STAGE : Turn East on Broadway : Faced with high costs and a troubled economy, Broadway producers are looking to Japanese and other foreign investors

In a cluttered room backstage at the Shubert Theatre in Century City, a contingent of theatrical producers is conferring with stage manager Clayton Phillips on the needs of the cast and crew of “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway.”

The musical celebrating choreographer-director Robbins’ creations from “On the Town” (1944) through “Fiddler on the Roof” (1964), will embark on an 11-week tour when the Los Angeles engagement ends Saturday.

“How many dressing rooms do you need?” asks a producer. “And how do you want the piano tuned? What medicines do you need?”

“We have to have Advil and Ben Gay,” says Phillips. “And we need ice packs in abundance.” He pauses. “You do have Ziplocs in Japan, don’t you?”

This isn’t your run-of-the-mill tour. This one is headed for Tokyo and Osaka where audiences have demonstrated considerable interest in Broadway musicals. And there are companies willing and able to invest in the shows, such as Suntory Ltd. of Japan, the beverage maker and distributor that is sponsoring the “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” tour to the tune of up to $6 million.

In preparation, many “Jerome Robbins” cast members have been taking Japanese lessons from fellow performer Naoko Katakami, an Osaka-born ballet dancer who joined the production in Los Angeles, and is paid additionally by the Shuberts to instruct her colleagues in Japanese customs and phraseology.

The Japanese tour stems from Suntory’s $1.3-million investment in the original $8.7-million Broadway production and $700,000 contribution to the Los Angeles run that opened in October at a cost of $3 million.

Japanese investors are involved in five of 19 current productions on Broadway. These contributions to American theater pale when compared to Japanese investments in the film industry. And there is no thought of a foreign takeover of yet another American entertainment industry. But faced with high operating costs--and a troubled U.S. economy--foreign investments are becoming increasingly attractive to Broadway producers.

“Foreign investors have been buying real estate and service corporations and investing in theater and motion pictures, and we love them,” says Paul Libin, producing director of the Jujamcyn Theaters in New York. “Some clearly are allocating their money for Broadway productions. There’s English money and European money, but none of the magnitude of Japanese investments.”

Leading the way is the New York-based Suntory International Corp., a subsidiary of Suntory Ltd., which in September, 1988, entered into a four-year agreement with the Shubert Organization.

This unprecedented arrangement calls for the primarily family controlled Suntory to invest in equally--and share equally in the profits or losses--in properties selected by the Shuberts. Suntory exercises no artistic control over these productions. (The Shuberts have a similar arrangement with Capital Cities/ABC Inc.)

Above all, the contract provides that the Shuberts will “endeavor to procure” for Suntory “preemptive bidding rights” to take these properties to Japan. Essentially, Suntory’s original Broadway investment buys them the rights to a Japanese tour.

“Suntory wanted initially just to invest in ‘Jerome Robbins,’ but we expanded that interest to (include more shows),” the Shuberts chairman, Gerald Schoenfeld, says. “Absent this, we would have foregone the investment. We have no reason to prefer Suntory over other investors, but it is very comforting to know you have a capital availability when you need it.”

Investing about $2 million overall each year, Suntory has backed the “The Grapes of Wrath,” “Tru,” “City of Angels,” “The Circle,” and “A Few Good Men.” It invested less than $400,000 in Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Heidi Chronicles” (cost: $1.1 million) and about $500,000 in the musical, “Once on This Island” (cost: $1.5 million).

“Jerome Robbins’ Broadway,” which opened in New York in February, 1989, and went on to win six Tony awards, represents Suntory’s largest investment to date.

Suntory, a company with diversified interests, is a somewhat atypical Broadway backer. In fact, a browse through the list of Broadway shows finds few investors with such an overt commercial profile. At the L.A. production of “Jerome Robbins,” theater-goers are receiving a taste of Suntory goods: Suntory beer, their Midori liqueur and Yamazaki whiskey are available at the Shubert Theater bar. Although not specified in any contract, the set-up, according to Kenji Kishimoto, Suntory International’s vice president of sales, represents “good public relations.”

“Our motto,” Kishimoto says, reading from the company brochure, “is not only to sell liquor--the company reports annual sales in excess of $6 billion--but to also be involved in all cultural phases.” He cites as example the acoustically acclaimed Suntory Hall, built in Tokyo entirely with Suntory funds for about $50 million, and

the Suntory Museum of Art in Tokyo. Then there’s the restaurants Suntory in Paris, Honolulu, Boston, Acapulco and other cities.

Suntory’s cultural affairs manager, Hiroharu Suzuki, was quick to point out that his company’s “main thrust is not for profits, but rather to help create a better cultural exchange between Japan and the United States.”

“The Japanese have big stakes on Broadway, and are becoming major investors in our shows,” says Nederlander Organization Chairman James M. Nederlander, pointing to Japan Satellite Broadcasting’s investment “in the millions” in “Will Rogers at the Follies” set for a May opening at the Palace Theater.

It all started in 1982 when Suntory embarked on its first theatrical venture, presenting the original Bob Fosse musical “Dancin’ ” in Japan. That success provided not only the impetus for future investments for Suntory, but also encouraged other Japanese companies solely, or in joint or even multiventures, to present musicals back home and/or to invest on the Great White Way.

The radio and television commercial network, Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc. (TBS), through its New York subsidiary, has backed two Pace Theatrical Group Inc. properties: It invested $500,000 in “Gypsy” (cost: $2.8 million) now in its second year at the St. James Theater in New York, and more recently, $400,000 in “Fiddler on the Roof,” playing at the Gershwin Theater since November. TBS had no creative input in either production.

Produced for about $2 million, “Fiddler” also received an infusion of more than $500,000 from C. Itoh & Co., one of the world’s biggest trading companies with varied interests ranging from textiles to electronics. The company additionally acted as presenter for “Fiddler’s” monthlong tour of Japan just before its Broadway opening.

Filmmaker, adventurer and high Shinto priest Haruki Kadokawa, who heads the huge Kadokawa Publishing company, invested $3 million in the ill-fated “Three-penny Opera,” starring Sting, who enjoys considerable popularity in Japan. Kadokawa also was a major investor in the $8-million musical “Shogun” that closed after a two-month run at New York’s Marquis Theatre.

Lloyd Phillips, a spokesman from Kadokawa’s Los Angeles office, says the film producer-director--whose $42-million epic “Heaven and Earth” opened Feb. 8 nationwide--is taking a long-term view of his theatrical investments. Interested in fostering cultural exchange between Japan and the United States, Kadokawa is learning “the lessons of Broadway,” according to Phillips, and finding out “what works and what doesn’t” along the way.

Suntory paid the Shuberts an unspecified fee for the Japanese rights to “Jerome Robbins.” In an effort to help defray the additional $5-million to $6-million cost of importing the lavish production, let alone the salaries of the more than 150 Japanese involved, Suntory has secured financial backing--the company declined to reveal specifics--from two Japanese sponsors: Sazele, a conglomerate with interests in restaurants, resorts and hotels that, in return for its contribution, will receive credit in promotional materials, and television station JSB, which is expected to help publicize the production on the air.

With theaters renting for up to $10,000 a day and tickets priced from $69 to $105 apiece, the producers calculate the show will have to sell out at the 2,800-seat Festival Hall in Osaka, as well as at the Yu-Port and Koseinenkin theaters in Tokyo to break even.

Increasingly, Japanese firms are scouring the theater world for suitable product, namely musicals with minimal dialogue and drama that will translate well at home. (When needed, subtitles are employed.)

Transporting these original productions across the ocean often presents enormous logistic challenges.

Japanese theaters generally have smaller backstage areas than American houses. Publicly owned for the most part, they are booked by national and local companies more than three years in advance, and productions often must move to a number of theaters during a single engagement.

For instance, the Japanese productions of “Cats” and “Phantom of the Opera” played several theatrical houses throughout Japan, as did the touring Broadway show “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Connie Weinstein, company manager for “Fiddler” recalls that lead Chaim Topol, as well as the company of 40 found being accommodated in “very very small hotels” psychologically difficult, as was not being permitted to transport supplies such as the spirit gum necessary to remove beards and mustaches. But above all, Weinstein remembers, the lack of audience response was “very hard on the cast.”

“The show was well-attended --top tickets ran $96--and we got incredible reviews, but the audiences don’t want to show emotion and be disrespectful,” Weinstein says. “This is hard for timing, especially since we have laughs in the show and there was nothing.”

Actor Tony Roberts, the current lead in “Jerome Robbins,” although somewhat concerned that his antics might not be understood in Japan, nevertheless believes there is a “twinkle” to a joke that is universal. “Audiences differ everywhere, including the (United) States,” says Roberts. “I mean, in L.A. you’re not sure the audience is even in the theater.”

Suntory has hired a team of Japanese producers not only to facilitate the upcoming tour, but also to study the production in the hope that the resulting “theater know-how” will enable Suntory to create--and eventually export--Japanese musicals and plays to the United States. (No, the company has no interest in staging traditional Kabuki.)

Producer Tohru Hioki, who heads Data Base Co. Ltd., the multimedia company hired by Suntory to run the tour--he also worked on the “Dancin’ ” project--remains optimistic that “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway,” with its emphasis on dance and less on drama will lure new audiences to the theater and ultimately lead to the creation of more product.

“The musicals that came into Japan before have had more drama to them and the Japanese audiences have confused musicals with opera,” Hioki said with the aid of interpreter Chiyako Seto, traveling with the Suntory delegation.

“Because of this confusion, young people have left the musicals in Japan. We think ‘Jerome Robbins’ will make Japanese dancers and choreographers and directors better. And they can then produce shows better.”

However, many observers say the Japanese lack the expertise to create theatrical software for international consumption.

The Shuberts chairman, Schoenfeld, praising his partners’ creativity in the areas of fashion, technology and design, nevertheless expresses reservations that the Japanese have sufficient “understanding” of the American market to be “particularly creative in product.”

UCLA associate theater professor Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei, examining East-West “aesthetic sensibilities,” says the tendency in most Japanese drama is to focus on “lyrical moments and expand and explore those moments” at a pace that might be too slow for the more action-oriented American.

“It is unlikely the Japanese would be successful at duplicating American musicals and similarly we would not be successful at duplicating their theater,” Sorgenfrei says. “But it is very exciting that different cultures are willing to share their traditions.”

According to Gerald Yoshitomi, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, there is a growing desire among Japanese to “share their culture with other parts of the world.”

“Japan has had the benefit of major cultural influences from Europe and the United States,” he says, “and the question now becomes: What can Japan share with America?”