The show must go on: musical theatre cancellations lead to industry calls for urgent government help

Rob Mills and Natalie Bassingthwaighte in Waitress. Just days after Waitress was cancelled, Beetlejuice announced it would end its Brisbane run three weeks early and cancel its tour to Perth, Adelaide and Sydney. Photograph: Jeff Busby View image in fullscreen Rob Mills and Natalie Bassingthwaighte in Waitress. Just days after Waitress was cancelled, Beetlejuice announced it would end its Brisbane run three weeks early and cancel its tour to Perth, Adelaide and Sydney. Photograph: Jeff Busby The show must go on: musical theatre cancellations lead to industry calls for urgent government help In the space of a week, two major musicals, Waitress and Beetlejuice, and a $20m opera were forced to cancel shows amid skyrocketing costs, putting hundreds out of work Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Australia’s theatre industry is in desperate need of tax reform to keep it alive, experts have warned the federal government, after two major touring musicals and a $20m opera cancelled shows in the space of a week, citing skyrocketing costs and soft box office sales. Broadway musical Waitress , starring Rob Mills and Natalie Bassingthwaighte, announced on Sunday that it would end in Melbourne on 19 July, and will not tour to Sydney in August as planned. And Beetlejuice , which was written by Australian performer Eddie Perfect and has been staged on Broadway and the West End, announced on 20 June that it would cancel its Australian tour and end in Brisbane three weeks early. The show was originally set to go to Perth for three weeks, Adelaide for two and Sydney for seven. Both productions cited multiple factors including rising production costs, the costs of touring, cost-of-living pressures such as interest rate rises that were affecting sales, and lower consumer confidence changing ticket-buying behaviour. View image in fullscreen Eddie Perfect as Betelgeuse in Beetlejuice: The Musical. Photograph: Michelle Grace Hunder Crossroads Live Australia chief executive John Frost, who produced Waitress, said in a statement that “whilst audience enthusiasm for our work remained strong, attendance levels and box office have not been sufficient to support the cost of the production”. Beetlejuice’s production company, Michael Cassel Group, said in a statement that “for a production of this scale, the current logistical realities of touring across vast distances between Australian cities have created increasing cost pressures that ultimately made continuing the run unsustainable. “While audience enthusiasm for the show has been encouraging, a more cautious consumer environment combined with the economics of moving a production of this magnitude could not be justified. It is a difficult decision, and not one we made lightly,” the statement read. Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads And on Friday, blockbuster Italian opera Aida announced it would no longer come to Adelaide in February 2027 despite selling 17,000 tickets, due to the