Beatles tribute will end Broadway run months early

The insatiable appetite for all things Beatles-related has driven up prices for memorabilia, kept bookshelves well-stocked and kept the group's record label busy with compilations, reissues and remastered versions of classic discs and films. But the appetite for Beatles tribute shows on Broadway is not so strong, apparently.

“Let It Be” at the St. James Theatre.

"Let It Be," a concert show in which musicians dressed as the Beatles trace the group's history and recreate its top songs, has been a hit in London since it opened at the end of 2012. But its New York producers announced on Monday that instead of running through December 29, as for the show would close on Sept. 1.

They said in a statement that summer ticket sales at the St. James Theatre, where the show opened on July 24, "proved to be more challenging than expected."

The show has also become the subject of a lawsuit, filed by the producers of "Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles on Broadway," which ran from the fall of 2010 through the summer of 2011."Rain's" producers, noting that all but three of the songs in "Let It Be" were also included in their show, and noting other similarities between the two presentations - which both owe something to the late-1970s Broadway show "Beatlemania" - sought half the revenues of "Let It Be."

The producers of "Let It Be" said that it had played to more than 50,000 viewers on Broadway and had taken in between $2 million and $2.4 million. The British version, which is booked at the Savoy Theatre in London through January 2014, has so far played to 250,000 people and grossed more than $14 million.

"Let It Be" apparently will have a future, however. The producers plan to use the cast and elements of the physical production in a touring version that will travel through North America during the 2014-15 season. Additional plans include stops in Russia, Japan and Monaco.

- New York Times