, but Clinton was attempting to use this musical, which is a three hour show concerning the suffragette movement featuring a cast made up of women and “non-binary” performers, as propaganda for the feminist agenda. Therefore, it’s failure makes me supremely happy.
Shockingly, the musical, according to Breitbart, cost $19 million to produce. The cash poured into the project has not been recouped, leading to ticket revenue failing to provide the funding necessary to meet the weekly cost of operations. Last Friday, producers stated that Suffs would be closing down performances on January 5, which is only eight months after it’s first showing on April 18, 2024.
Clinton aggressively promoted Suffs ahead of its highly touted opening in April, appearing on late-night talk shows and even holding a Democratic fundraiser tied to the show. But her efforts, as well as reams of favorable coverage by the media, failed to juice ticket sales. As Breitbart News reported, the musical showed signs of struggle early in its run, with attendance dipping as low as 78 percent in May, just a month after opening — a troubling sign for a show that was in the midst of prime Broadway season. The numbers improved somewhat during the summer but have come down with the end of tourist season. For the most recent week that ended October 6, it played at just under 78 percent capacity, grossing $679,589.
The economics of Broadway are brutal for new musicals that don’t come with a celebrity cast or Disney imprimatur. The vast majority of Broadway ticket buyers are tourists whose tastes in theater tend toward crowd-pleasing family fare. In addition, soaring costs due to inflation under the Kamala Harris and Joe Biden administration have hammered numerous shows, including the long-running The Phantom of the Opera, which shut its doors last year after more than three decades on Broadway.
Producers, who seem to be refusing to give up on the project altogether, revealed that they are planning to take Suffs out on tour across the country next her, kicking things off in Seattle, Washington. If this play didn’t do well on Broadway, what makes them think it will fair any better on stages all over the U.S.? This doesn’t seem like a great idea. Oh well.