'Waitress' Is Broadway's Next Omicron Casualty, Announces Immediate Closing

More bad news for Broadway.

The musical Waitress, featuring music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles, has announced an abrupt closing notice amid the surge of the Omicron variant in New York City.

This is the second show to announce an abrupt closing due to the variant.

“We are heartbroken to announce that Waitress on Broadway will be closing effective immediately,” the show’s social media team announced on Thursday evening (December 23) in a series of tweets.

Click inside to check out the rest of the statement…

The statement continued, “With only two weeks of performances remaining and due to positive cases of COVID detected in the company and crew at the Barrymore Theatre, the decision has been made to curtail the engagement which was scheduled to run through January 9.”

“This is not how we wanted to finish our run but are so grateful to every fan and theater-lover who visited the Diner these past few months. Ticket holders will be contacted and refunded by their point of purchase. Thanks for taking us to the moon!” the statement concluded.

Waitress was starring Ciara Renee and Joshua Henry at the time of closing. This is unfortunately Ciara‘s second time having a Broadway run cut short by the pandemic. She had just joined the cast of Disney’s Frozen the Musical weeks before the pandemic began in early 2020 and that show did not return.