BLUES ALONG THE GREAT WHITE WAY
This Crop of Broadway Shows Is
Finding Dog Days in the Fall

From the NY Times via Eschaton:

All across Broadway, producers, landlords and investors are suffering through one of the bumpiest fall seasons in recent memory, a snake-bit period that has seen one show close in previews ("Bobbi Boland"), another close in rehearsal ("Harmony") and a Stephen Sondheim show ("Bounce") close out of town.

Several other big-name, big-budget efforts, including "Taboo," a $10 million musical produced by Rosie O'Donnell, which opened to less-than-rapturous reviews last week, will face uphill battles to survive, let alone earn back their investments. Still other Broadway productions have been battered by unpredictables like sick stars and dropouts.

All of which means that an industry that has survived Sept. 11, a slump in tourism, a sluggish economy and last spring's musicians' strike is suddenly facing a far more pernicious enemy: a string of clunkers, money-losers and mediocrities.

For their part, industry officials seem to place the blame squarely on those very people whose job it is to place the blame: critics.

"The reviews seem to have been tougher across the board," said Jed Bernstein, president of the League of American Theaters and Producers. "So far the rose petals have been handed out very sparingly, and that's made it very hard on everybody."

I can tell you what's wrong with Broadway. Much like it's twisted sister to the west, Hollywood, big time New York theater is suffering from the same problems that the cinematic blockbuster is causing the film industry. That is, these massive musicals cost too damned much.

Look at it this way. New York theater producers seek massive profits from massive shows, which, hopefully, command premium ticket prices and sales at the box office--that's why producers bleed cash while creating their star-studded extravaganzas. These huge investments, which are now fairly common for most Broadway shows, mean a bigger financial risk for producers. This, in turn, creates a desire to lessen that risk in other ways, chiefly at an artistic level. Reducing artistic risk means blander theater. Blander theater eventually results in lower ticket sales (and harsher reviews, for that matter). New York producers should concentrate on creating good, solid theater, rather than the elephantine craptaculars that they love so much now.

It's all so obvious. Sigh.

Click here.

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