Theater News

It Was a Ball, It Was a Blast: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels to Close September 3

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels will end its Broadway run at the Imperial Theatre on Sunday, September 3. At the time of its closing, it will have played 36 previews and 666 regular performances.

Based on the 1988 MGM film of the same title, DRS won the 2005 Drama League Award for Best Musical and was nominated for 11 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Directed by Jack O’Brien and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, the show has a book by Jeffrey Lane and music and lyrics by David Yazbek.

The production currently stars Keith Carradine, Brian d’Arcy James, Lucie Arnaz, Richard Kind, and Sherie Rene Scott. The original cast was headed by John Lithgow, Norbert Leo Butz (who won a Tony Award for his performance), Scott, Gregory Jbara, and Joanna Gleason.

In his review of the show for TheaterMania, David Finkle wrote: “No need for tuner fans to pinch themselves; the unbelievable is actually occurring. This season, the word ‘comedy’ is being emphatically and joyfully reinserted into the phrase ‘musical comedy.’ First, there was The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, followed quickly by Altar Boyz. Now we have Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, spoof-positive that the formula refined in the 1940s and ’50s for a certain brand of musical still works — if the right people are working it.”

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Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Closed: September 3, 2006