Telly Leung (center) and the cast of ‘Allegiance’ (photo: Matthew Murphy via The Broadway Blog.)
It’s the end of the road for Allegiance, the new musical inspired by George Takei’s experience in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. The production will play its final performance on Broadway on Sunday, February 14, 2016. Performances began at the Longacre Theatre (220 West 48th Street) on October 6, 2015 and the production officially opened on November 8, 2015. At the time of its closing it will have played 37 previews and 113 regular performances. Producers also announced a national tour and international productions are in the works. Allegiance had its world premiere in a record-breaking engagement at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego in 2012.
In a statement, producers for Allegiance said: “Bringing Allegiance to Broadway was not only a labor of love for our entire creative team and this company of extraordinary artists, but it was also a work with deep commitment to social relevance and impact. We are so proud to have brought George Takei’s very personal family history to the stage and – in the process – to have surfaced a chapter of history that was painfully unknown to so many.”
“By its last performance Allegiance will have been seen on Broadway by approximately 120,000 people, a number that eerily echoes the number of Japanese Americans who were directly impacted by the events that inspired our musical, and whose rights were trampled in the name of pure fear and intolerance. We look forward to continuing to share this essential story — more relevant than ever, given today’s headlines — and this moving score with theatergoers across the country and around the world for many years to come. Audiences who have experienced Allegiance on Broadway have left the theater transformed, uplifted, enlightened, inspired, informed, and entertained. We remain committed to finding more ways in which the true impact of Allegiance will continue.”
It was also recently announced that Allegiance has been preserved with a Broadway cast recording produced by Lynne Shankel & Joel Moss and distributed by Broadway Records / Yellow Sound. The album is scheduled to be released worldwide on February 5, 2016, and is available for presale at BroadwayRecords.com.
Click here to read our review of Allegiance and take a sneak peek below…