Fame is Fleeing: Martin Short’s Show to Close on January 7

Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me will give its final Broadway performance on Sunday, January 7 at 3pm at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.

At the time of its closing, the show will have played 22 previews and 165 regular performances at the Jacobs, following its pre-Broadway runs at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre, Toronto’s Canon Theatre, and the LaSalle Bank Theatre in Chicago. A 35-week national tour will be launched in 2007; dates and itinerary will be announced shortly.

Conceived by Short and Scott Wittman, the show has a book by Short and Daniel Goldfarb, music by Shaiman, and lyrics by Wittman and Shaiman, with additional material by Alan Zweibel. In addition to Short, the show features Brooks Ashmanskas, Mary Birdsong, Capathia Jenkins, Donna Vivino, and on-stage musical director Marc Shaiman, all of whom play a wide variety of different characters — both real and imagined — who figure in Short’s parallel reality.

The Broadway production has showcased such special guest stars as Jerry Seinfeld, Bette Midler, Steve Martin, Conan O’Brien, Jon Stewart, Ben Stiller, Kathleen Turner, Neil Simon, Nathan Lane, David Hasselhoff, Jimmy Fallon, Regis Philbin, Jerry Springer, Kristin Chenoweth, Bernadette Peters, Rosie O’Donnell, Martha Stewart, and Larry King.

In his TheaterMania review of the production, David Finkle wrote: “It’s unquestionably a revue that the creators are attempting to pass off as Short’s send-up of one-person shows in which the celebrated soloist gleefully waxes autobiographical. Well, Short’s schmoozers may be able to fool some of the people some of the time with the “comedy musical” tag, but they won’t fool mavens who still remember a time when revues were revered.”