There’s no science to what works onstage

“NOBODY knows anything.”

William Goldman lobbed that dictum at the screen trade, but it just as easily applies to the just-concluded 2006-07 Broadway season. Goldman’s contention that producers haven’t a clue as to what will resonate with critics and the public stands in relief against one of the most eclectic seasons in memory. Included among the front-runners for the Tony Awards that will be handed out tonight at Radio City Music Hall are “Spring Awakening,” a rock musical about 19th century German teens dealing with sexual abuse, suicide and abortion; “Grey Gardens,” a quirky look at Jackie Kennedy Onassis’ batty relatives bickering in a decaying East Hampton, N.Y., mansion; and “The Coast of Utopia,” Tom Stoppard’s epic about obscure 19th century Russian revolutionaries and intellectuals.

It was that kind of season. And, with the exception of “Mary Poppins,” it didn’t exactly set the box office afire. The record-breaking $939 million in ticket sales came largely from blockbusters from previous seasons, such as “Jersey Boys,” “Wicked,” “The Lion King” and “The Color Purple,” which became the financial success story of the season when “American Idol’s” Fantasia Barrino stepped into the starring role. Most of the new shows vying for the Tony will need a win tonight to have a healthy run. But the eventual success or failure of this season’s offerings provides litmus tests of sorts. Although it is perilous to try to extrapolate lessons from a single season, who’s to argue when, after all, nobody knows anything?

Litmus test No. 1: Can a small, serious musical succeed?

If the favored “Spring Awakening” wins for best musical, a record 26 producers will troop up to the podium. It took that many to raise the $6 million to transfer the Duncan Sheik-Steven Sater musical from its off-Broadway showcase. One would have to go back more than a decade to “Rent” to find a successful commercial show of a similar ilk -- and even then Roger, Mimi, Joanne and Mark of the East Village would seem much more accessible than “Spring’s” Wendla, Moritz and Melchior in their provincial German setting.

Ira Pittelman, lead producer with actor Tom Hulce, recalls some “scary” preview weeks during which the musical lost money. “We were feeling our way and were saddled with a show that was hard to explain,” he recalls. The critics gave the show raves, but sales remained sluggish. What made the difference, says Pittelman, was advertising on local rock stations as well as more traditional outlets and placing downloadable songs from the show on the official website. (Sheik’s alt-rock following helped too.) “The Internet started the dialogue on the show, the way people could talk to each other and with our young cast,” he said. “But there was no way you could calibrate a road map in any normal business way for this show.”

Some of the same challenges have beset this season’s other dark musical, “Grey Gardens.” Despite its 10 Tony nods, “Grey Gardens” is among the lowest grossing musicals, stuck in the mid-$300,000 range in weekly revenues, while “Spring,” with its 11 Tony nods, was bumped up into the $600,000 range, well above its break-even point but still below its maximum. For many Broadway insiders, tired of formulaic spectacles, the presence of the story-driven “Grey Gardens” and “Spring Awakening” is a tonic. “They’re tests to see if there’s a market for musicals that have nothing going for them,” says Richard Seff, a playwright and former agent, “except that they’re wonderful.”

Litmus test No. 2: Have the New York critics lost their power?

No shows this season received more critical praise than “Coast of Utopia,” “Spring Awakening,” “Grey Gardens,” “Radio Golf,” “Journey’s End” and “Little Dog Laughed.” “Coast” was a hot ticket during its limited run at the subscription-based Lincoln Center Theatre, but “Little Dog Laughed” was an early casualty of the season; the revival of the World War I drama “Journey’s End” will close today, a victim of scant audiences; and “Grey Gardens” and “Radio Golf,” the last of August Wilson’s 10-play cycle of African American life, are struggling. Meanwhile “Legally Blonde,” which received mixed-to-negative reviews, drew a strong $860,000 in sales for the week ending May 27.

The disconnect between what the critics are raving about and what the public is buying has never appeared to be wider. “I don’t think critics have the same influence that they used to -- certainly not on musicals,” says David Stone, a producer of the much-praised “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” as well as “Wicked,” which received very mixed notices. “But I think they can still close a play.”

Of course, a star-driven vehicle is almost always impervious to bad reviews. Indeed, “Vertical Hour” (Julianne Moore), “A Moon for the Misbegotten” (Kevin Spacey), “The Year of Magical Thinking” (Vanessa Redgrave) and “Deuce” (Angela Lansbury) all have either recouped or look close to recouping after receiving less-than-stellar reviews. Yet the poor critical reception was largely responsible for the shuttering of the British import “Coram Boy.”

“All critics are out of touch, except for me of course,” John Heilpern, the British-born reviewer for the New York Observer, says sardonically. “They’re all middlebrow, striving so hard to be highbrow that they couldn’t recognize ‘Coram Boy’ for what it was: a good old-fashioned melodrama. And, on a semi-serious note, the problem is that they have editors who do not want drama critics, they want cultural tipsters.”

On that front they have increasing company -- every self-styled critic and blogger on the Internet. While their reach may be limited, it may be large enough to temper critical influence.

“The fact that everybody’s a critic is nothing new,” says Nancy Coyne, a veteran Broadway marketer. “It’s just that they have greater and more immediate access. The blogger is the equivalent of the lady at the water cooler talking up a show. Only instead of three people, he or she can reach hundreds. Word of mouth has always been -- and will always be -- the determining factor.”

Litmus test No. 3: Will “Legally Blonde” break the mainstream-

movie-to-musical hex?

“Carrie,” “Big,” “Footloose,” “The Goodbye Girl,” “Saturday Night Fever,” “Urban Cowboy” and “The Wedding Singer” failed as stage musicals, while the more cultish “The Producers” and “Hairspray” have succeeded. There are some exceptions: “The Color Purple” is a hit, but it boasts Oprah’s imprimatur; and Disney is another franchise altogether. But the steep failure rate hasn’t stopped movie studios from trying to exploit their catalogs. And what seems to have accelerated is the speed at which a project moves from movie release to stage development -- “Catch Me if You Can,” “Shrek,” “Spider-Man” to name a few. Which raises the question: Why would you pay $100 to revisit a story when you could rent a DVD?

“Popularity in one medium doesn’t necessarily translate into another. You have to make it uniquely its own,” says Adam Epstein, a producer involved with “Hairspray” and “Wedding Singer” and who has John Waters’ “Cry-Baby” and the Drew Barrymore film “Ever After” in development. “The problem is that some of these projects seem to be pandering and, worse, if you have a show that features an iconic performance, how do you ever erase or better something so indelibly in the minds of the broad public?”

Laura Bell Bundy, nominated for leading actress in a musical for “Legally Blonde,” has been taken to task for not being Reese Witherspoon. More damaging, however, is that Heather Hach’s nominated book appears to stick too closely to the original screenplay. Ultimately, Broadway is still about an experience you cannot get elsewhere. “Whether it’s an epic story or a small one, there has to be real relationships and larger-than-life emotions,” says Stone. “Sometimes a light, romantic film comedy simply doesn’t have what the theater needs to fill that stage.”

Litmus test No. 4: How soon is too soon for a revival?

Insiders were perplexed when it was announced that “Les Miserables” was returning to Broadway, a scant four years after it ended its 16-year run.

Now the Roundabout has plans to bring back the Sam Mendes-Rob Marshall production of “Cabaret” -- a revival of a revival that closed at Studio 54 in 2004. That news has been greeted with carping that the nonprofit theater is forsaking its mandate to take bold chances. “I feel enormous pressure to generate income for our theater,” Roundabout artistic director Todd Haimes told Bloomberg News. “I’ll do anything within reason, as long as it goes back into the nonprofit purpose of the Roundabout.” That “purpose,” reviving neglected classics and premiering new material, has resulted in the Roundabout’s five Tony nominations this year for the revival of “110 in the Shade.” Next year’s roster includes a revival of “Les Liaisons Dangereuses.”

For now, the trend of robbing Peter to pay Paul looks to have legs.

Litmus test No. 5: Are mega-millionaires Broadway’s only risk takers?

“There’s this new, weird kind of philanthropy on Broadway,” says New York Post theater columnist Michael Riedel. “While the subsidized theater is getting safer, the most adventurous things are being funded by Very Rich People.”

He may have a point. There is so much capital floating around on Broadway that certain producers are willing to gamble boldly -- even if it means taking on huge losses.

To some extent, factors other than commercial considerations have always come into play. In 1994, producers joined to present “Passion,” motivated largely by the desire to present a Stephen Sondheim musical. They received four Tony Awards but little else for their effort. And in 2004, similar-minded producers transferred “Caroline, or Change” to Broadway at a total loss. This season, “Coram Boy,” “Journey’s End” and “Grey Gardens” fit that bill.

“Coram Boy” and “Journey’s End,” backed by Bob Boyett and Bill Haber, were imports from the National Theatre in London with whom Boyett Ostar Productions has an exclusive deal. With a cast of 40 and a budget of $6 million, the former is the most expensive play ever mounted on Broadway and was rumored to have lost an additional $300,000 for each week it played. “Journey’s End” will have lost its entire investment when it closes tonight -- even though it’s the odds-on favorite to win the Tony for best revival of a play. Likewise “Grey Gardens” has had few profitable weeks since it opened last fall. “Of course you want it to be commercially successful because that means more people will see it,” says Kelly Gonda of East of Doheny, lead producer of “Grey Gardens.” “But you just have to follow your heart, tell the story as best you can and hope the theater gods are with you.”