On Broadway the Play is NOT dead

So the play is not dead on Broadway. Between January and June the great white way is scheduled to have a round of a dozen plays open. This is exciting since six of the new plays opening are by American playwrights. It is unfortunate that they will all be opening in such a small window as it will make it difficult to get to see them. Also statistically the audience for plays is smaller and older then that of Musicals. It will be interesting to see how these shows perform.

"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." (more here)

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