Broadway Audiences Shun West End Hit Play Enron

Enron, one of the most celebrated new British plays of the past year, has posted closing notices on Broadway for less than a fortnight after opening to mixed reviews at New York’s Broadhurst Theatre. The American cast were told yesterday, the same day that the production received four nominations in this year’s Tony Awards.

Following sell-out success in the UK – first at Chichester, then the Royal Court and now at the West End’s Noel Coward Theatre, where it continues an extended eight-month season on 14 August 2010 before returning to Chichester and launching a regional tour – Lucy Prebble’s corporate fraud drama opened on Broadway last Tuesday 27 April 2010 (previews from 8 April) and will now finish there this Sunday 9 May.

Described as an “epic tragedy”, Enron is inspired by the real events surrounding the Texas-headquartered energy company that filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

In the UK, Enron went head-to-head with 2009’s other blockbuster Jerusalem for all of the Best New Play awards and, though it failed to win any, it did net Rupert Goold, artistic director of Headlong, the company which commissioned the piece, Best Director gongs at the Evening Standard, Critics’ Circle and Laurence Olivier Awards in addition to myriad other accolades.

Notably, in yesterday’s Tony shortlists, Enron did not make it into the Best Play running, but was instead nominated in the categories for sound, lighting, score and featured actor.