PRIVATE LIVES Cut Short; Show to Close December 31

Private Lives will finish a limited engagement on December 31, 2011 at Broadway's Music Box Theatre (239 West 45th Street) after 12 previews and 53 regular performances.

The production, directed by Richard Eyre, previously played London and Toronto. Starring Kim Cattrall and Paul Gross, the cast is rounded out by Simon Paisley Day, Anna Madeley and Caroline Lena Olsson. The design team is Rob Howell (set and costumes) and David Howe (lighting).

Producer Paul Elliott said, "Despite fantastic reviews, ticket sales have been slower than we had hoped for and it would be irresponsible to continue running into the notoriously difficult January period." The limited engagement had been announced previously to play through February 5.

Noël Coward's Private Lives premiered in London in 1930 and has been produced around the world ever since; it premiered on Broadway in 1931. Glamorous, rich and reckless, Amanda (Cattrall) and Elyot (Gross) have been divorced from each other for five years. Now both are honeymooning with their new spouses in the South of France. When, by chance, they meet again across adjoining hotel balconies, their insatiable feelings for each other are immediately rekindled. They hurl themselves headlong into love and lust without a care for scandal, new partners or memories of what drove them apart in the first place… for a little while, anyway.

Private Lives is produced by Duncan C. Weldon, Paul Elliott, Theatre Royal Bath, Terri and Timothy Childs, Sonia Friedman Productions and David Mirvish.