ECONOMIC LIGHTS ARE NOT SO BRIGHT ON BROADWAY

Stirred by grim economic reports in the media, the theater community here is now talking publicly about what has been said privately for months: that the Broadway season just ending has been one of the worst ever, both in quality and quantity. And indications are that the news may get worse before it gets better.

Recently released statistics compiled by the League of American Theaters and Producers indicate that Broadway is ringing down its worst economic season in a decade. Theater attendance is at its lowest ebb since the mid-’70s, according to the statistics, with box-office income down $9 million from last year’s $227 million. This marks the second time since the 1972-73 season that box-office income has not increased over the previous season, according to the theaters and producers league.

Theater occupancy is also down. Of the 33 new shows that will have opened on Broadway--the fewest of any season this century-- by the official season close Friday, only 13 are still running. Two of these are due to close in the coming weeks, including the season’s biggest hit, the 30-year-old musical “The King and I.”

After this year’s Tony Awards are announced Sunday, as many as half of those remaining, including the season’s most acclaimed dramas, are likely to close. The situation no doubt will be compounded by the start of Broadway’s traditional summer doldrums after the July 4th weekend.

Moreover, the league’s statistics cite an unemployment rate of 88% for the theatricals union here.

“Maybe it’s had to get worse before it can get better,” one Broadway producer said off the cuff this week, echoing sentiments expressed by others in theater circles that Broadway had been headed for its current slump but few of its leaders faced the situation head-on.

The problem can in large part be traced to the absence of a new hit musical this season to stimulate both income and public excitement. As one producer put it, “If there is not a big hit musical, an apathy develops out on the street, especially among out-of-towners, that affects all the other shows.”

Only four of the eight musicals to open this season are still running, and three of them (“The King and I” is the fourth) are not considered secure beyond the Tonys. They are “Grind,” “Big River” and “Leader of the Pack.” For the first time in the 38-year history of the Tonys, three musical categories--best choreography, leading actress in a musical and leading actor in a musical--have been dropped from consideration due to the dearth of competition. Both the New York Drama Critics Circle and the Drama Desk declined to name a best musical of the season.

The season’s dramas, which have been far better received critically, have fared almost as poorly with the public. The season’s only sure hit, besides “The King and I,” is Neil Simon’s Tony-nominated “Biloxi Blues.”

Another Tony-nominated play, William Hoffman’s “As Is,” reportedly is hanging on at the box office. But the two other Tony-nominated plays this season, David Rabe’s “Hurlyburly” and August Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” are considered holdovers only on the basis of the Tony awards; the Wilson play is still running, rent-free, only on the hopes that it will win this year’s Tony, according to sources close to the production.

A fifth play, a revival of “Joe Egg,” which is one of the season’s most critically acclaimed productions, will close, according to one source close to the production, unless it wins at least three Tonys.

The single exception to this gloomy Broadway scene is the powerful Shubert Organization, which owns 17 of Broadway’s 35 theaters and has become the most prominent producer/investor on Broadway. According to league figures, it has gained more than 10% in attendance and theater occupancy during the past season. The organization has taken in about $100 million at the box office this season, $12 million more than 1983-84. “This is the most successful season we’ve ever had,” said Bernard Jacobs, president of the Shubert Organization, by phone from his office here this week. He added: “Of course, we are fortunate. Everybody else has to compete with us. We are in the forefront.”

(However, even the Shubert Organization is not currently represented by a new musical on Broadway, and most of its impressive income this season is from holdover musical hits from past seasons, including “Cats,” “Sunday in the Park With George” and “Dreamgirls,” which has announced its final weeks.)

Most others interviewed for this article--producers, business managers, publicists--reflected the more typical, jaundiced view being expressed these days in theater circles.

“I’ve been predicting this crisis season for several years,” said Kenneth Waissman, producer of “Grease,” “Torchsong Trilogy” and this season’s short-lived “The Octette Bridge Club.” He said the current crisis represents the culmination of a combination of problems that have developed in the Broadway theater industry over recent years, including rising production and union costs, rising ticket prices, increasing competition from the home-video market, more new and unskilled producers who come from the business world rather than the theater and, perhaps most important, a decline in the quality of Broadway shows.

“People will spend the money to come into town and go to a show if there’s something they want to see,” said Betty Lee Hunt, a veteran Broadway publicist who, with partner Maria Pucci, plans to produce a $3.5-million musical on Broadway next season. The show, “Sugar Hill,” is about three generations of black women living in a show-biz boardinghouse in Harlem.

Hunt and Pucci, among others, cited increasing problems in developing new musicals, including the prohibitive cost of the traditional out-of-town tryouts and even local workshops. “You better have all the money before you start rehearsals, and you’d better get the book and the music right before you attempt tryouts,” Pucci said.

Bernard Jacobs predicted that the current situation “will dramatically improve over the next 24 months.”

He cited at least four musicals that the Shuberts expect to produce, all imported from England, as well as new musicals by Michael Bennett and Marvin Hamlisch that are now in development.

However, most of those interviewed did not foresee a rosy future.

“We’re dealing here with an art form in transition, an industry in aesthetic turmoil,” said Elizabeth McCann, a general manager and producer of such successful Broadway shows as “Morning’s at Seven,” “Amadeus” and “Nicholas Nickleby,” as well as one of this season’s mildly received musicals, “Leader of the Pack.”

Stressing the need to bring down production costs and ticket prices and especially to compete with the video industry, McCann said: “We need to be more theatrical, innovative. We need to face the fact that we have to reach a mass entertainment audience. Maybe if the situation gets bad enough, we’ll all put our heads together and start dealing with the problems. I think we’re beginning to.

“We have to remember,” she added, “that what affects Broadway affects the theater in general.”