Broadway Has a Devil of a Time Finding Angels (Ticket Buyers, Too)

These are difficult days for Elizabeth I. McCann, the longtime theater producer, who has been able to raise only $3 million so far for the $6.5 million transfer of “Hair,” the ’60s musical that is scheduled to start rehearsals on Broadway next month. Even her most dependable investors, Ms. McCann said, are sitting on their money.

“People are dreadfully afraid to put money into shows right now, and it has made it a very tough climate for raising money,” Ms. McCann said. “I’ll go on record and say I will capitalize ‘Hair’ in the end. But it’s very tough.”

The ripple effects of the recession and Wall Street’s slide have now fully engulfed the New York theater: highly successful shows are closing early, Off Broadway hits can’t find money to move into empty houses, audience attendance is down (and during the holidays, no less), and theater producers and publicists are scurrying behind the scenes to identify the rosiest news possible to offset the doom and gloom.

But even the best Broadway press agent cannot spin the fact that New York theater appears to be entering one of its darkest periods: with the surprise announcement on Sunday night that the much-lauded “Gypsy” would close seven weeks ahead of schedule because of poor box-office sales, 12 Broadway productions — including once-dependable crowd pullers like “Grease” and “Hairspray” — will be closing in the first half of January, either because of weak sales or because they were already set to close.

Other ambitious musicals, like “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ ” and the already delayed production of “Vanities,” are all but officially postponed until at least the 2009-10 season because of financial considerations, people closely involved with those productions said in interviews on Monday.

If producers, directors and actors are concerned about the current state of Broadway, they are even more worried about what it might augur. Will the bad economy make it more difficult to raise the millions of dollars to mount shows next spring and fall, like “Catch Me if You Can,” based on the DreamWorks movie, and August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”?

Photo

Theater is rarely a winning investment, producers say, but now some investors are struggling with whether it makes any sense at all to put money into shows that are simply not drawing audiences. (At the same time shows like “Billy Elliot” and “South Pacific” continue to do strong business.)

Several major Broadway shows have been running for weeks now with swaths of empty seats, including “Avenue Q” at 69 percent and “Equus” and “August: Osage County,” both at 54 percent. Low attendance figures have led to speculation that “August” and “Avenue Q,” once popular attractions, will close this winter or spring, but producers of those shows said that no closing notices were expected. “Equus” is scheduled to close in February.

Then again, few people saw “Gypsy” as closing anytime before its scheduled end date in March. But on Sunday night, just as some producers and publicists were chewing hard on the mixed reviews for the expensive new musical “Shrek,” the producers of “Gypsy” announced that the show would be closing on Jan. 11 in spite of its pedigree and its three Tonys — for the lead, Patti LuPone, and her two co-stars.

Some producers said that while the economy was to blame for some losses, there were shows — “Gypsy” among them — that had simply run their course before the optimists predicted.

“While some shows are certainly getting ready to close because of this new economy, others are using it as an excuse rather than simply acknowledging that the show was ready after a long run,” said David Stone, producer of “Wicked.”

Roger S. Berlind, a producer of “Gypsy,” said in an interview that the show might have been scheduled for a run that was too long. According to attendance figures for Broadway shows last week, “Gypsy” was playing to only 59 percent of capacity, and it did less-than-expected business during the Thanksgiving weekend.

But he emphasized: “We can’t pretend we’re immune to the effects of this incredible economic malaise that the country is experiencing. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Psychologically, people might feel it’s really frivolous to go to theater at $200 a pop.”

Photo

Though several widely anticipated productions appear on track for the spring — “West Side Story” and “Guys and Dolls” among them — the anxiety on the street is more immediate and palpable. The long-awaited revival of “Pal Joey,” for instance, lost its lead actor, Christian Hoff, while still in previews, and some members of the show’s creative team said in interviews that they were concerned about the strength of this revival, which opens on Thursday night. The show has been discounting tickets and has sparked some stream of negative chatter among industry insiders.

Disney Theatrical Productions, meanwhile, announced on Monday that it was extending its “Kids Go Free” ticket offer until Dec. 23, giving buyers one free ticket for a child with each ticket purchased for “The Lion King,” “The Little Mermaid” and “Mary Poppins” for shows in early January to mid-March. One Disney executive said the discount, which has already generated $2 million in sales, was its best hedge against an economic climate hitting three shows that were once among the best attended.

David Schrader, managing director for the Disney Theatrical Group, dismissed the jabs that some Broadway producers have been taking at the news that “Mary Poppins” and “The Little Mermaid” were each playing at only 70 percent of capacity last week.

“I would say they’re holding up fairly well,” Mr. Schrader said, “and the great thing about ‘Kids Go Free’ is that it gets people to commit to the theater well in advance.”

For all of the concern about attendance numbers, virtually every Broadway house that will empty in the first half of January is expected to be filled by another show this season, said Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of the Broadway League. Ms. St. Martin convened a meeting and conference call on Friday with producers and publicists to discuss survival strategies if the winter turns dire. The League is planning a seasonal promotion effort with the working title “Broadway Now More than Ever,” aimed at residents of the tristate region.

In the winter and spring season Jane Fonda is returning to Broadway for the first time in 46 years in “33 Variations,” a new play by Moisés Kaufman (“The Laramie Project”); Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons will star in “Impressionism,” by Michael Jacobs; and revivals of “Blithe Spirit” and “Hedda Gabler” are scheduled. And there was good news for the producers of “Irving Berlin’s White Christmas,” a fixed-run show, when they learned that it knocked “Wicked” from the top spot in the Broadway grosses for last week.

Yet even some of the biggest hits of the fall are feeling constraints in this economy. “Blasted,” which has been selling out at Soho Rep for weeks now, with lines outside for returned tickets almost nightly, has drawn interest from backers into moving to a new space — yet no one, thus far, has been willing to write the first check, according to people closely involved with the show.

“The last 15 years have been boom years for theater — I always expected the pendulum to swing, and I simply see this as a correction,” said Nancy Coyne, chairwoman of the theater advertising agency Serino Coyne. “The good news is that so many straight plays are now coming in the spring, and I think New Yorkers will come out for them once the tourists go away. We’re horrible snobs. We hate tourists from Cleveland.”