Dec. 24 (UPI) — Sara Bareilles’ Waitress has closed on Broadway as the number of COVID-19 cases in New York City rises.
“We are heartbroken to announce that Waitress on Broadway will be closing effective immediately,” the show’s Twitter feed said Wednesday.
The stage adaptation of the late Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 film about high hopes and small-town love played its final performance Dec. 20. It was scheduled to play through Jan. 9.
Deadline.com said the decision to cancel remaining performances was due to positive COVID-19 tests among the cast and crew members.
It featured music and lyrics by Bareilles, who also popped in and occasionally played the title heroine during the musical’s five-year run.
“This is a gut punch of the highest degree. Thank you for everything. This cast. This company. This community. May we all be so lucky. Forever I love you,” Bareilles posted.
Waitress is currently on tour in the United States and United Kingdom.
“Thank you Team @WaitressMusical for so brilliantly re-birthing Adrienne’s story and for the incredible run you achieved with it these past several years. I know she’d have been thrilled… #WaitressMusical #AdrienneShelly,” Shelly’s husband tweeted.
Numerous other Broadway shows have canceled performances in recent weeks because of an uptick in COVID-19 cases, but they are expected to reopen.
Among the productions impacted were The Lion King, Mrs. Doubtfire, Six, Dear Evan Hansen, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Ain’t Too Proud and Hadestown.
Jagged Little Pill and Thoughts of a Colored Man permanently closed, however, due to the coronavirus surge.