Theater: Pretty Woman Acts Up

Theater critics don't get to act like regular civilians very often, but when it comes to Julia Roberts, extraordinary measures are called for. The Hollywood star has prompted major buzz--and sellout crowds--for her impending Broadway debut, in Richard Greenberg's play Three Days of Rain, opening officially on April 19. So I wandered down to the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater to see just how tough it is to land a ticket. Very tough, I learned: only a stray seat in the back row or way off to the side, even for performances weeks away. Unless you're willing to indulge in a relatively new Broadway pastime: the "premium" seat.

Most of the hot Broadway shows now offer an unspecified number of unsold house seats (those prime orchestra seats reserved for VIPs like ... well, theater critics) for what would once have seemed exorbitant prices. The cost of seeing Ms. Roberts without straining your neck or bringing your telescope: $250. Make that $251.25, counting the $1.25 "facility fee," intended to help keep up a theater where the seats are still cramped, the ushers surly and you can't bring your drink inside the theater after intermission. And the scalpers used to be outside the theater.

Actually, that's part of the point. Premium seats are the theaters' attempt to regain some of the revenue for hot shows that would otherwise be flowing to scalpers and ticket agents. And it's one small reason that Broadway, after years of crying its woes, is enjoying an improbable boom. Box-office grosses in 2005 were up 5% over 2004--and not all of that is due to rising ticket prices. Seats were filled at 80.4% of capacity, the highest rate since 1997. For the past 12 weeks--usually the slow late-winter period--that rose to 84.6%, the highest for any similar stretch in Broadway history. According to last week's box-office figures, no fewer than 10 shows were running at 99% of capacity or higher--this at a time when movie grosses, TV ratings and CD sales are all moving the other way.

The odds against financial success on Broadway may still be long, but that hasn't stopped producers from elbowing one another for space on a street where the NO VACANCY sign has been up all season. The off-Broadway musical Grey Gardens--based on the 1975 film documentary about two nutty relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and featuring a Tony-worthy performance by Christine Ebersole--might have been the best Broadway musical of the season. Except that it can't move to Broadway, because all the theaters are filled.

What is Broadway doing right? Despite its aging audience, antiquated business model and fusty imperviousness to much of what's happening in popular culture, the Great White Way has done a masterly job of marketing itself to Middle America. Tourists now make up 55% of the Broadway audience, and the influx of out-of-towners has meant hit shows that once would have closed after a successful season or two now rival the Empire State Building as New York City fixtures. Phantom of the Opera has been playing for 18 years; Beauty and the Beast for 12; Rent for 10. Les Misérables, which closed after a 16-year run (third longest in Broadway history), has been gone for just three years--and it's already planning a return engagement in the fall.