‘Come From Away’ closes permanently in Toronto | The Canadian News

Come from far away has closed permanently in Toronto.

Mirvish Productions made the announcement. in a sentence posted Monday, citing financial difficulties that have occurred as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The statement said there have been 855 performances of the musical in Toronto, which is his hometown.

His last show was on December 22 at the Royal Alexandra Theater after it had just reopened after a 21-month shutdown due to the pandemic.

On December 23, it was announced that four upcoming performances of Gander’s musical, NL-set were canceled after a positive COVID test among the backstage team.

Mirvish Productions said at the time that the shows would resume on December 28, but now they say the show will not return to Toronto at all.

“During this brief hiatus, it became clear that it would be impossible to continue as this incredibly contagious variant has skyrocketed the number of cases,” said David Mirvish.

“In other parts of the world, the government has stepped forward to support the commercial theater sector by offering a financial safety net for the sector to reopen and play during the pandemic, thus protecting the tens of thousands of good jobs that the commercial theater creates. sector. This is the case in the US, UK and Australia, where the productions of Come from far away keep playing …

“But in Canada there is no such government support. And without such a safety net, it’s impossible for production to take another long hiatus. The costs of reopening a second time are prohibitively high and risky. “

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Mirvish said he knows the news is shocking, but said “we just don’t have a choice.”

More than a million patrons watched the show at the Royal Alexandra Theater from February 2018 until its closing.

“This is not the way any of us wanted this to end,” Mirvish said.

“Come from far away He deserves to have had many more years at the Royal Alex. But the risks, the uncertainty and the financial situation have left us without another realistic result ”.

Ticket holders for canceled performances will be contacted and offered account credits, gift cards or a refund.

The cancellation is just the latest in a wave of closures in Toronto’s theater district. Last week, Mirvish Productions announced that it was pulling the North American premiere of Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt” from its schedule, which had been scheduled for early 2022 at the Princess of Wales Theater.

It followed Ontario’s decision to limit audience capacity in large enclosed spaces, including live theaters and concert halls, to help curb the spread of the highly transmittable Omicron variant.

In announcing the scrapped plans for “Leopoldstadt,” Mirvish had said capacity restrictions and a nonessential travel advisory from the federal government had complicated logistics.

– with files from The Canadian Press