Blue Man Group will close in January

Blue Man Group, the long-running show that has played in Chicago for decades, will perform its final performance at the Briar Street Theater on January 5, 2025.

According to an announcement Friday, tickets for the final shows are now available at Blueman.com.

Blue Man Group, the name of the performance company and show, first opened in October 1997 on Briar Street in the Lakeview neighborhood. The show, previously known as “Tubes,” had begun on the outskirts of New York-Broadway in 1991.

In the show, a trio of wordless, bald, blue-skinned artists transform all manner of tubes, drums, and other devices into percussion instruments and perform breathtaking stunts using marshmallows, paint, and Cap’n Crunch cereal. The show’s content changed regularly over the years, but some elements remained constant: expressive eyes replaced wordlessness, drumming, a certain anarchist streak and a sense of humor directed both at themselves and at the audience.

In addition to New York and Chicago, there were commercial productions in Boston, Las Vegas and elsewhere. In 2017, Blue Man Group Productions was acquired by Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil to expand to new locations such as China.

The Chicago show, like all theaters, was closed for a time due to the pandemic and reopened in August 2021. After January, other casts will continue in Boston and Las Vegas, with a new production planned for Orlando in April 2025.

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Originally published: November 22, 2024 at 2:02 pm CST