STAGE

To go along with the $7 movie ticket and the $1 cup of coffee, New York City’s top theater ticket just leaped in price. When “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway Dances” opens at the Imperial Theater next February, it will have a top ticket price of $55--$5 above the current top rate for musicals such as “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Les Miserables.” The Robbins musical, which reportedly cost $7 million to produce, will feature more than a dozen dance numbers from some of the choreographer’s most noted works, including “Fiddler on the Roof,” “West Side Story,” “The King and I” and “Peter Pan.” Reasons for the high cost: extra rehearsal time (16 weeks) and an especially large cast (60). “We are limited to one source of income in the theater--the box office,” said Gerald Schoenfeld, chairman of the Shubert Organization. “It’s a question of economics.”