London's Bat Boy to Close a Month Earlier Than Expected

The West End production of Bat Boy, starring Deven May, will end its run at the Shaftesbury Theatre a month earlier than previously expected. The musical will now shutter on January 15.

Bat Boy: The Musical, which features music and lyrics by Laurence O'Keefe and a book by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming, tells the story of a half boy/half bat creature that is discovered in a cave and changes the lives of the townspeople who grow to love him.

Bat Boy premiered in Los Angeles in 1997 with May in the title role. After a string of New York readings, the show opened at off-Broadway's Union Square Theatre to mostly positive reviews on March 21, 2001. Despite favorable buzz, the tuner struggled at the box office, went on hiatus from September 23 to October 18 and eventually closed on December 2, 2001.

The show opened in the U.K., in a new production directed by Mark Wing-Davey, at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. It ran there from June 21 through July 17 before transferring to the Shaftesbury, where performances began August 18 and received mostly negative reviews. May is the only American cast member reprising his role. He stars alongside Emma Williams Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as Shelley Parker, Rebecca Vere as Meredith Parker and John Barr as Dr. Parker.

As previously reported, the next tenant at the Shaftesbury Theatre will be The Far Pavilions.