Today's announcement that The Lord Of The Rings musical will close Sept. 3 is not the end of the commerical theatre world as we know it.

Toronto theatre is not dead. The sky is not falling. And despite producer Kevin Wallace's claims to the contrary, my peers and I did not kill Frodo. Further, if our diverse opinions could have killed him, then perhaps he deserved to die.

Going into this, we all knew -- though perhaps too many chose to overlook it -- that only one in eight musicals succeeds at the box office.

That fact made this attempt to bring J. R. R. Tolkien's trilogy to the stage not just the most expensive piece of musical theatre ever mounted, but the biggest theatrical gamble ever taken as well.

Theatrically speaking, we put all our money on one horse and it threw a shoe.

For more of John Colbourn's column, including some ideas on what should happen next in T.O. theatre, read Thursday's Toronto Sun or jam.canoe.ca