The Avett Brothers’ Broadway Musical ‘Swept Away’ to Close

The Avett Brothers’ Broadway musical Swept Away will close on December 15, less than a month after the show opened at the Longacre Theatre.

The musical, set in 1888 but featuring songs from the band’s 2004 album Mignonette, follows four sailors, including two brothers, who are struck by a violent storm that tanks their ship near the coast of New Bedford, Massachusetts. 

The Michael Mayer-directed production drew inspiration from an 1884 shipwreck of the British yacht Mignonette (also the title of the Avett Brothers’ album), where its surviving crew — deprived of food and water — resorted to cannibalism.

After a few weeks of previews, Swept Away officially opened on November 19, with the Avett Brothers making a surprise appearance onstage during the encore. However, less than a month later, the show will close after just over 30 performances, producers announced Friday. Deadline cited tepid box office — the show sold just 61 percent of the theater’s capacity on average — as the cause of the closure.

“We are deeply proud of this beautiful production and the years of work that it took to get to Broadway,” the producers said in a statement. “We will forever be indebted to our fantastic creative team, our loyal actors and all of our co-producers and in turn their investors, for believing in this production and taking a risk on new work.”

Swept Away is the second Broadway musical this season to fall victim to an early closure: Elton John and Jake Shears’ Tammy Faye will close Friday after less than a month’s worth of performances.