If you stand on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, at the corner of either 44th or 45th Streets, and look west, you see the iconic image of brightly illuminated Broadway marquees lining both sides of the street. 14 of Broadway’s 40 houses are in view on two streets.
If you stand on the corner of 42nd Street and Ninth Avenue looking west, you may see only a few glints of light off of display windows or subtle marquees, but there are 11 theatres in the next block: Theatre Row (with five stages), Playwrights Horizons (two stages), the Little Shubert and the newly opened Signature Center (with three). Extend your gaze almost to Eleventh Avenue and make it an even dozen, by adding in Signature’s former home.
There’s no comparison in scale or capacity between the Broadway stages on 44th and 45th Streets and the Off-Broadway venues that line this stretch of 42nd Street, where the largest theatre is 499 seats and the average is probably half that. But there’s no arguing that the range of theatrical production on 42nd Street is at least as vital creatively, especially when you consider that the Broadway theatres may be home to long running shows, while the turnover at the smaller venues will yield many more new productions annually, even if they do play to a fraction of the Broadway audience.
The emergence of West 42nd Street is emblematic of a growth spurt among New York’s subsidized companies, and it’s not restricted to 42nd Street; there’s other recent or planned theatrical renovation and construction going on elsewhere. In The New York Times, Charles Isherwood took note of this expansion, expressing concern that companies might be driven by a need to fill this real estate in contravention of their artistic goals or capacities; he also commented shows’ journeys from these intimate spaces to Broadway, which he sometimes finds ill-advised.
I won’t weigh in on whether certain shows should – or shouldn’t have – transferred to Broadway’s commercial arena, but I will say that such a decision is rooted in one of the most significant conundrums in New York’s theatrical ecosystem: the diminished viability of commercial Off-Broadway production of new plays and musicals. While there are long-running entertainments in New York’s smaller commercial venues (Stomp, Blue Man Group, De La Guarda) and there have been some other hits (I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change; Love, Loss and What I Wore), plays like Freud’s Last Session and the just opened Tribes are relative rarities. Off-Broadway is even now home to one-time Broadway successes (Million Dollar Quartet, Rent and Avenue Q) sustaining their New York lives through reduced expectations.
But when it comes to a Off-Broadway success from a non-commercial company, the only option today seems to be Broadway or bust, as the cost of producing sustained runs in these small venues under a commercial contract proves impossible for most serious-minded fare (or even intelligent comedies) because of many factors, from the limited revenue to the high cost of advertising on a small budget. This is markedly different from 15 or 20 years ago, when the work of companies like Playwrights Horizons and Manhattan Theatre Club would transfer regularly to commercial engagements. A mainstay of Off-Broadway in the 80s and 90s, playwright A.R. Gurney, used to see his shows transfer from a non-profit to commercial run almost annually; now his plays, no matter the reception, get a six-week run at Lincoln Center Theatre, Primary Stages or The Flea and are over. He’s joined by most playwrights in this limiting atmosphere. Even when long-running Off-Broadway hits from the past are revived, they go to Broadway, as recently evidenced by Driving Miss Daisy and Wit.
The great irony is that the New York productions become loss leaders, garnering press attention and respect, but achieving larger audiences and multiple productions in the country’s regional theatres, where they generate healthier royalties for playwrights. Nowhere is that more evident than with Clybourne Park which, after a couple of months at Playwrights Horizons, went on to regional runs in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC and almost every U.S. major city (as well as London) before finally coming to rest after copious acclaim, at last, on Broadway.
The Off-Broadway building boom is a boon to theatre both in New York and beyond. But to benefit more theatergoers here, the challenge is to restore a healthy middleground between Off-Broadway not-for-profit runs and Broadway berths, so that work can stay at its proper scale, achieve a modicum of financial success and stick around for as long as people want to see it, while always making room for yet more new work. It’s a puzzle, but one worth solving.
