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The profile · researched 15 October 2026
Nineteen years of soap, one cancelled closing and a last Christmas at New World Stages
Fan Yang's bubble act was booked into an Off-Broadway basement in 2007 for a handful of performances and never left. It was due to shut in September 2026; a demand surge pushed the final date to 18 January 2027, and the run will end in a holiday edition.
Nine performances, then nineteen years
Castle Talent brought the Gazillion Bubble Show into New World Stages on 15 February 2007 on a booking nobody expected to outlive the summer. The producers described it as a nine-performance test engagement; the original listing ran only to 2 September that year, with the stage dark for a fortnight at the end of March. The extensions began almost at once and then stopped being news. By the time a closing was announced in June 2026, the production had given 6,802 performances to more than a million people at the West 50th Street complex.
The form helped. The show needs no translation, no orchestra and no returning cast of principals beyond one family, and it sells into a tourist market that renews itself weekly. When the closing notice went out, the New York press filed it alongside Stomp, Blue Man Group and Sleep No More as another wordless, open-ended attraction coming off the board.
The man with the soap recipe
Fan Yang was born in Haiphong in 1962, to a Hungarian father and a Vietnamese mother, and is now a Canadian citizen. The act came out of chemistry rather than clowning: he developed his own solution formulas and his own pipes, wands and rigs, and by 1997 had a mixture stable enough to draw a bubble 156 feet long.
The record attempts followed. Guinness recognised him for the largest spherical soap bubble in Berlin in 1992 and for twelve concentric bubble domes in Helsinki in 2001. In May 2006 he enclosed 22 people in a single bubble on live television in Madrid, and in 2008 he put 100 inside one on The Oprah Winfrey Show. He arrived in New York with twelve records to his name; the family's tally is now given as eighteen. Television — Oprah, Ellen, Today, Letterman — did most of the show's advertising for two decades.
A family on the payroll
The billing says Fan Yang, but the stage has been shared for years. His wife Ana has taken performances in his absence, and their children Deni and Melody, along with his brother Jano, all work the show. A reviewer who attended on 11 March 2026 saw Deni carry the full hour alone, with Jano handing out miniature wands to the audience before the lights went down.
That depth is what makes the announced touring plan plausible. When the producers said in June 2026 that a national and international tour would follow New York, with dates to be confirmed, they were describing a company that can field more than one bubble artist at a time — the constraint that has always limited this kind of act.
The closing that moved
On 16 June 2026 the production said it would play its final New York performance on 7 September, after nineteen years. Fan Yang's statement at the time ran: "For 19 years, New York has dreamed in bubbles." The summer was rebranded the Summer of Bubbles, with commemorative events through the final weeks.
It did not close. On 11 August 2026 the trades reported that ticket demand after the closing notice had pushed the final performance back to 18 January 2027. Yang said the company had been overwhelmed by the response. The extension was framed as a chance to mark a twentieth anniversary, although the new closing date falls four weeks short of twenty years from the February 2007 opening.
The winter version
From 14 November 2026 the regular show gives way to Gazillion Bubble Show: A Holiday Spectacular, running at New World Stages through to the closing date of 18 January 2027. The seasonal edition keeps the bubble work, lasers and audience participation intact and layers on holiday music, winter effects and a photograph with Santa inside a giant bubble. In the opening week the Saturday schedule adds a third performance at 4.30pm alongside the usual 11am and 2pm, with Sundays at midday and 3pm.
The practical consequence is that the last Gazillion Bubble Show in New York will be a Christmas show. The winter edition first appeared in November 2025; the 2026 version is the one that closes the tenancy.
What audiences report
Verified ticket-buyer ratings on Broadway.com average 4.3 from a small sample, with 61 per cent at five stars and six per cent at one. The praise is consistent on one point — the reaction of children in the first few rows — and so is the main complaint. Seating position changes the experience sharply, because the interactive work and most of the bubbles reach only the front of the house; from the back, several reviewers describe watching rather than taking part.
Critical notices are warmer than mixed. A four-star review in March 2026 called it a combination of theatrics and science for all ages, while objecting that the laser sequence sits oddly against the rest of the material. A recurring note from August 2026 audiences is pacing: one reviewer reckoned twenty minutes of genuinely strong content, another said that any longer and the repetition would show. The company now also programmes Sensory Saturday performances with dimmed lighting, softer lasers, reduced volume and fewer bubbles sent into the audience.
The show, now
The performance runs about an hour at New World Stages, in a small underground auditorium with a screen on either side of the stage; the house listing adds an interval, while a March 2026 attendee recorded roughly sixty minutes straight through. There is no support act. Jano Yang hands out miniature wands before the start, and a photograph inside a bubble is sold pre-show for around $20. The structure is segmented, each block introduced by a short film about bubble science or the value of play, then executed live: giant bubbles drawn from glass pipes two to four inches across, hundreds of small bubbles blown inside them, smoke-filled and stacked spheres, bubbles separated out over the audience, and tunnels wide enough to enclose a standing adult. Children are brought up throughout, usually one at a time and usually sealed inside a bubble. A laser sequence provides the mid-show change of texture — the one element reviewers regularly say does not belong — and the finale fills the room with haze and bubbles. From 14 November 2026 the winter edition adds seasonal music and a Santa photograph inside a giant bubble. Performances are Fridays at 7pm, Saturdays at 11am and 2pm and Sundays at midday and 3pm, with extra 4.30pm Saturdays in the holiday opening week and periodic Sensory Saturday performances at reduced light and volume. The repeated audience advice is to sit near the front: the interactive material does not reach the back rows.
Researched from broadwayworld.com · theatermania.com · playbill.com · timeout.com · gazillionbubbleshow.com · gazillionbubbleshow.com · broadwayworld.com · en.wikipedia.org
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