ANDRE DE SHIELDS. Photo by Lia Chang Credit: Photo by Lia Chang

Usually after the announcement of a multiple Tony Award-winning Broadway show unexpectedly closing only months after opening, the show’s biggest star isn’t made available to do too much talking.  

But in the case of André De Shields, a theater world titan of six decades who stars as Old Deuteronomy in “Cats: The Jellicle Ball”,  a radical reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s legendary musical, he is not mincing words about how the plug was pulled on the celebrated production.

On July 13, producers revealed that the Bill Rauch and Zhailon Levingston-created revival will play its final performance at New York City’s Broadhurst Theatre August 8. The news sent shockwaves throughout the Broadway community, with many wondering how the critically acclaimed work, centering Black queer identity amid Webber’s fabled feline-focused musical narrative, could meet such a fate.  

Webber, himself, pointed to the financial structures set forth by Broadway theater owners, unions and producers as the cause of the early closing. “Broadway is in dire danger of rivaling Hollywood’s empty soundstages with increasingly dark theatres,” the EGOT-winning theatermaker wrote.

While handling media chores for the big-screen version of “Hadestown, “ considered his most career-defining work, De Shields shared that while saddened by “The Jellicle Ball” shuttering, he’s proud of the trail it blazed.  

After winning raves and wowing sold-out audiences Off-Broadway, the drag ballroom-inspired extravaganza made a splash on The Great White Way, breathing new life into a 40-year-old plus theater relic.

Credit: Bleecker Street Film

“As liberated as we have made Broadway, which used to be inhospitable terrain for Black actors and Black audiences [and] certainly, for queer actors and queer audiences, we have made great strides simply to have brought ballroom into the legacy of theater on Broadway, and to have dropped this joy bomb in the Broadhurst Theater, and to be filling those seats with people who … are finally being seen in one of the bastions of capitalism, in not only a democratic but a diverse, equitable, and inclusive manner is revolutionary,” De Shields told URL Media on Monday.  “And now that we planted the seed, you cannot stop the revolution from being fomented. You can close the show, but we have already cross-pollinated the art form so the people are going to demand more.”

Speaking of more, the 80-year-old self-described “King of Charm City, one of many,” gets the big screen treatment in Brett Sullivan‘s “Hadestown The Musical,” the smash hit Broadway musical based on Ancient Greek mythology.  

Running 141 minutes, the live-captured film  — opening in movie theaters on July 24 — was shot in London during a special limited engagement featuring original cast members (including Reeve Carney, Amber Gray, Eva Noblezada, and Patrick Page) at London’s Lyric Theatre in February 2025.  Three of those performances were filmed before the live audiences.  A few reshoots were done the next day.

“I’ve seen it twice,” De Shields shared about the new movie. “The first time I saw it was at the Tribeca Film Festival, and that was in what one might describe as an art house. It was a small audience, and it was a small screen. But the audience for that screening was as active and as vocal as the large house we filmed it  in.”  

Earlier this month, the thespian caught a screening  at the AMC multiplex amongst a larger audience.  “They were so reverent,” he said. “They leaned forward with their hands in a prayer position, and they listened. And it was astonishing because so many times experiencing film, you have to use your ears, but sometimes it’s not really listenable. The music is so loud, and then when the actors speak, everyone turns into Marlon Brando, and you say, ‘What? What they said?'”

De Shields said this version of “Hadestown” has “such a lovely balance” because “it looks good” and “it sounds good.”  He added that the five principals and the British cast did not have to shout at one another, which proved to be a great gift: “We could speak the dialog. We could have real character relationships, knowing that the film crew would do its part and deliver it to the still unknown audience, but now the audience knows, and the word is spreading. And I hope everyone takes advantage of this opportunity to see some luscious theater at an affordable price.

As Hermes in the acclaimed Rachel Chavkin-helmed production, currently in its seventh year on Broadway, De Shields serves as a grand oracle and narrator of the tragic story about young lovers Orpheus and Eurydice. Written by Anaïs Mitchell, the show-stopping portrayal brought the stage veteran the 2019 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical at the ripe age of 73. 

The Baltimore native made his Broadway debut in the 1975 original production of “The Wiz” in the title role.  He went on to star in “Ain’t Misbehavin'” “Stardust,” “Play On!” and “The Full Monty” on The Great White Way.

“Now, it took a long time for me to find my place in the Broadway theater because I was too mannered, I was too literate to tell the truth, and then when HadesTown came around, there was the demand for griot … [which] translates as black man literacy,” he said.  “So as much as they wanted to avoid me, they had to come over and say, “Hey, Mr. De Shields, we have something for you. I said, “I know it. I’ve known it for many years. Just waiting for you to find out.”

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