off-stage right

At one point in early April I made a joke to my husband that the critics were only writing rave reviews – because if shows sold tickets,  producers would buy ads and therefore critics would keep their jobs.  I didn’t really think there was a conspiracy–mostly because I think critics are smart enough to know that writing good reviews for every show wouldn’t save arts journalism (but that’s another post), so could the answer be that there were a bunch of really great shows opening around New York City? 

There were certainly more than enough shows opening.  Off-Broadway the non-profit theaters were at the height of their seasons and even commercial off-Broadway was showing some life with the new multi-plex theaters seeming to be almost full for the first time in a while.   The double digit closings on Broadway in January and early February opened up a lot of theaters.  Most of the closings were limited runs or long-running shows except for the wonderful Dividing the Estate which should have been allowed to stay at the Booth longer (everyone buy tickets to see it at Hartford Stage – go buy now – come back and finish reading the post after getting your tickets), but each closing announcement was quickly followed by an opening announcement.   Theater owners seemed determined to keep their spaces filled.   Producers seemed to scale back shows a bit or resorted to producing PLAYS (hooray!) to keep costs down.  It certainly wasn’t the rush on theaters that the late 90’s and early part of this decade provided but the theaters certainly weren’t going dark. 

And then it happened…review after review: Ruined, Exit the King, God of Carnage, Our Town, Hair, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Mary Stuart, Next to Normal, The Norman Conquests (all three), Rock of Ages, Reasons to be Pretty, Waiting for Godot, West Side Story, Everyday Rapture, The Cripple of Inishmaan, and that doesn’t even name all of the shows that were getting raves – so please don’t get upset if I left your show off -  or the ones that are still to open off-Broadway (high hopes for MCC Theater’s Coraline and everyone is telling me to rush to the Public Theater’s Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson).   It was as if we entered a mini-Golden age for the theatre and so many wonderful straight plays!  They even opened a second  “Plays only” window at the TKTS Booth.

So, I started what seems like an endless odyssey to see all of these wonderful shows that are out there.   Now, I am a pretty regular theater-goer, I see most of the Broadway and off-Broadway season each year and even make it to a smattering of off-off-Broadway productions.   But I am finding myself in a the theater a lot more this spring, there is just so much to see!  And you know what, the critics are right, the shows are well-deserving of their raves.  As a matter of fact, the only reviews I seem to disagree with are some of the “mixed reviews”  (come on way too tough of 9-5 it was as much fun as Rock of Ages and hello DOLLY PARTON’s songs were great and Tovah Feldshuh cannot receive enough praise for Irena’s Vow). 

So, I am going to all of this wonderful theater and loving it.  More than that, I am proud to be a part of the New York theater industry.  How can anyone not take great pride in all of the wonderful work throughout the City. 

But then at intermission I start looking around at the houses, then after the show, then I start getting there early to watch the audiences come in, and I am deeply, deeply distraught that so many of these wonderful shows with all of these great reviews are playing to partial houses and in some cases partial is bring very polite.  Sure some of the musicals are doing well and I can’t even get house seats at God Of Carnage (and I have tried 4 times) but I have to think if some of these shows were in a less competitive environment they would be playing to higher percentages of houses or would they?

Are there too many good shows out there and not enough audience for them?

My knee-jerk response is to point to ticket prices.  They are so high.  After all the New York Times just reported how Broadway had record grosses this year.  (Note Ken Davenport over at Producer’s Perspective breaks the stats down and shows the drop-off in total audiences that matched these record grosses, so clearly higher prices play into the slight uptick).  But it would be foolish to say that ticket prices were the issue, lets not kid ourselves they are ridiculously high and the premium seats are way out of control – too many held, etc., but come on practically ever show is at the Theater Development Fund’s TKTS Booth (Follow TDF on Twitter if you don’t believe me) and there are so many other discounts out there!  Google a show and you can get a discount ticket!

So is it the about stars?  This season is certainly has more big names involved  on and off stage than any other recent season.   Reasons to be Pretty doesn’t have stars, I hear it over and over.  Well they have done a great job finding a handful of stars to host talk-backs every night for the week or two and that doesn’t seem to solve the fact that this AMAZING show is playing to way too small of houses.  (again, please pause in your reading and go buy tickets to Reasons to be Pretty, really you can come back and finish the post after, I will wait just don’t get lost in their great new web videos, you can go back and look at those later). 

So what is it?  And don’t anyone dare say the word “marketing.”  Frankly some of the best marketing out there is for the shows that aren’t filling up and some of the worst for the shows that are (I won’t name examples because of dear friends involved in the shows but you all have seen some of the commercials and print pieces). 

Is tourism down?  Are all those “staycations” I keep reading about causing this?  I would imagine they are having some balanced effect – New Yorkers who stay home make up for the tourists?

Are the audiences just diminishing?  Have lack of school programs and the value of theater sunk so low that we are now on a trend to just see audiences grow smaller and smaller?  I might think this had more validity if so much of the work out there weren’t so darn relevant and good.  But we can’t completely rule it out.

Or is it perhaps that the balance of long-running shows to new shows is off-kilter.   After all the entire theater business is more or less about balance, so did all those long-running shows that closed throw the audience levels off?  I hate to say it but I think this is the largest factor.  Maybe some of the theaters should have stayed dark a little longer.  After all a couple more shows like Mamma Mia, Jersey Boys, Wicked, Avenue Q or August Osage County might balance out some of the competition.  And certainly it would be great if off-Broadway production costs could be reversed so that you could have once again sustain long runs. 

So the question isn’t really are there too many good shows out there, but there are too many NEW good shows out there.  What will happen next?  Can some of these shows maintain their success or survive their lower numbers and pull off a longer run?  With so many of the shows on Broadway are we setting ourselves up for next season to mirror this one?  The summer and fall already have a rich schedule from the nonprofit theatres (in New York, Chicago, San Diego, etc.) with several of the shows looking like they are possible transfers, so there will be plenty of competition to fill the theaters that do empty. 

I think this means we as an industry have to do some thinking and planning and do it darn quick.  We are digging a hole that is going to be very difficult to get out of if we let it become a trend.  We have to make an environment where a good show can run. We have to make off-Broadway and off-off Broadway sustainable.  We have to reach beyond New York and make sure that theater can be sustainable, vital and relevant throughout the country.   It means dealing with production costs and ticket prices, cultivating future theater audiences, and most importantly learning from the current slate on the boards to find a balance that works.  We can’t just write it off as an anomaly or blame it on the economy (oh my that sort of rhymed), just as the nonprofit theater world must revise its business model to meet a new reality so does the commercial side of the industry.