Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen is closing early. The Off-Broadway production announced Tuesday that it will play its final performance on Sunday, November 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the Night Egg at the Culture Club in New York, seven weeks ahead of its planned January 3 closing date. When the curtain falls Sunday night, the show will have played 18 preview performances and 35 regular performances since performances began on September 25.
At the center of the production is Sophia Anne Caruso as Colette, the young writer in Belle Époque Paris whose life at the Night Egg becomes the story she tells. Caruso has been with the show since 2022, and her performance turned into its headline: when it opened on October 15, the first reviews compared her to Edith Piaf, and audiences had been singling her out since previews began. It has been a full fall for her, with her debut album, On Ecstatic, arriving September 18, one week before the first preview. Her Instagram bio now gives the run its simplest billing: the show plays “until this Sunday.”
The closing also brings down the curtain on the final musical of Duncan Sheik. The Tony and Grammy-winning composer of Spring Awakening died on September 17 at 56, eight days before the first preview, and the company carried his last score through previews and opening night in his memory. With a book by Leah Nanako Winkler drawn from Moyoco Anno’s manga, and direction and choreography by Rob Ashford, Memoirs is the first manga ever adapted into an English-language American musical.
“The extraordinary response from audiences has been a tremendous gift to all of us involved in bringing Memoirs to life,” lead producer Kenny Kurokawa said in a statement, adding that the company is proud of what it created and grateful to the artists, collaborators and audiences who embraced the production. “We look forward to exploring new opportunities to share Memoirs with audiences in the future, and to celebrating the legacy of Duncan Sheik’s final work.”
Caruso has been thinking about how the show will be remembered. In Playbill’s account of how the company finished the musical after Sheik’s death, published this week, she said the material excited her in a way so much new work does not: “I’m often disappointed that people don’t take many risks. And a lot of that risk-taking art and theatre isn’t recognized in its time. And I do feel like Memoirs is one of those things.” She also hopes the score gets a cast recording, and Ashford says the producers are talking about it.
Trevor Decker News readers have followed this production from Caruso’s casting announcement in August through its opening night, and there are only a few chances left to see it. The final performance is Sunday, November 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the Night Egg at the Culture Club, 530 W. 27th Street in New York. Tickets for the remaining performances are available at MemoirsMusical.com.