IN a typical Broadway season the impending arrival of “Coram Boy,” which opens at the Imperial Theater in a little more than two months, would already be causing murmurs among the small but loyal population of Broadway playgoers. After all, with a cast of 40, this play will undoubtedly be one of the most expensive ever staged on Broadway, as well as the first to open at the Imperial in 30 years. Its earlier run at the National Theater in London, staged by a hot director, won raves. And for heaven’s sake it’s an ambitious play, not a musical, which means it’s a rarity on Broadway. Right?
Not this spring.
Each new Broadway season opens with a cherished ritual. The play is proclaimed dead, killed by — pick one or more — the musical, the tourists, the unions, the cost of advertising or the general decline of American culture. And those few plays that somehow make it through are inevitably burdened with caveats: That one’s British, so it doesn’t really count. That one got off the ground only because of that famous actress in the lead. That one’s just a revival. And that one is being produced by a nonprofit theater, and that’s what they’re supposed to be doing.
But like the bad guy in a slasher franchise, the Broadway play never seems to stay dead for good. Between January and June there will be 12 plays opening on Broadway (counting “Salvage,” the third installment of Tom Stoppard’s “Coast of Utopia,” which opened last weekend). What is more surprising, nine of them are being produced commercially, and almost all have directors with pedigrees.
By contrast three, maybe four, commercially produced musicals are scheduled.
So what are we witnessing? A renaissance of the Broadway play?
Alas, no. But we are seeing something remarkable: a quirk of timing, a precious pocket of breathing space between musical-heavy seasons that happens to coincide with a scheduling hole for busy British directors. For those who like their words unsung, it’s a beautiful thing.
“I think you have to nod your head to say that we have some alternatives this year,” said Emanuel Azenberg, a Broadway producer who often bewails the state of the play on Broadway. “I don’t know that it’s encouraging,” he added. “But it’s unlike previous years.”
With more and more musicals taking over Broadway, even moving into the smaller theaters, plays have often served mainly as filler, a way to keep the rent paid for theaters that are waiting for the lucrative musical to move in. This spring those in-between time slots have lined up, and the result is a dramatic constellation. Of the nine commercially produced plays, seven are limited engagements.
The largesse may be a liability for some producers. Those who in any other season might have had the middle- or highbrow play with the superb director are suddenly standing in a crowd.
“You have good intentions of how you will actually line things up, trying to align them like a train schedule,” said Bob Boyett, a producer of “Coram Boy” and four other plays opening this spring. In the end, he added, it doesn’t always work that way.
First, the asterisks. Three of the plays are appearing at nonprofit theaters. Four were recent hits on the West End in London and are either transferring as a whole or being staged by the same directors. (Five of the directors with plays this spring are American.) And half are revivals: Brian Friel’s “Translations” was first produced Off Broadway in 1981 at the Manhattan Theater Club, which is producing it now; Craig Lucas’s romance “Prelude to a Kiss,” in previews at the Roundabout Theater Company’s American Airlines Theater, first played on Broadway in 1990; Eugene O’Neill’s “Moon for the Misbegotten,” a transfer from Kevin Spacey’s Old Vic in London, has been seen on Broadway four times previously, most recently seven years ago; Eric Bogosian’s “Talk Radio” was a hit at the Public Theater in 1987; “Inherit the Wind” has been on Broadway twice before; and R. C. Sherriff’s World War I drama, “Journey’s End,” has also been on Broadway before, albeit in 1930.
That still leaves six straight plays making their New York debuts, three by American authors: “Radio Golf,” the last of August Wilson’s 10-part play cycle; “Deuce,” by Terrence McNally; and “The Year of Magical Thinking,” Joan Didion’s stage adaptation of her 2005 memoir. The other three — “Coram Boy,” “Frost/ Nixon” and “Salvage” — are by British authors but have not been seen here.
It’s quite a lineup, though given the dreary success rate of plays on Broadway, it’s worth asking: Are all of these producers — and their investors — a little crazy?
After all, two of the three commercial plays that opened on Broadway in the fall faltered: “The Little Dog Laughed,” which had strong reviews, lost money; and “The Vertical Hour,” which boasted the star power of Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy, is closing early, though its producers insist it will recoup its investment. Only “Butley,” with Nathan Lane, recouped and closed on schedule.
“I think there’s not enough of an audience to successfully support all of those shows,” Roy Gabay, the producer of “Little Dog,” said of the spring play lineup. “That’s sort of a fact. I see four shows a week and can’t keep up. What are the people going to see four shows a year going to do?”
The madness has not gone unnoticed. “Who needs a tax write-off badly enough that they’re going to try to put an August Wilson play on Broadway?” asked Isaac Butler, a Brooklyn theater director, on his blog Parabasis. He added: “Broadway is a place for big musicals and the occasional British Import; with the economics of the place being what they are, that is unlikely to change anytime soon.”
Not only is it getting more expensive to put on plays, but also the number of people going to plays — a fifth of the number going to musicals — has hardly budged over the last seven years, according to surveys last season by the League of American Theaters and Producers. And that audience, unlike the one that prefers musicals, still mainly comprises people who live in the New York area and who tend to be savvier about finding discount tickets.
But even the smartest bargain hunters will have to put down a few hundred dollars to see just a few of the plays this spring. Mr. Boyett does not see that as a problem. “I almost never run into anyone who says, ‘I really resent paying $100 for this,’ ” he said. “I think it’s because in other areas of their life, like sports and concerts, they pay a lot.”
According to league surveys, the most important factor cited by playgoers in deciding what to see is the cast. More than a third said they choose a particular show to see a performer (compared with only 5 percent of those going to musicals).
That’s a promising statistic for plays like “Deuce,” “Magical Thinking,” “Inherit the Wind” and “Frost/Nixon,” all of which will feature performances by some of theater’s best-known actors, while “A Moon for the Misbegotten” has its celebrity factor in Kevin Spacey and “Talk Radio” a theatrical star in Liev Schreiber.
The next two most important elements in play selection, according to the surveys, are word of mouth and reviews.
Of the three plays depending almost entirely on reviews and word of mouth, two are being mounted by Boyett/Ostar, the production company run by Mr. Boyett, a former television producer, and Bill Haber, a founder of Creative Artists Agency. (The other play on Boyett/Ostar’s roster this spring is “Inherit the Wind,” a revival of the Scopes monkey trial chestnut with Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy, which, according to production officials, is having healthy advance sales.)
The first one is the revival of “Journey’s End,” which received raves in London and has been recast for Broadway under the same director, David Grindley, with a roster long on theater talent but short on big names. Ticket sales have not taken off; the grosses posted for its first week and a half of previews have been less than impressive.
The other is “Coram Boy,” a stage adaptation of an epic young-adult novel set in the 18th century, which has a large cast, including a choir singing Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus. Mr. Boyett is betting that “Coram,” which is being staged by its London director, Melly Still, with a new American cast, becomes a must-see event, and he compared it to “The History Boys,” which Boyett/Ostar brought over last year as part of an agreement with the National.
“I would have loved to have a little more time with ‘Coram Boy,’ to build familiarity with it,” he said, adding that the sudden availability of the Imperial forced his hand. When “High Fidelity” closed,” he said, “we rushed in.”
The other play that may be facing long odds comes at the tail end of the season: August Wilson’s “Radio Golf.” There are no celebrities in the cast. No trail of British accolades. Productions of the play at regional theaters over the last few months have received good reviews but not raves. The last Wilson play on Broadway, “Gem of the Ocean,” was beset by financial difficulties before it opened in 2004 and it closed within three months.
So what can the producers realistically expect this time around?
“We’re thinking that it’s the completion of the August Wilson cycle,” said Rocco Landesman, a producer of the play and the president of Jujamcyn Theaters, who named one of his theaters after Mr. Wilson. “I think it’s something you have to do.”
So it’s just philanthropy?
“Are we thinking that we’re going to get rich off this?” he said. “Probably not.” But he added: “There’s a difference between something that’s a long shot and a hopeless cause. I think there’s always hope.”
