Disney to close ‘Mermaid’ by fall

Producers of The Little Mermaid have announced the show will close on Broadway next month and then go on a national tour in fall of 2010.

Thomas Schumacher, the producer and president of Disney Theatrical Productions, announced in a press release June 30 the musical will remain at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre through Aug. 30. The stage version of the animated film added several songs to the Alan Menken/Howard Ashman score, with music by Menken and lyrics by Glenn Slater.

It will have run 685 performances, in addition to 50 previews, by the time it closes, Playbill.com reported.

Talk in the theater community places the new musical, The Addams Family, in the Lunt-Fontanne beginning in early 2010, but that has not been confirmed. The Beaux-Arts Lunt-Fontaine is the last surviving Broadway theater designed by the architectural firm of Carrere and Hastings. It seats 1,475.

Schumacher said the company hesitates to keep such a big, expensive show as The Little Mermaid open through the traditionally slower fall months.