Elton John’s ‘Tammy Faye’ closed early on Broadway: Does religious musical have a prayer at the Tonys?

This week, Elton John’s “Tammy Faye” musical closed on Broadway after only 24 previews and 29 regular performances. Although the show, about the rise and fall of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, concluded its run on Dec. 8 as the Rocket Man’s worst-performing musical in New York following blockbuster successes “The Lion King,” “Billy Elliot: The Musical,” and “Aida,” “Tammy Faye” is hardly the only original musical with a religious theme to shutter unceremoniously in the past decade-plus. With the notable exception of “The Book of Mormon,” with its nine Tony Awards and 5,000 performances and counting, audiences have been singing from a different hymn sheet than these faith-based offerings.

In 2010, John’s fellow EGOT champion Alan Menken brought a musical adaptation of the Steve Martin film “Leap of Faith” to Broadway with Tony nominee Raúl Esparza as the show’s conman who poses as a pastor to swindle Kansas townspeople. Despite the songwriting power of Menken and collaborator Glenn Slater and stars Esparza and future Tony winners Kecia Lewis (“Hell’s Kitchen”) and Leslie Odom Jr. (“Hamilton”), the show’s revival tent folded after 25 previews and only 19 regular performances.

Just months after “Leap of Faith,” Kathie Lee Gifford’s musical “Scandalous: The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson” about the eponymous, real-life evangelist ran a tad longer than “Tammy Faye,” with 31 previews and 29 regular performance. It starred Carolee Carmello in the title role alongside Broadway legend George Hearn. Charles Isherwood (New York Times) described it at the time as not “so much scandalously bad as it is generic and dull.”

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Then came “Soul Doctor” in 2013 and “Amazing Grace” in 2015, both of which ran longer than “Leap of Faith,” “Scandalous,” and “Tammy Faye” but still departed Broadway after unceremoniously short runs. The former, about the life of the real “singing rabbi” Shlomo Carelbach shuttered after 32 previews and 66 performances. The latter, about slave trader John Newton and how he penned the hymn “Amazing Grace,” closed after and 24 previews and 116 performances, respectively.

If “Tammy Faye” has had a similar trajectory to these short-lived predecessors, then there may be a glimmer of hope for its Tony Awards prospects next spring. “Scandalous,” despite its dearth of performances and December closing date, still managed to score a Tony nomination for Best Actress in a Musical for Carmello. Coincidentally, Carmello also scored a Tony bid for Elton John’s first flop musical, “Lestat,” based on Anne Rice’s vampire novels. That show now clocks in as his second-shortest run, outlasting “Tammy Faye” by nine previews and 10 regular performances.

The “Scandalous” precedent could bode well for “Tammy Faye” leading lady Katie Brayben, who brings emotional nuance to the musical. She especially shines in her two act-ending numbers, “Empty Hands” and “If You Came to See Me Cry,” in which director Rupert Goold wisely has the actress planted dead center downstage to deliver the score’s standout songs. While sour on the musical overall, New York Magazine critic Sara Holdren said that Brayben inhabits the role “with full-throated gusto and a big exposed heart. She’s a charismatic (in multiple senses of the word) center.” It’s worth noting that the actress did win the 2023 Olivier Award for this very performance.

Her obstacle will be an incredibly crowded Best Actress field this Tony season, which includes Sutton Foster (“Once Upon a Mattress”), Nicole Scherzinger (“Sunset Blvd”), Helen J Shen (“Maybe Happy Ending”), Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard (“Death Becomes Her”), Audra McDonald (“Gypsy”), Idina Menzel (“Redwood”), Jasmine Amy Rogers (“Boop! The Betty Boop Musical”), Adrienne Warren (“The Last Five Years”), and performers from “Buena Vista Social Club,” “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends,” and “Real Women Have Curves: The Musical,” depending on category placement determinations.

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“Leap of Faith” also pulled off a Tonys miracle, receiving a coveted nomination for Best Musical in 2012. It had a particularly thin season of musicals to contend with, though, as that year on Broadway saw the infamous opening of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” and flops “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Ghost,” and “Lysistrata Jones,” which left room for “Leap of Faith” to compete against “Once,” Newsies,” and “Nice Work If You Can Get It” — “Once” ended up winning that contest.

This season is probably not open enough for a similar Best Musical bid for “Tammy Faye,” however, with at least 10 other new musicals already scheduled to bow before the Tony nominations cutoff. “A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical,” “Maybe Happy Ending,” “Swept Away,” “Death Becomes Her,” “Redwood,” “Buena Vista Social Club,” “Operation Mincemeat,” “Boop!,” “Just In Time,” and “Real Women Have Curves” will all be vying for those five nomination slots. This competition may also stymie the show in other top categories like Best Original Score (John and Jake Shears), Best Direction (Goold), and Best Book (James Graham). That said, one could envision two-time Tony winner Michael Cerveris garnering some support among Tony nominators for his chilling turn as Jerry Falwell and his standout solo “Satellite of God.”

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