‘The Queen of Versailles’ Bombed on Broadway. What Went Wrong?

“The Queen of Versailles,” the biggest-budget production to open on Broadway this fall and the only large-scale new musical, aspired to be a cautionary tale about consumption and greed. Instead, it wound up as a cautionary tale about Broadway.

The show, based on a 2012 documentary about a couple seeking to build America’s largest private home, was unable to hang on even through the normally lucrative holiday stretch, and closed last weekend after a disastrously short run, costing investors millions of dollars, leaving more than 150 people unemployed and adding to a mound of evidence that this is a season of struggle for original musicals.

“Obviously, it’s extremely disappointing,” the show’s composer and lyricist, Stephen Schwartz, whose other works include “Wicked,” “Godspell” and “Pippin,” said in an interview.

At the curtain call on Sunday following the final performance, several cast members were in tears as the audience, which included Jackie Siegel, the woman whose life was depicted onstage, rose to its feet. Kristin Chenoweth, the popular “Wicked” alumna starring as Siegel in the musical, told the crowd she was grateful for the show. “We took a big swing, and we are so proud of where we landed.” But, she added, “This will be a very, very hard one to say goodbye to.”

A Changing Broadway

The costs of producing and running shows on Broadway have been rising, increasing the pressure on producers of struggling shows to stem their losses by closing quickly.

Securities and Exchange Commission filings by “The Queen of Versailles” illustrate the challenge: In the spring of 2023 the producers submitted a document indicating they expected the show to cost between $14 million and $18 million; by the fall of 2024 they had sent in another filing saying they would need up to $22.5 million. And that doesn’t include any loans they later took out to keep it afloat once the run began.