Mr Roxy, let's get one thing straight: Broadway has ALWAYS been money. ALWAYS. ***ALWAYS***
The only thing that has changed about Broadway is technology. It used to be that one could get away with marketing a show by having good writers. Audiences see the name Tennessee Williams or Cole Porter and they have an expectation.
Today, with the advancement of technology, producers no longer have to rely solely on the content of the work. Now they have fancy lights and projections and treadmills and automation and flying. Plus, film and television have become more mainstream than theatre, so now producers also rely on already-known titles that millions of people have already seen.
Let's say you're a producer. Your goal is to make money. Would you put your investors' money in a show about an internationally known comic book hero with flying spectacle, or would you put your money in a show about a family dealing with a mother who has a mental disorder?
There is PLENTY of original material happening off-Broadway. And that's where NEXT TO NORMAL began after workshopping.
So if you want to see non-spectacle "art" then go off-Broadway, go to some regional houses. Broadway has some, too. So go see those shows. But be warned: a lot of those shows are crap, too. And some of those had three-digit budgets.
"The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet."
--Aristotle
