Andrew Lloyd Webber issues warning about the state of Broadway following Cats closure announcement

Andrew Lloyd Webber has published a lengthy and in-depth warning about the future of Broadway.

The move comes as the hit revival of the composer’s musical Cats, dubbed The Jellicle Ball, announces it will be closing in under a month’s time, having previously extended its season to January 2027. The closure comes months after the show picked up two Tony Awards for its New York run.

Lloyd Webber states that “bringing almost any new show to Broadway makes little financial sense”, given Cats’ short spell. The declaration comes months after it was confirmed that Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita, starring Rachel Zegler, will open on Broadway early next year.

He compares the situation to Hollywood, where “empty soundstages” would mimic “increasingly dark theatres where bold new work once lived.”

In light of the situation, Lloyd Webber stated that “what is happening in front of everyone who cares about it now breaks my heart.”

You can read the statement in full below:

Ever since I was a child, I’ve wanted to write musicals. Although I’m British, Broadway was what musicals meant to me. To a boy growing up in Britain, Broadway was a distant, thrilling place where the greatest musical theatre in the world was born. The first of my musicals to be fully staged was Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway in 1971; I will never forget that. Decades later, I chose to premiere School of Rock on Broadway, as The Great White Way has always had a special place in my heart.

In short, I love Broadway. That is why what is happening in front of everyone who cares about it now breaks my heart. One of the last things the great Hal Prince said to me was that it broke his heart to see what Broadway was becoming. Hal believed it had become almost impossible for genuinely new, daring work to originate on Broadway, and I fear he was right.

The painful truth is that, with things as they are, bringing almost any new show to Broadway makes little financial sense. The costs are immense; creators, writers and directors are often forced to accept minimal royalties simply to get work staged. Many now survive on a fixed weekly fee rather than sharing properly in the success of the work they helped to create. How can the next generation build a life in theatre under those conditions? Young creatives cannot live on goodwill alone.

The situation is scarcely better for investors, as many count themselves fortunate if they recover even part of their money. Without investors willing to take risks, and artists able to make a living, where will Broadway’s next generation of shows come from? Of course, Broadway’s established hits remain profitable, but Broadway cannot survive creatively or commercially on three old shows. New and daring work must have a future—whether on Broadway itself or in new forms such as Masquerade, now nearing a year in New York.

I am still as in love with Broadway as I was as a teenager, and I want future generations to experience that same sense of possibility. Theatre owners, unions and producers must come together urgently, as every part of the industry has a stake in finding a solution. Without action, Broadway risks rivalling Hollywood’s empty soundstages: increasingly dark theatres where bold new work once lived.

Broadway is more than a street or a collection of buildings; it is an idea—and one of the greatest cultural ideas America has given us. That idea is now in dire danger. I beg everyone with the power to protect it: come together before it is too late.