Broadway Lights Up for Non-Musicals

What about Broadway’s non-musical fare?

The season had a great start, given the recent opening of Vanessa Redgrave in Tennessee Williams’ “Orpheus Descending,” a performance that received the same extraordinary reviews that it did in London.

Coming soon are more revivals, more London imports and even a few original works. “There are a lot of new shows being done,” says Bernard Jacobs, president of the Shubert Organization. “The question really is, what will their quality be?”

During the third week of September, the Theatrical Index listed 14 shows with dates set for Broadway openings before year-end, compared with as few as 6 and no more than 10 during the prior three seasons. “In actual fact more shows may have opened than were set at that time,” says George Wachtell, director of research at the League of American Producers and Theatres, “and the same may happen this season.”

The shows look promising: Dustin Hoffman recreates his London role in “The Merchant of Venice”; Rex Harrison is featured in a revival of W. Somerset Maugham’s 1921 comedy, “The Circle,” and David Hare’s “The Secret Rapture” comes to the United States, starring Blair Brown. Ulu Grosbard directs a revival of Paddy Chayefsky’s “The Tenth Man” at Lincoln Center Theater. Larry Gelbart delivers his new play, “Mastergate,” and Aaron Sorkin’s new drama, “A Few Good Men,” opens a month later starring Tom Hulce.

New shows will come as theaters open. All of the Shubert Organization’s musical houses are full, for instance, and Jacobs doesn’t expect them to house any new musicals until Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Aspects of Love” next winter. And most Broadway shows don’t open in the fall but rather in the spring, so they can capitalize on any Tony awards that come their way in the June ceremony.

“I think the theater is having a resurgence this season,” says James Nederlander, whose Nederlander Theatre has its first theatrical booking in two years. “And when it looks up on Broadway, the following season is usually very good in other cities because these shows go on tour.”