Short term future of Broadway?

Unless I've missed something in the last few minutes, Ragtime's fate has not yet been announced.

This coversation happens annually as the early Jan date often brings multiple closings.

Like anything else, timing is everything. This exact production of Ragtime, for example, might have soared in good economic times. I don't mean that BECAUSE of money but when things are financially difficult, people are more likely to seek out fluff and other strictly joyous entertainment.

There is not guarantee...for any investment, there is always a risk.

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Shows aren't closing faster and faster these days. It's just going back to the way things used to be when producers closed shows when they weren't making any money instead of keeping them open for months and months losing millions of dollars in a misguided attempt to keep their dignity.

I wouldn't say that shows are closing faster and faster nowadays. In the 40s, 50s, and 60s, shows closing after a week's run were commonplace. There are many less of those now. Of course, there were more plays produced then as well.

Could it be that the shows that are closing now just aren't that good? The critics have gone out of their way to overpraise them, and in so doing, may have lured people into the theatre only to have them be mightily disappointed. Maybe they're trying to do it to help the theatre, or to make themselves seem relevent or important, but it doesn't seem to be working. Just the reverse.

Take "Superior Donuts." It got far better reviews than it deserved. It's a poor play. And the audience was not fooled. So too "Brighton Beach Memoirs." I thought it was OK, but not a patch on the original production. It also seemed very dated. All the people I know who saw it voiced opinions ranging from fair to good. Well fair to good is not going to send people flocking to the box office. Of course, in this case, there was no interest in this from the start.

"Finian's Rainbow" got raves. I thought it was not as good as the Irish Rep production some years ago. It looks cheap. It was overpraised, and audiences aren't flocking.

Then there's "In the Next Room." Excellent reviews, no business. The people I know who've seen it actively disliked it. If it weren't a Lincoln Center subscription, it would have already closed.

Then there's "The Starry Messenger," but I'll not go into that.

The point is, there's a disconnect between the critics and the audience, which is no way good for the theatre. The audience will ultimately disregard the critics who send them to too many turkeys.

You are being way too optimistic IMO

The economy is in the tank & is not improving any time soon . Prices are exploding. It used to be that the increase would be small & would last for awhile. Now it seems like prices are increasing with every new show that opens. Honestly, 5 years ago did you think prices would be what they are now?

Everything has a breaking point . The big 3 automakers are down for the count & municipalities are finding out they can no longer use smoke & mirrors to balance budgets & people are getting fed up with higher & higher taxes with more to come.

I see this as the tip of the iceberg & it will only get worse.

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Roxy. You don't see the glass half empty - you see someone p!ssing in it.

Get a grip, you old maid. G' Damn.

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LOL, oh, Roxy. At certain points in history, people stopped manufacturing ether for anesthesia, cars started outselling horses, and the VCR made way for the DVD player. Change happens. Some cope better than others. It's not all bad. Go have some scotch and watch PBS.

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Mr. roxy,

you might appreciate this article after what u wrote about ticket prices increasing.. its from 1987 and made me really laugh when i read it

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/30/theater/broadway-ticket-prices-slowly-rise.html

Yada, yada, yada. I've been in the Broadway trenches longer than most of you have been alive and these dire predictions come up all the time. Bottom line is, there is something in the human creature that needs LIVE entertainment to help get him/her through the day-to-day. It may change format, style, scope, etc., etc., but that fundamental need is there. During the height of our worst Depression, it meant enough to enough people to keep on going, no matter what. My parents were both victims of the Depression and they still found a way to get to a show once in a while. It might not have been the best seat in the house, it might have meant forgoing a meal, struggling with public transportation, but they still went.

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You might have a poitn, After Eight. A basic principle of advertising is that the best way to kill a ba product is with good advertising. The reason for that is that it gets everybod to try the bad product at once and they find out how bad it is more quickly, denying it the opportunity to get established. The same could well be true of Broadway shows -- the best way to kill a bad show (ora bad production of a good show) is with good reviews.

Of course, Broadway needs to refocus the way it promotes itself,but that's another issue.

People have been predicting the demise of Broadway since long before I was born and will continue predicting it for a very long time. The fact is that the place of theater in popular culture has changed...in the '40s and '50s and even to a certain extent in the '60s, Broadway show tunes often wound up on the radio and were hit singles, but over the years it's become a far less mainstream entertainment medium.

There are still relatively recent shows that are successes that are far from Disney cartoons or movie-to-musicals or whatever...Avenue Q, Next to Normal, even Wicked. On the flip side, there are musicals that fit into those categories that are flops like 9 to 5, The Little Mermaid, etc.

Theatre is such a unique art form and I think it's evolved and changed more over time than most other entertainment mediums have because of what it involves and the fact that it is live storytelling. There are a lot of factors that go into creating a successful Broadway show, and sometimes a lot of that just involves being in the right place at the right time.