STING'S 'THE LAST SHIP' TO CLOSE ON BROADWAY

The struggling musical charts its final voyage after 105 performances at New York's Neil Simon Theatre

Walter McBride/Getty

Sting with Aaron Lazar, Rachel Tucker and the cast in his first performance curtain call for 'The Last Ship' at the Neil Simon Theatre in New York City on December 9th, 2014.

BY DANIEL KREPS | January 6, 2015

Sting's musical The Last Ship has set January 24th as its farewell voyage. After 105 performances and 29 previews, the Broadway show – based on the musician's autobiographical album of the same name – will end its run at New York's Neil Simon Theatre. The Last Ship had opened on Broadway on October 26th, 2014, and while the musical earned glowing reviews during its Chicago tryout last summer, the show struggled to pack houses on the Great White Way.

"We have been bewildered and saddened by our inability to sustain an audience for this musical that we deeply love. There are no easy explanations," producers Jeffrey Seller and Kathryn Schenker wrote in an email to its cast and crew Monday, the New York Times reports. The production cost $15 million just to bring to Broadway, plus another $625,000 a week in running fees. The Times notes that producers and investors were losing about $75,000 a week keeping the musical afloat.

The show's box office grosses had nearly doubled last month as Sting himself was enlisted to perform in The Last Ship, taking the supporting role of a shipyard foreman in the musical. Sting based the show on his childhood growing up in the shipbuilding stronghold of Wallsend, England. Producers called the Kennedy Center honoree's efforts to keep The Last Ship at sea "herculean," but the show still wasn't selling out on a nightly basis. It eventually became apparent that the musical could not survive the notoriously slow post-holiday months of February and March.

While The Last Ship's run on Broadway is ending, producers are optimistic that, as they said in an e-mail, "our ability to persevere has helped ensure a viable future for the show in licensing."

JAY Z: 'IT'S DIFFICULT TO TEACH RACISM WHEN YOUR KID LOOKS UP TO SNOOP DOGG'

'The Blueprint' rapper talks about the civil rights movement and hip-hop's cultural impact for Oprah Winfrey's 'Master Class'

By Daniel Kreps | January 6, 2015

Oprah Winfrey's Emmy-nominated Master Class series spotlights dozens of iconic African-American writers, actors, musicians and more discussing the civil rights movement. In the latest episode, Jay Z talks about the role hip-hop music has played in diluting racial tensions in America. "Racism is taught in the home. I truly believe that racism is taught when you're young," Jay Z says. "So it's very difficult to teach racism when your kid looks up to Snoop Doggy Dogg."

"I have a very interesting take on the cultural impact of hip hop and it's a strong one, so I just want to prepare people at home," the rapper adds. "I think that hip hop has done more for cultural relations than most cultural icons. And I say save Martin Luther King because his 'Dream' speech we realized and President Obama got elected, but the impact of the music, this music didn't only influence kids from urban areas; it influenced people around the world. People listen to this music all around the world and took to this music."

Nearly a half-century after segregation was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, Jay Z argues that a nightclub encapsulates how the civil rights movement was victorious. "If you look at clubs and how integrated they have become – before people partied in separate clubs, there were hip-hop clubs and techno clubs – and now people party together," the Roc Nation mogul says. "Once you have people partying, dancing, singing along to the same music, conversation naturally happen after that, and within conversation we all realize we're more alike than we're separate."

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Nature and Scope of the Abuses	\|	President Barack Obama spoke for more than an hour about immigration at a Nashville community center today. His visit drew hundreds of protesters and people to cheer his arrival.

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