STAGE

Producers of the Broadway comedy “Checkmates” said the show will close Jan. 1, only a few weeks after it was revealed that one of the show’s producers is in San Quentin on an attempted murder conviction. The play, a comedy about two married couples in an apartment building, opened Aug. 4 and will have had 177 regular performances and 17 previews when it closes. It stars Ruby Dee, Paul Winfield, Denzel Washington and Marsha Jackson. A production spokesman, Adrian Bryan-Brown, said poor box-office receipts led the show’s two remaining producers to decide to close it. Michael Harris, who with a partner put up half of the $770,000 it cost to take the show to Broadway (from Los Angeles, where it opened), received producer’s billing on posters for the comedy until it was revealed earlier this month that he had been convicted of attempted murder and is serving his sentence in San Quentin.