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Stars see challenged as a challengeActors bare all to portray mentally ill characters

From Variety

Whether psychologists like it or not, movies have helped shape our view of the mentally ill.

In some cases it's been for the worse, as with slasher films, but in other cases for the better, with accurate depictions not only winning Oscars but also aiding the public's understanding of a stigmatized disorder. Examples include Jack Nicholson's obsessive compulsive in "As Good as It Gets" and Geoffrey Rush's schizophrenic in "Shine."

This Oscar season includes a number of award candidates playing characters who are -- or are potentially -- suffering from mental illnesses. While a mentally ill character presents a juicy challenge to an actor, there's also a danger of doing too much.

"I think you could certainly go over the top with it and chew the scenery," says "Michael Clayton" casting director Ellen Chenoweth of the role in the film played by Tom Wilkinson, a star lawyer who goes off the deep end. "It has to be a real person who's ill who you identify with and feel for."

Wilkinson, she adds, "knew what the line was."

Many actors don't like to speak of their characters as mentally ill, perhaps because it makes the role seem simplistic. The goal of acting is, after all, to play a person and not a type, and to make the character's struggle seem universal.

"I'm not interested in 'ill' films," says Julie Christie, who stars as a woman suffering from Alzheimer's in "Away From Her." "The film is really about ... love enduring through immense difficulty."

Nicole Kidman, when asked if her "Margot at the Wedding" character is mentally ill, responds, "No, it's not that. Margot is someone who is having a breakdown. That's what's underlying. It's why she needs to control everyone around her. Her life is not what she thought it was and the choices she has made. That's what makes her so brittle."

Ryan Gosling, whose character in "Lars and the Real Girl" pretends a mannequin is his girlfriend, says of the role, "We went down the road of studying mental illnesses that matched up to this kind of behavior, but at the end of the day it didn't seem to match anything.

"If he had anything, he suffered from Don Quixote disease," Gosling adds, referring to the character's "almost debilitating imagination."

Philip Bosco, on the other hand, couldn't help but acknowledge his character's dementia in "The Savages," as it's the driving force of the film -- the reason why his children, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney, put him in a nursing home. To Bosco, the goal was to not sentimentalize the character.

"We (didn't) want to make this guy any kind of cuddly, cute, nice old bastard," he says. "We wanted to play up his meanness and anger and cantankerous nature all the way through."

Bosco's research came years before filming, when his mother moved in with him and his wife and eventually developed dementia. He had also observed his demented former neighbor, who would wander into Bosco's garage before the man's wife found him.

"I didn't specifically model (my performance) on what he would do, but I understood it," Bosco says. "You don't know what's going on, and you lash out, even at this little old lady that was taking care of him."

To prepare for his role, Gosling spent a lot of time with Bianca, the mannequin, and also observed kids.

"Kids seem to have the greatest ability to believe their own imagination," he says. "With a kid, there really is something under their bed. I just got in touch with the little me."

Casting ensembles pose challenges

From Variety's SAG Awards Preview Issue

A great ensemble cast doesn't necessarily lead to a great film -- but it helps. In five of the 12 years it has been awarded, the SAG Award for ensemble cast of a film has predicted the picture award at the Oscars ("Crash," "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," "Chicago," "American Beauty" and "Shakespeare in Love"). Even if it doesn't lead to Oscar's top prize, a SAG win in the cast category can create Oscar heat, as it did for last year's winner, "Little Miss Sunshine," which went on to win for original screenplay and for Alan Arkin's supporting turn.

Variety spoke with several casting directors about the major challenges they faced in putting their respective ensembles together.

Atonement: Jina Jay needed to find three different actresses to play the role of Briony, the adolescent who falsely accuses a man of rape. "Vanessa Redgrave happened first," she says, "and then Romola Garai, who plays Briony as an 18-year-old." But the revelation was the 12-year-old Briony, Saoirse Ronan. "Saoirse was recommended by a dialogue coach I'd worked with. Saoirse's father sent a DVD of her reading. Spectacular! We flew her to London with several other girls. We met an enormous number of girls, 350 girls, whom we saw on a one-to-one basis -- 350 is a lot."

There Will Be Blood: According to Cassandra Kulukundis, Paul Thomas Anderson "often wants unknown faces and nonactors. With this film, it was vital. The script was set in turn of the century, and the people were starving on the land. They were 35 but looked 55." So she rented a car and drove around the country looking for unknowns. Among her finds was 9-year-old Dillon Freasier from Fort Davis, Texas. "I had gone on a search for a child who was more interested in the outdoors, not a kid who watched TV and played Game Boy," she says. "I met Dillon at his school and videotaped him, and ran back to California to show my tape to Paul."

Sweeney Todd: Susie Figgis, a Tim Burton veteran, says this pic was one of her toughest. "I'd know how to cast a Tim Burton movie and I know how to cast a musical," she says. "But the two are not an easy marriage. You're trying to find this quirky world of Tim Burton, but you need to find people who can sing." And they all had to be okayed by Stephen Sondheim. Another challenge, Figgis says, is that Burton wanted the teenagers to actually look like teenagers. "He wanted 16 and 17, which is younger than drama school kids. I discovered singing corners of Europe that I didn't know existed. I discovered youth opera societies in North Ireland," which is how she found Jayne Wisener to play the young female lead, Johanna.

Charlie Wilson's War: As Ellen Lewis explains it, "There's a Vegas section of this movie and a Washington section of this movie, they're in Jerusalem at one point, they're in Texas. At the same time, you have to make everyone cohesive. Mike Nichols has a theory -- he says everybody needs to be almost part of the same person." Fortunately, Nichols knows actors and keeps close tabs on the theater world, which is where he got Denis O'Hare, John Slattery, Christopher Denham and Ken Stott. Nichols even cast one of his students from Gotham's New Actors Workshop, Joe Roland, who wrote and starred in a play that Nichols produced Off-Broadway.

Eastern Promises: Casting directors Deirdre Bowen and Nina Gold needed to find actors who could play Russian mobsters in London. "We had a lovely fellow who had a Turkish acting troupe in London, and he made some connections for us," Bowen says. "We were looking at a cross section of London that was not the London you see in 'Masterpiece Theater.' " Eastern European supporting players include the Polish actor Jerzy Skolimowski and the Turkish Josef Altin, plus lots of Russians for the ensemble scenes.

American Gangster: "This was the easiest job, even though it was a huge, huge cast," says Avy Kaufman. "A lot of times you show directors a lot of people and you have to show them 20,000 more," but Ridley Scott was decisive. Because the material was attractive, Kaufman says, "I got great people to do parts they wouldn't normally do," including Roger Bart ("Young Frankenstein"), who plays an angry attorney and Kevin Corrigan ("Grounded for Life"), who in one scene gets to bite Russell Crowe.

Michael Clayton: Ellen Chenoweth had little trouble recruiting actors for juicy supporting roles to surround George Clooney. "There was something King Lear-ish in a way" about Tom Wilkinson's character, says the casting director, whose list consisted of classically-trained Brits and Aussies, plus Warren Beatty. Chenoweth was particularly proud of calling Tony Gilroy's attention to Sean Cullen, who played Clooney's more responsible brother. "He's like the guys you saw running into the World Trade Center," she says. "He has this dignity and goodness about him. That guy could say to George, 'Stop messing around.' "

Hairspray: David Rubin and Richard Kicks covered all bases. "Musicals have recently had a rough time of it at the box office," says Rubin, "so we had one eye on the kinds of actors who could attract a broad audience. We wanted the offbeat character actors like Chris Walken, the latest matinee idol like Zac Efron, the Disney Channel heroine Amanda Bynes, and John Travolta, the reigning kind of movie musicals." At one of open-call audition, they found newcomer Elijah Kelley. "There was no one else in the casting session for that role," says Rubin. "We hoped not to go further." And they didn't.

Into the Wild: Francine Maisler credits Sean Penn with making the casting process an easy one. "He makes the sessions a very safe place for the actors so they feel free to experiment. He knows what he is looking for, but he is also open to being surprised," says the casting director. And how did she find those bizarre skinny-dipping tourists? "The two tourists in the Grand Canyon were originally written as German, but we decided to also look in Copenhagen, which is where we found the actress Signe Olsen. I'm always open to looking anywhere in the world to find the right person for the role."

(Robert Hofler contributed to this report.)

Variety Comedy Impact Special: Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan

From Variety

Though their legendary collaboration "The Producers" -- the phenomenon that won 12 Tonys -- closed in April, Brooks and Meehan have now co-written the book to arguably the most highly anticipated show of the Broadway season, "Young Frankenstein," based on Brooks' film.

The in-demand Meehan also has a potential sleeper hit in "Cry-Baby," based on the John Waters movie, which opened at the La Jolla Playhouse this month and will arrive on Broadway in the spring. Meehan co-wrote the book with Mark O'Donnell, who was also his co-book writer on "Hairspray," another Waters adaptation that this year had a second life -- or, actually, third life -- as a successful movie musical.

Point of view

"I'm calmer, quieter," Meehan says, comparing himself to Brooks. "He's more wildly extroverted. We are an odd couple. ... What he does with me is (say), 'I've got a great idea. What do you think?' And I'll say, 'It stinks.' I can tell him no."

On bouncing between two Broadway musicals rehearsing at the same time -- "Young Frankenstein" and "Cry-Baby" -- Meehan adds, "Going back and forth, it's like having a wife and a mistress."

Variety Comedy Impact Special: Jenna Fischer

From Variety

After years of sitcom auditions in which she'd confused fellow actors with her quirky line readings and awkward pauses, Fischer and her understated style have finally found their match in "The Office," which this year netted the 33-year-old actress her first Emmy nomination.

On the show this season, her character Pam and true love Jim (John Krasinski) finally broke their romantic tension, yet Fischer still managed to help keep their relationship fresh and funny. This year, Fischer also made a graceful transition to the bigscreen with "Blades of Glory," playing the Cinderella sister of two obnoxious figure skaters in a comedy feature that netted more than $144 million globally.

Next up is "Walk Hard," the Judd Apatow-produced country music biopic parody in which Fischer takes fairly specific aim at Reese Witherspoon's June Carter take in "Walk the Line." The role not only shows off her comedic range but also earns her a membership card in the Apatow repertory.

Point of view

“The reason I wanted to do ‘Walk Hard’ is it was completely out of the zone of being that shrinking-violet character,” Fischer says. “She’s all about her sexuality, she’s very confident, she’s loud. She’s a person who makes things happen.”

Variety Comedy Impact Special: Ricky Gervais

From Variety

A surprise winner of this year's comedy actor trophy for HBO's "Extras," Gervais beat out Steve Carell -- American-version star of the U.K.-native multihyphenate's biggest creation, "The Office." "A few hours after the (Emmys), I turned my phone on and there were messages from my agent, 'You won! You won!' I still feel very flattered to be accepted in America. I was brought up on American TV."

In the second season of "Extras," which Gervais co-created with Stephen Merchant, his character, struggling thesp Andy Millman, finally gets his own sitcom but is pressured into dumbing it down and including catchphrases.

On the bigscreen, having appeared last year in the Fox hit "Night at the Museum," Gervais is set to star as a misanthropic dentist in "Ghost Town" and will write, direct and star in "This Side of the Truth," about a guy who lives in a world in which no one ever lies. This year Gervais also had a 100-date U.K. standup tour (the reason he couldn't make the Emmys), and he continued to create his popular podcast.

Point of view

"In England I'm one step below the queen. But here (in the U.S.), I'm probably number 49 on this list," Gervais quips.

Variety Comedy Impact Special: Sarah Silverman

From Variety

This year, one of America's most controversial and intensely analyzed comedians got her own deliciously shocking Comedy Central show, "The Sarah Silverman Program," which premiered in February and began a second season in October.

Silverman's bouncy, clueless alter ego stoops to sub-Eric Cartman levels of immaturity in dealing with issues such as race, abortion, AIDS, lesbianism and bowel movements. Adding extra fodder for Silverman fans and critics were her noteworthy appearances on the MTV Movie Awards, where she joked about Paris Hilton's jail time -- "The guards are going to paint the bars to look like penises. ... I just worry that she's going to break her teeth on those things." -- with Paris in the aud. Uncowed, she went after Britney Spears at the MTV Video Music Awards, calling the singer's kids "the most adorable mistakes you will ever see."

Point of view

"Certainly I'm not that ridiculous in real life, but I am completely doodie-obsessed, as all comedians are," Silverman says. "Maybe it's the lowest common denominator, but it's also a great uniter."

Variety Comedy Impact Special: Kevin James

From Variety

James made a complete transition from television star to movie star this year as "The King of Queens" ended after more than 200 episodes, just before the summer release of his film "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry." The pic, which also starred Adam Sandler, took in $180 million globally -- with very little help from critics.

Now James is in demand for future projects and is co-writing, producing and getting ready to star in "Mall Cop," about a mild-mannered security guard who is thrust into action when his mall is taken over by a band of thieves.

Point of view

"It's simple with him -- offscreen, Kevin is genuinely funny," says "Chuck and Larry" helmer Dennis Dugan. "He is sweet and friendly. He's approachable. He's a guy. And when he walks in front of the camera, he takes those qualities with him."

Variety Comedy Impact Special: Jon Stewart

From Variety

Having recently won its fifth consecutive variety/musical/comedy series Emmy, Stewart's "Daily Show" continues to come up with innovative ways of skewering the news -- this year, for example, correspondent Rob Riggle reported from the actual, nongreenscreen Iraq and somehow found comedy in the middle of a war-torn country.

Stewart -- who has been tapped for an encore Oscar-hosting gig -- continues to be active on the development side through his Busboy Prods. shingle, which has spawned not only the runaway hit "The Colbert Report" but also the recently announced "Important Things With Demetri Martin." The latter project will create a showcase for the "Daily Show" contributor, who is also one of the most popular alternative comedy headliners around.

Point of view

"Working with Jon is kind of like having this comedy professor," says "Daily Show" contributor Demetri Martin. "I feel like I learn something just being in ('The Daily Show') offices."

Crews tackle new logistics in Africa

From Variety's Eye on the Oscars: Preview issue

For pics set in Africa, the decision to shoot in the county where the story takes place may create greater authenticity and may even save money. But the challenges can be enormous.

"There was absolutely no infrastructure there at all," producer Lisa Bryer says of Uganda, where her pic "The Last King of Scotland" was shot. "There was no film industry, no trained workers, nothing."

When Bryer says no, she means it. For example, a slow Internet connection made each email take 10 to 15 minutes to send. When the filming ventured outside the capital city of Kampala, there was no air conditioning in the hotel rooms. The film had to be developed in Germany, so it took three to four days to see what had been shot. And of course the crew was plagued by malaria and dysentery.

One morning, during the filming of a scene that involved cars and trucks, "King" director Kevin Macdonald said "action," and nothing happened: The fuel had been siphoned off overnight.

To give them a leg up, the creators met directly with the president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni and got his full support and permission for access to various government buildings. "He felt it was a story that should be told. He seemed to trust us as filmmakers," Bryer says.

'Babel' village

The Morocco storyline in "Babel" was filmed exactly where much of it's set -- in a 300-person village for the scenes with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, and some barely inhabited desert areas for the scenes featuring the trigger-happy children. Producer Jon Kilik says he purposefully wanted to create a "low impact" shoot. Because Kilik's "Alexander" -- which was also shot in Morocco -- required huge battle scenes and elaborate sets and costumes, he brought a crew of 300. For "Babel," he kept it to 30.

The creatives on the film wanted to create a spirit of intimate interaction with the locals. "We kept the impact on the village, by our presence, to an absolute minimum in order to try to preserve the natural environment," says Kilik.

For instance, Moroccans taught the set builders how to add an extra room to an existing stone house in the Moroccan desert. The veterinarian who comes to stitch up Blanchett's character was played by an actual village vet who brought his own needle. The villagers in the film were played by people who lived in the town where the pic was shot, and so on.

"We wanted to have continuity between what's going on behind the camera and what your goal is in front of camera," Kilik says. And that they did: When a helicopter lands in the village, the reaction shots from the villagers were genuine. "It landed right in the middle of their homes, and it was something that was a supernatural sort of experience (for them), and it feels that way when you watch the scene, because we really included people's reactions," he says.

Kilik says the main challenge was the language barrier -- which, perhaps not coincidentally, fits the pic's theme. While the crew on "Alexander" hailed mostly from the U.K., the "Babel" crew came from Morocco, Mexico, the United States, England, Germany, France and Italy; and while English was the common language, some of the Moroccan cast and crew -- including the child actors who play major roles -- did not speak a word of English. Among the translators was a Palestinian actress, Hiam Abbass, who could translate the finer points of acting into French and Arabic.

"Catch a Fire" and "Blood Diamond" were filmed in Mozambique and South Africa. While South Africa has a fairly established film industry and often hosts shoots for commercials, the country isn't used to big-budget Hollywood filmmaking and doesn't have major soundstages.

For that reason, the decision by "Fire" producer Robyn Slovo to use mostly South African department heads was unique. It's cheaper, but there were also creative reasons. "It's a South African story," says Slovo, "so let's use a South African production designer, South African costume designer." Still other crew members, such as the Steadicam operator, were brought from Europe.

Genevieve Hofmeyr was line producer on "Catch a Fire" and her company, Moonlighting Films, did production services on "Blood Diamond," which she says relied more on non-African crew members than "Catch a Fire."

Sometimes it helps to hire Hollywood experts with previous work experience in the area. The production designer on "Catch a Fire," Johnny Breedt, had been production designer on "Hotel Rwanda." And Andrew Wood, line producer on "The Last King of Scotland," had filmed in Rwanda on "Shooting Dogs," and brought in crews from Rwanda and Kenya.

While Africans aren't familiar with the "culture of filmmaking," Hofmeyr explains, "the advantages of a young industry frequently outweighs this problem, i.e. lower costs, enthusiastic crews, absence of regulation, etc." Labor costs can be a third of what they are in Hollywood, she notes.

"There is enormous talent in South Africa and too little experience," Slovo observes. "This will change in the next five or six years. It's just that these people never get used other than for local productions."

How to walk the line between fact & fiction

From Variety's Eye on the Oscars: Preview issue

Oscar season is biopic season for obvious reasons. First off, biopics are almost always serious-minded, whether it be the recently nommed "Capote" and "Good Night, and Good Luck" or the 2002 best pic, "A Beautiful Mind."

In some respects, biopics are the ultimate chance for actors to show their chops. What better way for a thesp to let audiences know that he's branched out from his own comfortable persona than by embodying someone else whom people already know from another context? Better yet, the performer often has to put on weight or alter his face, thus showing far he's willing to sacrifice appearance in favor of commitment to craft.

And then there's all that research.

"I met with his generals. I met with ministers. I met his girlfriend. I met with so many people," says Forest Whitaker of his role as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland." The press simply loves tons of research.

An actor also often has to alter his or her voice -- often to impersonate a familiar one -- a salient demonstration of acting ability that lay nonactors can understand. Biopics make an actor seem deferential, as he or she appears to be bowing before another person whose life is worth portraying -- often a noble do-gooder or a fellow artist.

It is no surprise, therefore, that three of the last four actor trophies have been for the protagonists of biopics -- Truman Capote, Ray Charles and Wladyslaw Szpilman in "The Pianist." Other actors have won playing Claus von Bulow, Mahatma Gandhi, Jake LaMotta and Antonio Salieri.

Reese Witherspoon won for her portrayal of June Carter in "Walk the Line." In fact, five of the last seven actress winners and five of the last eight supporting actress winners have gone to thesps playing real-life roles as well.

The trend is less evident in supporting actor Oscars -- the last one was Jim Broadbent as Iris Murdoch's husband, John Bayley, in "Iris," and before that Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi in "Ed Wood" (perhaps that's because of the abundance of quirky roles for male character actors).

Several best picture winners have been biopics, including not only the recent "A Beautiful Mind" but "Braveheart" and "Schindler's List."

Not that biopics are an Oscar shoo-in, as there are many challenges to overcome before being deemed Academy worthy. A main question is how much of the person's life to include. Among this year's crop, only "Marie Antoinette" straightforwardly depicts a long sequence of events in the subject's life along the lines of "Ray" and "Walk the Line."

Instead, most focus on a particular formative period. "Fur," an "imaginary" biopic about Diane Arbus, focuses on 1958, when Arbus transformed from a housewife into a famous photographer. "Copying Beethoven" is set in 1824, late in the composer's life, when he wrote his Ninth Symphony. "The Queen" tells of only one week out of Queen Elizabeth II's 54-year reign, and she shares the spotlight with Tony Blair and Princess Diana. "World Trade Center" relates a harrowing 24 hours in the lives of a few firefighters and their families.

Though "Infamous" depicts Truman Capote's writing of "In Cold Blood," writer-director Douglas McGrath attempted to show how the experience affected the rest of his life. McGrath says that in the last part of the film he consciously sucked out the pic's "merry wit" and replaced it with sadness.

"It's really one personal disaster after another for him after 'In Cold Blood,'" McGrath says. "He was so emotionally attached to Perry Smith, that to see him killed, it kind of ruined the rest of his life for him."

On "Catch a Fire," producer Robyn Slovo says the creators specifically chose to focus on Patrick Chamusso's joining the African National Congress and bombing an oil refinery, and left out other parts, such as his trial and his time in prison.

Another big biopic issue is the balance between accuracy and drama. As Peter Morgan explains his "Queen" script, "Every single scene with the queen takes place in a place where there's no precedent for getting any fact or matter of record. It takes place in meetings that we could only imagine."

Morgan had a rule of thumb on writing the "Queen" script: "Stuff which unquestionably happened we tended to do in archive footage, and the stuff that didn't, we dramatized."

Many of this year's films, while based on facts, create fictional characters to make the stories more dramatically viable. For instance, in "Hollywoodland" the audience learns about the death of the actor George Reeves (Ben Affleck) through a fictional detective (Adrien Brody). Producer Glenn Williamson notes the gumshoe helps the audience relate not only to Reeves' death but also his troubled life.

"Reeves always wanted something more," Williamson says. "His fame and his stature as an actor wasn't enough. The Adrien Brody character is on a similar path, because his life is kind of a mess and he has a real awakening uncovering the details of George's life. There's a moment in the film when, for Adrien Brody's character, it sinks in, 'I'm headed there.'"

"The Last King of Scotland," based on a novel, tells the story of Idi Amin through a doctor named Nicholas Garrigan, who is a fictional amalgam of three different Amin advisers but is ultimately the film's true protagonist. "Garrigan is the one we go on the journey with," says Jeremy Brock, who co-wrote the script with Morgan. "Garrigan is the one who goes on the journey of moral significance. He's the one who changes. Idi is Idi. Garrigan's the one who goes from innocence to knowledge."

Taking a more novelized approach is "Bobby," in which writer-director Emilio Estevez attempts to portray the title character through an ensemble of fictional characters in and around the Ambassador Hotel, where Bobby Kennedy was shot.

"It stems from where my interest was lying, and that's in the ordinary people -- I was really taken by what the loss meant to all of us," Estevez says. "Rather than straight biopic, where I would be forced to do an account of the day, I was able to create characters that I thought would be emblematic of the times.

"This hotel would be a microcosm of everything happening in America, and, in the tradition of (filmmaker) Irwin Allen, I would flip this thing upside down. This is a disaster movie."

Stephen Schaefer contributed to this report.

Clothes that race at 100 miles per show

From Variety

The four actors in "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" probably work harder backstage than onstage as they plow through about 50 costumes a night.

"Most of them are fast changes, some of them are lightning fast," says costume designer Pamela Scofield. "There are very few that are leisurely."

Three crew members work backstage -- one for wardrobe, one to help change sets, and Wendy Loomis, the assistant stage manager, who helps out with both.

Loomis, who has been with the show since she helped load in the set 10 years ago, says one actor's switch into his Italian waiter outfit is particularly stressful.

"He's underdressing for the rest of act one," she says, meaning that he has to layer his costumes. "You have to have the tux shirt, and over tux shirt. You have the dickie and over the dickie. You have to have the chef's outfit. And he barely makes it every day. Every single guy that has done that role has had trouble."

Another quick change involves one actress's switch into the wedding dress for the last scene in act one.

As Loomis explains, "She's got to take her own chair offstage, take off her pantsuit, step into shoes, step into the dress. The wardrobe person has to pull it up, zip it up and put a veil on her head and she's gone."

"It all happens within 15 seconds," says Jodie Langel, the actress currently enduring the routine every night. "There was a time where there was a sub on, and she didn't quite have the zipper on the wedding gown down, and it got caught on my hair." Langel ran on late for her song.

Scofield was not the original designer, but the producers hired her six years ago to change the costumes to a style more reflective of what men and women wear in the current century.

"People think designing a contemporary show is easy," Scofield says, "but it's always harder, because people in the audience have different ideas about what contemporary clothes means."

The show has run for so long that even Scofield has had to change the costumes to match changing fashions. "It has to do with a more relaxed look," she says. "A lot of it has to do with lengths of hemlines."

She also realized that women now wear shorter tops and wear pants on the hipbone. "When short, hooded sweatshirts were popular two summers ago," the designer says, she added one. "You should probably throw out everything and start over every six months. But that would be prohibitively expensive."

Broadway in China

(This article was scheduled to be in Variety's Broadway and the Road special issue, but got cut for space reasons.)

The results are in on the groundbreaking 100-perf run of "The Lion King" at the Shanghai Grand Theater, and Disney seems happy.

Ron Kollen, senior vice president of international for Disney Theatricals, says the production – the first production of a Disney Broadway show in China – has been playing to near-sellout crowds every week ("This week we've had just 20 empty seats," he said on a recent Friday). He's already received offers to bring the show to other Chinese cities.

"(China) still has along way to go in terms of being a real theatrical market like Germany is or Japan is, but it seems to be on the road to getting there," Kollen says.

The production, which began perfs in July and plays through Oct. 3, fits with Disney's overall plan to target the Chinese market in merchandise, film, television and other areas. The Mouse House, which now has offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, opened a theme park in Hong Kong in Sept. 2005 and is reportedly talks for another one in Shanghai.

Only a handful of major Broadway musicals – including "Cats," "Les Miserables" and "The Sound of Music" – have had major productions in China, and they've typically been in English with surtitles.

The next step will be productions in the local language with local actors, which is what Disney's done with its productions in Japan and South Korea.

"In China, that requires a big investment, and, therefore, recoupment takes forever," Kollen says.

"It's a question of triple threat talent -- it doesn't really exist in China in any major way at the moment," says Simone Genatt, prexy and co-founder of Broadway Asia, a major producer of American musicals in China and other Asian countries. Chinese performers, Genatt says, are "trained to either sing or act or dance. To be able to do Western musicals, you need to be able to do more than once discipline." Chinese actors also have a history of performing in troupes, as opposed to independently picking their own projects, Genatt points out.

Broadway Asia is sending  "42nd Street," "The King and I" and a SpongeBob SquarePants musical to China in 2007 and "Cinderella" in 2008. Its production of "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" in December will be in Chinese with local actors – a first for a major American musical since at least the 1980s, Genatt says. The company is also exploring establishing musical theater academies in China.

"I was in China in 1989 doing roller skating shows through Chinese dance clubs, because they weren't ready for musicals," Genatt says. "But China's had enormous growth and progression. And they certainly are very, very interested in Broadway."

Despite being in English, "The Lion King" in Shanghai has added jokes that play specifically to the Chinese. For instance, the character Zazu sings a popular Chinese song where he normally sings "It's a Small World," a change the show has also made for other foreign markets.

Kollen found some cultural differences in his dealings with the Chinese. For instance, the Chinese marketing leaned more heavily on photographs than logos. The Ministry of Culture kept tabs on the production but was quite supportive throughout, Kollen noted.

Kollen also found that Chinese auds respond differently from other Asian audiences.

"You go to Japan and people will sit there and not say anything until the end, and then they go wild," Kollen says. "In China, audiences were laughing from the beginning. They were jumping up and applauding."

The Oxymoron

From Variety

A world-premiere play on Broadway that clicked with auds, as well as many crix?

A Stephen Sondheim musical on Broadway that makes back its investment?

Such occurrences are rare, but two shows this season broke the mold.

"It's a really scary proposition," says David Lindsay-Abaire, referring to his play "Rabbit Hole," which was not only a world premiere on Broadway but also his Broadway debut.

"I was relieved that the play worked," he says. "I was relieved that people bought tickets and the reviews were fairly good. What more could I want? 'The History Boys?' "

Financially, it helped that the producer, Manhattan Theater Club, has a subscription audience, and that the play starred well-known thesps Cynthia Nixon and Tyne Daly.

But Lindsay-Abaire says he appreciated the fact that MTC committed to putting the play in its Broadway theater, as opposed to its Off Broadway Stage I at City Center, before the cast was secured.

"There was some talk about doing a regional production first, but I had done a couple readings. I thought the play was very solid, and I thought I could make any changes during the rehearsal process," Lindsay-Abaire says. "I've never felt like that with any play before."

Sondheim scores don't have a great financial track record, which was a concern of producer Richard Frankel, who had put up a hit revival of Sondheim's "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" in 1996.

"It was certainly discussed that 'Sweeney Todd's' subject matter was not an easy one for tourists who populate Broadway these days," says Frankel.

Then again, many theatergoers consider "Todd" one of the greatest tuners ever, and the John Doyle-helmed staging had been a smash in London.

Plus, Frankel says, this particular production needs to sell only a third of the seats to break even each week. It made back its $3.5 million capitalization in 19 weeks.

Frankel says that low nut is not the result of Doyle's decision to have the actors play musical instruments. After all, these thesps are paid more than usual, and the show requires seven standbys for 10 performers, a higher-than-normal ratio. "The fact that it's on one set, and they don't change their clothes, makes it a relatively inexpensive show to run," Frankel explains. "It's not because we saved all this money by sticking tubas into divas' hands."

The Frankel Group returns to Doyle and Sondheim next season with a revival of "Company."

 

The Irish

From Variety

Broadway fans got a crash course in contempo Irish drama this season as three vastly different plays by Irish playwrights -- Martin McDonagh's "The Lieutenant of Inishmore," Brian Friel's "Faith Healer" and Conor McPherson's "Shining City" -- all opened within a week of each other in early May.

The plays are stylistically divergent. "Faith Healer" is four monologues by three characters who never share the stage, while "Inishmore's" calling card is its rapid-fire banter. "Shining City" is somewhere in between: As in other McPherson plays, there are multiple characters but also a distinct first-person storytelling element.

Most intriguing is that each play reflects its writer's unique take on his native country. As McPherson puts it, "We're all looking at different Irelands, but it's all equally valid."

Friel is the 77-year-old elder statesmen of the group, while McDonagh and McPherson are both in their mid-30s. McPherson was born in Dublin; McDonagh grew up in an Irish area of London and spent summers visiting family in Ireland's rural Connemara region.

"(McDonagh's) view of Ireland is an observer's view," McPherson says. "Brian Friel ... grew up in an Ireland which was very religious and dealing with its relationship with England. I grew up in a post-secular society, which is now experiencing economic progress."

"Faith Healer" tells the story of an Irishman who travels through Welsh and Scottish villages magically curing the sick before his climactic return to Ireland. The play is typical of 20th-century Irish literature in its dealings with paganism, Christianity and alcoholism.

"Shining City" deals with similar issues, but is set present-day in a much more secular Ireland. The character of Ian is an ex-priest, who now works as a therapist. His patient claims to see the ghost of his dead wife, testing her and Ian's belief in the otherworldly.

"It's a picture of the post-religious human condition as I see it," McPherson says. "In terms of any religious belief, if it's been in your life at all, and it's gone, is there always an echo of it hanging around? If it isn't there, what does replace that belief?"

"Inishmore," about an Irish terrorist who comes home to take revenge on the people who killed his cat, is set in 1993, when Irish-British tension was a pressing concern, before the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. McDonagh, who wrote the play in the mid-1990s, was expressing his anger at IRA violence.

"When we first started doing it, there were people who felt that it might impede the peace process," says Wilson Milam, who has directed the play in several locations, including the West End and Broadway. "But as the world changed, it began to seem more relevant outside its Irish context, whether it's the Middle East or New York."

Art Direction Oscar Analysis

From Variety

How do you win an art direction Oscar? The most obvious method is to make a period piece. This year, all the nominees fit the bill except "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."

Fantasies have won in this category, but not often. Still, the fourth "Potter" pic's obligatory, gothic Hogwarts interiors are supplemented by an underwater scene and a winter-themed ball that bring tears to the eyes of prom-committee heads everywhere.

Winning the statue is also easier if the rest of your movie isn't bad either. The best picture winner has won five of the last nine years. In six of the last nine years, the art direction nominee whose pic has the most total nominations takes the prize. In 2006, that pic is "Good Night, and Good Luck."

The claustrophobic CBS News offices help humanize the larger-than-life Edward R. Murrow and assist in amping up the excitement inherent in humble journalists taking on entrenched power. Then there's the layer of smoke in every scene, hinting at the dangerous ignorance of a bygone era. And though art direction winners typically feature sumptuous shades of red, the choice of black and white demonstrates a seriousness of purpose, and nobody's eyes get bored.

"Pride & Prejudice" is a more typical art direction nominee -- castles, couches, drapes, rugs, statues, mirrors, molding. But it gets extra credit for not unnecessarily gilding up the Bennet residence, instead including just the right amount of chipped paint and barnyard mud.

"Memoirs of a Geisha" has the advantage of a more exotic location. Critics were dazzled by the pre-WWII Japan set pieces, which ranged from the confines of the geisha household to a dance performance, a sumo wrestling contest and the streets of the geisha district -- and it was shot mostly in California, which should please union members.

"King Kong" has been hailed for its special effects, but art direction shares credit for the sheer audacity of the production. The lavish art deco flourishes and creepy habitat of the Skull Island natives are critical to the pic's over-the-top tone.

Good Night, and Good Luck
Art Direction: Jim Bissell; Set Decoration: Jan Pascale
Oscar pedigree: none
Current kudos: Satellite (win), Art Directors Guild (nom)
Why it'll win: Those smoky newsrooms are a big contributor to the pic's appeal.
Why it won't: CBS News isn't exactly Versailles. Cramped, drab offices don't usually win you an art direction statue.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Art Direction: Stuart Craig; Set Decoration: Stephanie McMillan
Current kudos: BAFTA (nom)
Oscar pedigree: "The English Patient" win (1996) and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" nom (2001) plus other wins and noms for Craig with other collaborators
Why it'll win: An impressive Oscar pedigree, and Craig is an Officer of the British Empire (O.B.E.). The various settings of Harry's Triwizard Tournament helped keep the series visually fresh ...
Why it won't: ... but perhaps not fresh enough. Craig and McMillan have done all four "Harry Potter" pics, and they were nommed and lost for the first one.

King Kong
Art Direction: Dan Hennah; Set Decoration: Simon Bright
Oscar pedigree: Hennah shared a "The Lord of the Rings" win (2003) and two "Lord" noms (2001 and 2002)
Current kudos: Art Directors Guild (nom), BAFTA (nom)
Why it'll win: Who doesn't like art deco?
Why it won't: Pic is so CGI-heavy that the visual effects department probably gets more credit for the visuals than the art direction does. The ape and the stampeding dinosaurs are more memorable than anything behind them.

Memoirs of a Geisha
Art Direction: John Myhre; Set Decoration: Gretchen Rau
Oscar pedigree: Shared "Elizabeth" (1998) and "Chicago" (2002) noms for Myhre, one shared "Last Samurai" nom (2003) for Rau
Current kudos: Art Directors Guild (nom), BAFTA (nom), Satellite (nom)
Why it'll win: Critics and audiences liked the visual splendor.
Why it won't: Critics and audiences were disappointed by many other aspects of the much-anticipated film.

Pride & Prejudice
Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
Oscar pedigree: none
Current kudos: none
Why it'll win: The Jane Austen redo is a pitch-perfect mixture of extravagance and subtlety.
Why it won't: Pic wasn't recognized by the Art Directors Guild or BAFTA (and it's a British film, for God's sake). The setting -- late 18th century England -- feels familiar, much more so than those of the other nominees.

Judd Apatow and Steve Carell, 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin'

From Variety WGA Awards special issue

The success of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" surely has something to do with how well the concept clicks with each of its writers. Carell, for instance, says he wasn't a teenage Casanova. "I thought about how timid I was personally around the opposite sex," he recalls, "and how I tried to appear as more knowledgeable than I actually was."

Such memories are what prompted Carell, during his Second City days, to improvise a scene in which guys at a poker table trade sex stories, and Carell's character can't keep up. Many years later, when Carell started stealing scenes in the Apatow-produced "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," he was invited to pitch ideas. Carell brought up the poker scene, and it became the inciting incident for "Virgin."

Having exec produced the TV show "Freaks and Geeks," Apatow maintains an affinity for the latter breed. "They're not the kids who are trying to lose their virginity," he says. "They're the kids who are terrified of kissing a girl."

Noah Baumbach, 'The Squid and the Whale'

From Variety WGA Awards special issue

As fans of "The Squid and the Whale" probably know, its writer-director based the film on his own experience growing up with divorced parents in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn in the 1980s. Regarding any universal themes that the film might evoke, Baumbach came upon those totally by accident. "I feel like I was writing from a much smaller perspective," he says.

And don't even ask him if Laura Linney is the squid and Jeff Daniels  is the whale or vice versa. He doesn't know. "I don't think in metaphor," says Baumbach. "When I'm writing well, it comes out of conversation and character."

The Baumbachs share many similarities with the Berkmans in the film. The custody agreement between Daniels and Linney's characters, for instance, is the same one his parents had.

But other stuff he made up. "I always feel like I have to say that my brother did not masturbate in public and drink alcohol," Baumbach says of Frank, played by Owen Kline. "I wouldn't have written that if it were true."

Legit's longest line

From Variety

Any world-weary theater vet who walks down 44th Street at 7:30 p.m. and spots the "Phantom of the Opera" line snaking out of the Majestic Theater and up Eighth Avenue can't help but roll his eyes and wonder: Who are these people? How is it possible that none of them has seen this show before?

The answer, in short, is that most of them have.

A survey of the line at one Saturday matinee in December found many returnees who had bought tickets months in advance. The Moyer family from Bucks County, Pa., standing in line 45 minutes early, came to the show as part of a bus tour they signed up for over the summer.

Alexis Moyer was seeing the show for the third time and was dragging along her husband for his second. "I'm originally from New Jersey, and I'm used to coming into the city," she said. "I married a Pennsylvanian, and he needs some culture." They brought his side of the family, who had never seen the show before.

One married couple, Rick and Kathy Clauson, was seeing "Phantom" for the eighth time. They met as teachers at Delran High School in New Jersey, where they led a cultural outing club that they often brought to "Phantom." Though Kathy now teaches at a college, Rick still heads the club and this time brought about 45 students.

The Clausons don't have to stay with the kids, but they always do. "I could see it eight more times," Kathy said. Other Broadway shows are different, in her opinion. "When we take them to 'Rent,' " she says, "we go to a movie."

Greg Corradetti, a senior account director who supervises the "Phantom" account at Serino Coyne, the show's ad agency, says about 40%-50% of the Broadway audience has seen the show before, either on Broadway or elsewhere.

Alan Wasser, the general manager for all U.S. productions, says on the road, "If we go back to a city for the fifth, sixth, seventh time, a lot of those people will be seeing the show for the fifth, sixth, seventh time."

Serino Coyne has been pushing this trend along. In June 2003, the agency began a "Remember Your First Time" campaign, putting that slogan on Gotham buses and running radio ads with audience members telling stories of their first time seeing the show. Corradetti says the campaign came "at a time when people weren't sure the show would continue," and it helped "Phantom" become a hot ticket again.

Much like one's first time, a trip to "Phantom" is often thought of as a major event due to its iconic status and the glamour of its setting, the Paris Opera. Wasser recalls seeing the Los Angeles production one Saturday night at the end of its fourth year: "I noticed, in the audience, a lot of people wearing formal dress, tuxedos, almost prom wear. Out on the street, there were stretch limos. We've seen that in other cities, too."

Not having been brought up on proms, foreigners have a different take on the show. Outside the Majestic, one security guard said he can spot non-American tourists by their behavior. "Americans like to stand in line," he said. "Foreigners don't stand in line. They know they have a seat."

Even a passer-by walking down 44th Street probably could spot the tourists. As one woman from eastern Pennsylvania, there with her daughter, put it, "Do we look like we're from New York?!

Movies aren't the only B.O. monsters

From Variety

"The most successful entertainment venture of all time" would seem a rather bold claim to make, a parlor game waiting to happen. But those words are exactly what the press kit for "The Phantom of the Opera" uses to describe the tuner.

The claim is based on the fact that "Phantom" has grossed more than $3.2 billion at the box office worldwide, according to its producers. That includes every production from London to Tokyo, but does not include outside revenue from CDs, merchandise or the 2004 film version.

Of that sum, nearly $1.9 billion has come from U.S. productions. Worldwide, the producers say, 80 million people have attended 65,000 perfs in 119 cities in 24 countries.

Alan Wasser, the show's general manager for all U.S. productions, seems pretty confident that even accounting for inflation, "Phantom" is the top-grossing theatrical show of all time. It is, after all, the longest-running Broadway show in history, and no shows from the past can compete with Cameron Mackintosh's touring juggernaut.

Worldwide, "Les Miserables" has grossed $1.8 billion, while "Cats" has taken in more than $2 billion. A Disney Theatricals rep says "The Lion King" has made $2.1 billion and "Beauty and the Beast" has taken in $1.3 billion.

When it comes to the Broadway classic "Oklahoma!," the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization is mum on dollars. More than five decades of amateur and stock, however, make it a very deep gold mine. But sheer number of perfs on Broadway make it a midget compared with "Phantom," which will have clocked in 7,486 on Jan. 9. The original 1943 production of "Oklahoma!" did 2,212 and its three Broadway revivals tallied a collective 781. The numbers for "My Fair Lady" aren't much different: 2,717 for its original 1956 staging and a collective 662 for three Gotham revivals.

Drew Cohen, general manager of Music Theater Intl., which licenses stock and amateur productions of musicals such as "Guys and Dolls" and "Fiddler on the Roof," speculates that even if you were to add up grosses from all amateur productions, and account for inflation to boot, "No other show would even come close to 'Phantom.' " So much for legit.

Comparisons with other media are even trickier. Let's start with the most obvious competition. Not accounting for inflation, "Titanic" is the top-grossing movie of all time, with a worldwide take of $1.834 billion. That doesn't come close to "The Phantom of the Opera." But "Titanic" is also the second-highest-grossing title in home entertainment, earning around $1.2 billion worldwide from DVD and video sales and rentals. Then add about $55 million -- which is what NBC and HBO jointly paid for the TV rights. That comes to $3.089 billion -- close enough to be within the margin of error.

The top-grossing film in home media, "The Lion King," took in about $1.5 billion worldwide. But in theaters it earned only $768 million, bringing its total to $2.268 billion.

It could be argued that a movie on DVD is a different "entertainment venture" from a movie in a theater. But it also could be argued that a Broadway show and its road version have an equivalent relationship, and the "Phantom" producers, in making their claim, combine the London and Broadway productions with all the others.

If inflation is accounted for, "Gone With the Wind" is the top-grossing movie domestically of all time. Its $199 million domestic take is equivalent to $1.293 billion today.

What about worldwide? The 1939 pic's unadjusted worldwide gross is $400 million, about double the unadjusted domestic. If we double the adjusted domestic, that's an estimated $2.6 billion worldwide in 2005 dollars. DVD/video and TV sales would have to be pretty high to reach $3.2 billion -- and note that almost all of "Phantom's" earnings were not in today's dollars. Warner Home Entertainment, which controls "GWTW," would not reveal sales figures. Video Business/ DVD Exclusive reported in 2004 that the title had sold 8.5 million copies.

Let's look at TV shows. "Seinfeld" is tops in syndication sales, earning about $1.9 billion. You'd have to add that to $200 million-plus in DVD sales so far, not to mention the license fees NBC paid to production company Castle Rock to air the show, which reportedly reached as high as $5.5 million per episode during the final season.

But including TV shows is cheating. At 22 minutes an episode, "Seinfeld" has about 66 hours of content -- vs. 2¼ (not including intermission) for "Phantom."

Further out on the money tree is music. According to the Recording Industry Assn. of America's Web site, the top-selling album of all time is "Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975," with 28 million albums sold through June. Even if you wrongly assume all of those copies retailed for $13.99, it wouldn't reach even half a billion dollars.

In game land, the Web site for the Guinness Book of World Records lists "Super Mario Bros." as the top-selling videogame of all time, at 40.2 million copies. Including that title also would be cheating a bit, since it came with the Nintendo system. But even a reasonable price for the game wouldn't top "Phantom."

Since Broadway theater has been dubbed "the fabulous invalid," it's intriguing to see how well legit stacks up against movies. Around the time the Broadway version of "Phantom" passes "Cats" in the legit record books, its earnings also will pass the domestic gross of "Titanic" ($601 million). "The Lion King" film earned $313 million domestically; its Broadway version has done more than $400 million.

Can't dim this lamp

From Variety

Flashier than the rising tire in "Cats" and less overbearing than the helicopter in "Miss Saigon," the chandelier in "The Phantom of the Opera" is one of the most beloved set pieces in Broadway history. Despite its precarious nightly travels -- rising from the stage to its perch above the house at the beginning of the show and then crashing back down at the end of the first act -- the delicate centerpiece of the late Maria Bjornson's Tony-winning set is pretty crisis-proof.

As "Phantom" becomes the longest-running musical in Broadway history, the production's chandelier is celebrating, too. Though the plastic decorations -- the 6,000 beads, the globes and the gold lyres -- have been replaced twice, the aluminum frame is the same one that was used on opening night. "It's given us relatively few problems," says Peter von Mayrhauser, who has been the production supervisor overseeing all U.S. companies of "Phantom" for 11 years.

The famous drop is highly choreographed. Two cables attached to the ceiling above the house lower the chandelier until it's 10 feet above the heads of the audience. Then, four cables attached to the top of the proscenium bring the chandelier over the first few rows of the audience and over the orchestra pit until it's just inches from the stage. A flash of light -- from a strobe hidden inside the chandelier's frame and two crash lights on the stage floor -- blinds the audience, so they cannot see the hulking mass as it settles onto the stage like someone with a backache collapsing into an armchair, steadied by two stagehands holding onto handles behind it.

Craig Jacobs, who has been the Broadway production stage manager for nine years, says while audiences still duck when the chandelier swoops downward, it floats deceptively high above the audience's heads. Few have to worry. "If you were Tommy Tune, you could probably touch it," he notes.

The only Broadway perf when the chandelier did not fall came in 1999, Jacobs recalls. As a result of a power surge, the angel that descends from the top of the proscenium would not go back up, and it was blocking the chandelier's path. During intermission, it took the crew 20 minutes to hand-crank the angel upward, with the Phantom still on it.

Since the creators did not want an obtrusive, anachronistic electrical cord hanging out of the chandelier, its lights run on batteries and are triggered by remote control. Jacobs says whenever the Secret Service is in the area -- such as during the 2004 Republican Convention, when New York GOP biggies Pataki, Giuliani and Bloomberg went around visiting theatergoing delegates -- its communication system interferes with the remote control, sometimes causing the chandelier's lights to flash out of turn.

On the road, there have been relatively few problems. Von Mayrhauser says the chandelier has failed to fall only once or twice in the stix. When that happens, the crew has let the chandelier fall during the bows so the audience can see the effect.

For each theater on tour, months before "Phantom" arrives, a crew installs a steel structure above the auditorium ceiling to hold two of the cables (though at this point, most big road houses have it already). The touring company has two chandeliers, so the run in City A can continue while a second chandelier is installed in City B.

Each of the chandeliers is affectionately named "Ruthie," after director Hal Prince's longtime associate Ruth Mitchell, who died in 2000. The Broadway version has "Ruthie II" engraved on its back ("Ruthie I" is in London).

Still bigger thrills await chandelier fans. Jacobs says for the upcoming Las Vegas production, since the theater is being custom-built and automation technology has progressed over 18 years, the chandelier there will be twice as big as the Broadway version.

Broadway keeps its tix fixed

From Variety

As Broadway ticket pricing starts to resemble the aggressive competition of the airfare market, the legit epicenter last season showed unexpected resistance to inflation. Rejoicing penny-pinchers paid almost the same for a ticket on the Great White Way as they did the previous year.

And pundits are speculating that more competitive pricing, as well as the increased availability of premium ducats, may be helping to keep average ticket prices stable.

In the season that ended May 29, the average paid admission -- or APA -- was $66.67, just 20¢ more than the previous season. Compare that to the previous five seasons, in which the price jumped by anywhere from $2.34 to $4.64. Twenty cents is the lowest rise since the 1985-86 season. Inflation says the bump should have been almost $2.

Why did this happen? One factor: the unofficial $100 ceiling on ticket prices, which was first reached by "The Producers" in 2001 and which hasn't budged since.

This ceiling is a result not only of the round number, but also of the growing awareness of higher-priced premium seats. Another concept first initiated by "The Producers," premium seats are now available for a whole spectrum of Broadway shows, from "Wicked" (usually $300) to "Jackie Mason: Freshly Squeezed" ($150).

One might expect premium seats to pull APAs upward. But producer Bob Boyett, whose "Monty Python's Spamalot" has around 30 $300 seats available for every perf, says that premium seats also push APA downward by keeping the official $100 top price from rising.

"If you've got somebody who wants to buy a $250 or $300 ticket, that's available for them," says Boyett. "If you're going to have that additional income, why raise ticket prices to $105 just to gouge everybody else?"

In addition, discounts are becoming easier to find, as more and more discount emails flood theatergoers' inboxes.

"The discounts have been thriving for quite a while," says Jim Edwards, director of account services for the theater ad agency SpotCo. "But some of the discounts may be a little more competitive."

The past season's Broadway offerings are another possible factor, along with the way the shows were skedded.

Steven Chaikelson, a general manager and head of Columbia U.'s theater management and producing program, points out that tuner flops like "Dracula" and "Brooklyn" opened earlier in the season than more successful shows like "Spamalot" and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels."

If "Spamalot" had opened earlier, he notes, "people would have been buying those full-price tickets all year long."

By contrast, the previous season's biggest tuner hits, "Wicked" and "Avenue Q," opened in the first half of the season.

Most of the pricing discussion has centered on musicals, which are more responsible for the slow-down than plays are. Not only do tuners rep 83% of all tickets sold, but also the APA for musicals went down 29¢ to $67.92 this season, according to figures from the league. Past years' rises have ranged from over $1 to just over $5.

Play fans, however, have reason to fret, as the APA for plays skyrocketed by a whopping $5.52, to $60.79, according to the league. This is largely attributed to just two shows -- the high-priced "700 Sundays" with Billy Crystal and "Julius Caesar" with Denzel Washington. But hits like "Doubt" and "The Pillowman" also helped pump average tix.

"When the musicals hit $100, they all kind of stopped there," says Edwards. "The plays have been slowly inching up to get to that level."

One factor in the rise of plays' APA is the increase in star casting, which creates greater demand for tickets. Paying for Hollywood stars' salaries has driven up operating costs and ticket prices, notes Boyett, who also produced "The Pillowman."

So what will happen next? Will APA continue to plateau? Will consumers catch on?

"This is only a couple of data points, so I think it would be risky to draw any big longitudinal conclusions," Bernstein says.

And when will someone break the $100 barrier?

Boyett says he has no plans to pass it with his upcoming Broadway production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "The Woman in White." A better candidate might be another West End import, "Mary Poppins," backed by a household name and two megaproducers, Cameron Mackintosh and Disney.

DVD Review: "Seinfeld: The Complete Fourth Season"

From Variety

The four-disc set's commentaries and minidocs give a healthy dose of theories on the significance of perhaps the best season of perhaps the best sitcom in history, or at least the season when the skein hit its stride.

Earning the show's only Emmy for best comedy, season four established "Seinfeld" as not only racy, as in "The Contest," but, as scribe Larry Charles notes, uncharacteristically dark for a sitcom at the time, as in the film noir parody "The Trip."

Seinfeld himself credits "The Junior Mint" with sparking skein's trend of plots that stretch the bounds of reality ("A lot of crazy ideas started to make sense" this season, he says).

Skein also took the perilous plunge into the showbiz arena, as in the show-within-a-show that frames the season. It's no coincidence that today's most cutting-edge sitcom, "Arrested Development," uses all of the above elements.

Fans will revel in juicy bits like origins of famous lines, a clip of Fran Drescher standing in for Estelle Harris (as George's mom), and director Tom Cherones' revelation that the flying junior mint was actually a York Peppermint Pattie.

Extras suffer a bit from redundant info, but perhaps that's because --- as Jerry implicitly acknowledges with his ultra-laid-back commentaries --- when explaining why something is brilliant, sometimes there's not much to say.

Revivals let stars re-play their classic roles

From Variety

The late Marlon Brando liked the idea of being a videogame star.

At a February press event for Electronic Arts' upcoming game based on "The Godfather," exec producer David DeMartini recalled speaking with the actor during a recording session for the game. "He was able to project forward and say, 'So if I could do more of these sessions, I could lend my voice and acting skills to a role without having to physically be on set,' " DeMartini said.

You can see how such an arrangement would appeal to the notorious diva.

Lots of elder statesmen are following in Brando's footsteps these days. As more and more classic films get videogame adaptations, more and more stars are coming back to lend the game creators a hand.

In addition to Brando, Robert Duvall and James Caan recording their voices and lending their likenesses to "The Godfather" game, Clint Eastwood and Sean Connery are doing the same for adaptations of "Dirty Harry" for Warner Bros. Interactive and "From Russia With Love" for EA, respectively.

Al Pacino is not participating in "The Godfather" game -- Michael Corleone will appear but will sound and look completely different -- but he is allowing his likeness (though not his voice) to be used in Vivendi Universal Games' "Scarface" adaptation. "Scarface" will have the voices and likenesses of supporting players Robert Loggia and Steven Bauer.

Since game adaptations of films are becoming more sophisticated, they are now really an extension of that world created in the film, says Ed Zobrist, VUG's senior VP of global marketing. So the stars "are much more interested in participating to make sure the way that we capture that essence is properly done."

Pacino had final approval over the selection of vet voice-match actor Andre Sogliuzzo to impersonate his voice in the role of Tony Montana. While games usually have 100 to 150 applicants for such a role, VUG's "Scarface" exec producer John Melchior says 750 thesps tried out to record legendary lines like "Say hello to my little friend!"

By participating in games, the old guard not only gets control over the characters they created, they also bolster their hip cachet. "It makes them more relevant with today's kids," notes Melchior.

'Bee' Buzzes to B'way

From Variety

Will "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" be the next little Off Broadway show that conquers the Great White Way?

The new musical about orthographically talented kids competing to see who can spell words like "strabismus" opens on Broadway this week with high hopes after transferring from a rapturously received run at Off Broadway nonprofit house Second Stage.

"Spelling Bee," written by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin and conceived by Rebecca Feldman, is widely perceived as this year's parallel to "Avenue Q."

That show was considered a risky proposition when talk of a Broadway move first surfaced, but has since won a Tony for musical, recouped its costs and regularly plays to sellout crowds. Both shows are comic tuners with $3.5 million budgets, no stars and small casts ("Bee" has nine thesps, "Q" has seven) that transferred to Broadway on the strength of giddy reviews.

"Avenue Q" went on to trump the bigger-budget "Wicked" at the Tonys. In a neat role reversal this year, "Wicked" producer David Stone plays the scrappy underdog, as "Spelling Bee," which he also produces, obviously wouldn't mind taking down the much-hyped juggernaut "Spamalot."

Years ago, musicals like "Urinetown," "Avenue Q" and "Spelling Bee," which have quirky comic sensibilities that read better in an intimate house, might have been content with a commercial Off Broadway run. But now, because of the quirky economics of Off Broadway, where ticket revenues aren't keeping pace with rising costs, bigger venues beckon.

"Avenue Q" producer Robyn Goodman said when it transferred, "Looking at the numbers, it just didn't make any sense to go to a 499-seat theater."

"I think the trend started really with 'Rent,' but with 'Urinetown' and 'Taboo' and 'Brooklyn' and 'Avenue Q,' you're seeing musicals that traditionally wouldn't have come to the Broadway market but now are," says producer Jack Dalgleish.

Dalgleish's now-closed musical "Zanna Don't!" lost money Off Broadway last season but is eyeing a Broadway transfer for 2006, despite the fact that weekly running costs would rise from $55,000 to $340,000.

Matthew Rego of the Araca Group, a producer of "Wicked" and "Urinetown," isn't so sure these shows are all connected. "I don't necessarily think it's a trend that all small musicals are going to go to Broadway, because it's a complicated decision," he says.

Regarding the "Urinetown" transfer, he acknowledged, "Ten years ago or 15 years ago, it would have seemed crazy, and it was probably crazy when we did it. Has 'Urinetown' paved the way for other shows like 'Avenue Q' and 'Spelling Bee' to move to Broadway? I think a little bit."

Stone doesn’t think there’s much of a trend here, saying that aside from budget size, all of these shows are very different and that "there have always been smaller Broadway musicals."

"(‘Spelling Bee’) felt like it belonged not so much to Broadway or Off Broadway, it belonged in this kind of space," he says, referring to the 680-seat Circle in the Square theater.

Not only do the economics work, he and his team says, but the venue’s peculiarities actually enhance the show's comic sensibility and the theatergoing experience overall.

Though Stone and director James Lapine were at first dubious about the venue, they later changed their minds.

"All of its weaknesses seemed like strengths," Lapine says.

Unlike every other Broadway theater, the Circle in the Square has a very long thrust stage with seats that curve around it -- "theater in the U," as sound designer Dan Moses Schreier puts it. The arrangement creates intimacy -- set designer Beowulf Boritt says most seats are closer to the stage than they were at Second Stage, a more traditional proscenium theater.

At both Circle in the Square and Second Stage, Stone points out, the audience is looking down at the stage, which makes the adult actors "more believeable as children."

Boritt has decked out the Circle in the Square house as a middle school gym, complete with a basketball hoop and banners touting the fictional Putnam Valley Piranhas' various accomplishments, such as honorable mention in the 1972 state luge competition.

Putting "spelling in the temple of sports," Boritt says, both heightens the sense of competition and creates a comic contrast.

"The whole set is my personal revenge against the jocks in my high school who got all the funding when the drama club got nothing," he adds.

For the downstairs lobby, Boritt had elementary schoolchildren create artwork and posters advertising events such as school elections and synchronized swimming tryouts (Also look for childhood photos of the cast and creative team, including a slick-haired Finn.)

This concept, Boritt and Stone say, fits perfectly with Circle in the Square. Built in the early 1970s, the theater has a lack of any kind of adornment typical of most other small Broadway houses. Its drab, institutional feel helps the show satirize the process of students becoming immersed in a rigorous and at times laughably impractical field of study. Ceiling art and chandeliers would have given the wrong idea.

"It's not a rococo show," Lapine says. If they had gone "into these theaters that are very ornate, I think it would have been harder to cut through it and make you forget you're in a theater. This feels more like an experience."

As for marketing, Stone says he's going for younger auds with ads in the Onion, but is not neglecting traditional outlets such as the New York Times and the New Yorker. And while he is considering teaming with subject-specific orgs such as the Scripps National Spelling Bee, he is hesitant about conveying such a spelling-centric image.

"The show's about spelling in one sense, but it's not about spelling" in another, he says. It's about "how these kids become adults" and "accepting losing or failure or disappointment."

And what about the tour?

Unless the show pulls an "Avenue Q" and sets up a permanent home in Las Vegas, Lapine and Boritt will have to adapt it for a traditional proscenium house. Tour plans aren't in place yet, but regardless of what the team decides, they hope the show can keep the intimacy and the playful concept of the Circle in the Square production.

"Look, it's a Broadway show, I mean for it to be a Broadway show," Stone says, "but it doesn't feel like going to Broadway."

Advancing trend: Ads boost vidgame revs

From Variety

Geeky gamers converged with DKNY-clad ad execs Thursday for the Advertising in Games Forum, touted as the first-ever conference of its kind devoted to the placement of ads in videogames.

"This really is the next step in the evolution of advertising," said Jonathan Epstein, an agent in UTA's Games and Interactive Group, during the opening panel.

Speakers at the forum, held at Gotham's Metropolitan Pavilion, argued that the massive amount of ad revenue earned by newspapers and television is disproportionate to the amount of time people actually spend interacting with them, as many consumers -- especially young males -- have turned to videogames. Keynote speaker Mitchell Davis, CEO of Massive Incorporated, an ad agency that specializes in placing ads in videogames, said gamers racked up a whopping 30 billion hours of game play in 2004.

Advertising in games can include in-game produce placements, ads on Web sites where people play games over the Internet or advergaming -- in which the whole purpose of the game is to promote a product.

Davis showed a clip from Ubisoft's "Splinter Cell," a stealth action game in which the player walks by a Diet Sprite machine and a poster for Paramount pic "The Longest Yard."

Mike Goodman, a senior analyst with the Yankee Group, noted that vidgames are an ideal advertising medium because they have a particularly captive audience. Unlike watching television or reading a newspaper, playing a game does not allow a person to do anything else except listen to music.

Moreover, only about 10% of games make money, and ad revenue could help make up for losses.

Davis said Massive's research on in-game ads, conducted in partnership with Nielsen, revealed that many game players enjoy ads because they make the game's settings seem more realistic.

"You want realism," Davis said. "You don't want to see a fake ad."

Ads can even be put on games played on mobile devices.

"Every cell phone that is being sold in the market today is game-capable," said Anita Frazier, and entertainment industry analyst with the NPD Group.

In other vidgame tie-in news, four bands -- Taking Back Sunday, Jurassic 5, the Explosion and Go Betty Go -- have each written and recorded an original song inspired by one of the four lead characters in the "Fantastic Four" vidgame, a tie-in with this summer's Fox pic. Songs will be played during the vidgame in instrumental form, and the songs will have lyrics when played in four character-specific trailers for the game, which will available online this month and next and be included in the game's bonus features.

DVD kiosks keep it simple

From Variety

Upping the ante in the U.S.' burgeoning DVD kiosk market, Gotham-based MoviebankUSA will officially open its first standalone DVD rental store on Houston Street in Soho with a red-ribbon press event today.

Store, which opened for business April 6, is only 450 square feet and looks like a bank lobby full of ATMs. It consists of one DVD dispenser and six interactive screens that let renters choose movies, access information about them, watch trailers and swipe a credit card or their MoviebankUSA membership card. Approximately 1,200 titles and 4,000 individual DVDs are available.

Since October, MoviebankUSA has been operating kiosks inside 25 Duane Reade drugstores in Manhattan. Company has 16,000 members so far.

MoviebankUSA is one of a growing number of kiosk-based rental services. Silicon Valley-based DVDPlay has almost 500 kiosks, which carry up to 350 DVDs each, in grocery and convenience stores, restaurants and apartment buildings nationwide, with plans for almost 2,000 by the end of the year. McDonald's put 104 of them in Denver locations in May and plans to expand the operation to Salt Lake City in July.

San Francisco-based DVD Station has 14 kiosks in seven states, including one in Grand Central Station. It plans to put kiosks in 300 Barnes & Noble-managed college bookstores nationwide and will open its first standalone cafe-type store in San Fran in two weeks.

Another MoviebankUSA store will open in Queens in the first week of May. MoviebankUSA plans to put individual kiosks in more Duane Reades and is negotiating with chains in Florida, Chicago and the West Coast for similar distrib deals.

While DVD kiosks are a new concept in the U.S., such outlets, operated by companies like Video Future and Cinebank, are the norm in Europe.

"You don't need to hang around in those stores where it's hard to find a video, where the staff is like a fast-food staff," said MoviebankUSA co-founder Stephan de Laforcade.

Though de Laforcade acknowledges MoviebankUSA doesn't have the selection of, say, Netflix -- which offers 40,000 titles -- MoviebankUSA is better for impulse renting, as customers don't have to wait for discs to come in the mail.

DVDs cost 99¢ for six hours, $2.49 for 24 hours and 99¢ for every day thereafter. DVDPlay and DVD Station charge as little as a dollar a day, though prices differ by location.

Prices are low because kiosks save on rent and staff. Rent for the store in Soho -- an extremely expensive neighborhood -- costs around $5,600 a month.

Customers can go to MoviebankUSA's Web site to reserve a movie at a specific location, thus avoiding fruitless trips to the store. DVD Station has the same service, and DVDPlay is planning it.

In addition to operating its kiosks, MoviebankUSA is the exclusive U.S. distributor of kiosks made by Video Systems Italia, the leading Euro kiosk manufacturer (Cinebank is the distrib in Europe). MoviebankUSA offers kiosks to buyers who want to attach their own brands to them as long as they don't put them in areas where MoviebankUSA's are located.

As Americans start to become aware of kiosks, "the more people who open stores, the better it is for the market," said de Laforcade.

Showbiz rides new mummy train

From Variety

Tut the Tentpole is coming.

With showbiz heavyweights from Phil Anschutz to Clear Channel entering the arena of high-profile "event" exhibits, the museum biz is moving headlong into corporate territory.

Look for the boy king on the Staples Center jumbotron, in trailers at Regal Cinemas and throughout the Anschutz empire this year.

The elusive billionaire has put tens of millions of dollars into the touring Tut exhibit, which begins at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in June. Stops in Philadelphia, Chicago, Ft. Lauderdale and London are also planned.

Anschutz isn't the only company stomping into the museum biz and encroaching on turf once dominated by non-profits. Outsiders are crashing the party on two fronts:

One is the for-profit touring exhibit industry, which includes AEG, Arts & Exhibitions (a partner on Tut and producer of "Diana, A Celebration") and Clear Channel, which tours several exhibits, such as the Cheech Marin-produced "Chicano Visions" and "Chicano Now."

"We do sporting events, we do rock concerts, we do Broadway shows -- this just naturally falls into place with all that," says John Meglen, prexy and co-CEO of Concerts West, a division of AEG Live.

The other is a growing crop of for-profit museums, such as the Intl. Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Sex in Gotham, the Olympic Spirit museum in Toronto, and Gotham's planned National Sports Museum.

The original King Tut exhibit, which toured seven cities from 1976 to 1979, ushered in the era of the blockbuster exhibit, attracting some 8 million visitors.

This time around, organizers -- the Egyptian government, Arts & Exhibitions and National Geographic -- are partnered with Anschutz Entertainment. With a top price of $30, the show has already sold 100,000 tickets in L.A. and hopes to reach 1 million admissions in that city alone. More than half the gross goes to the Egyptian government, with AEG and other organizers splitting the remaining pot.

In addition to ad spots at Regal Cinemas and the Staples Center, AEG plans to use Internet marketing -- teaming with Tut web sites and advertising on search engines -- much as it did to promote its Celine Dion concerts in Las Vegas.

Such aggressive promotional techniques, for-profit execs argue, give them a leg up on cautious non-profits.

Dennis Barrie, prexy of the Malrite Company, which owns the for-profit Spy Museum, was previously prexy of the non-profit Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. He says the Hall's management structure hindered it from making marketing deals early on.

"In the structure of a not-for profit, where you have a board and multiple decision makers and multiple factors in decision making, you can't make the decision in a timely manner," he says. "In a for-profit you can do just that. You can say 'OK, we're gonna do a deal with MTV or Discovery.' "

But critics lament that for-profit exhibits and museums sacrifice serious scholarship for crowd-friendly gimmickry.

Indeed, the "Diana" exhibit includes designer dresses and the original lyrics to Elton John's Princess Diana theme "Candle in the Wind" -- Picassos they ain't. The Olympic Spirit museum is more focused on gadgets such as a "biathlon interactive" -- a shoot-em-up videogame-slash-NordicTrack -- than actual information.

American Assn. of Museums prexy Edward Able says for-profit museums don't even merit the name "museum."

"I would call them a 'cabinet of curiosities,' " he says.

But non-profits are far from pure.

The Guggenheim has been a magnet for criticism since setting up splashy outlets in Bilbao, Spain and Las Vegas and creating exhibits of motorcycles and Armani suits. Last year, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts infamously rented out 21 Monets to the museum at the Bellagio hotel-casino.

The rise of competing entertainment options like videogames, DVDs, DVRs and iPods has made non-profit museums desperate for visitors. Many have resorted to building fancy digs and forging uneasy corporate alliances. "Everyone wants their Frank Gehry, they want their Guggenheim Bilbao," says Elizabeth Casale, a museum consultant. "The increased expectations and increased costs of running a museum are forcing management to try to think more businesslike and cozy up to commercial forces and find new ways to pay for it all.”

Enter King Tut on the Staples Center jumbotron.

Off B'way stages flex their plexes

From Variety

The theater steals from film for source material all the time, but now it's taking a cue from the exhibition side by going multiplex.

The 37 Arts complex, which "Hurlyburly" will christen when it begins previews on April 11, is the latest in Gotham's growing breed of sleek new structures housing many Off Broadway stages under one roof.

The others are: Theater Row (five theaters, opened Fall 2002), 59E59 (three, Feb. 2004) and Dodger Stages (five, Aug. 2004), which is, in fact, a converted Loews cineplex.

Stanley Durwood opened the first movie multiplex in Kansas City in the 1960s. The idea was copied and mass-produced by Cineplex Odeon founder Garth Drabinsky in the late 1970s and 1980s. Today, some suburban movie houses have 30 screens, while the percentage of one-screen venues has gone from 90% in 1978 to 25% in 2005.

Legit multiplexes have similar economies of scale to their film counterparts. Most significantly, they're a destination, with a bigger buzz and more activities than a single, freestanding theater can provide.

On top of its three theaters, 37 Arts has three floors of dance studios and offices run by Mikhail Baryshnikov. The place has some quirks - lots of exposed concrete, an atrium with a seven-story wall of frosted glass and tweed seats scattered among the velvet ones - that the owners hope will give the place an air of gritty energy and spontaneity.

"There'll be things going on in this building from 9 a.m. to midnight, every day," says Alan Schuster, one of the principal owners, who hopes one show will breed auds for another.

As with cineplexes, auds coming to "Altar Boyz" at Dodger Stages might see the poster for "Modern Orthodox," which is playing down the hall.

"When you're coming in to see a show by an established group like the New Group, you'll see that there's a brand new company doing Shakespeare downstairs," says Theater Row general manager Erika Feldman, who runs the venue with producer Arielle Tepper.

The creators of 37 Arts - located on a not-exactly-hopping stretch of 37th Street near 10th Avenue, across from an auto repair shop - hope the venue will help stimulate the neighborhood, as Theater Row did for 42nd Street west of 9th Avenue.

The venues also save on construction costs. The Little Shubert, a freestanding 499-seat theater, cost $12 million, while Dodger Stages, which has two 499-seaters and three other theaters, cost $26 million (Schuster declined comment on 37 Arts costs).

Plus, judging from the verticality of 37 Arts, 59E59 and Theater Row, perhaps Gotham land is so expensive that if you're going to build one theater, it pays to build others on top of it.

As in film, legit complexes can consolidate the concession stands, which serve a steady stream of auds (as opposed to just one wave before a show and another during intermission). Dodger Stages' three bars and Theater Row's lounge are intended as hip hangout areas.

"The point is that you don't wait outside until 7:30 when the doors open," says Michael David, a partner in Dodger Stage Holding, which runs Dodger Stages. "You're in there, you're downstairs, you can have a bite to eat, you can have the drink of your choice."

As in film, legit multiplexes have only one box office and save on staff.

Dodger Stages has around three workers at a time, and Theater Row has two to four. For a single, freestanding 199-seat theater, "you might have one or two people in your box office, possibly three at curtain," says Feldman.

One reason film multiplexes proliferated is that they could buy Dolby sound systems in bulk. Legit multiplexes can also sometimes save on technology.

"We can borrow from one space and give to another, if a show going into a theater doesn't need as much soft goods as another," says Feldman of Theater Row, which offers a lighting package and has equipment available for rent.

The venues also seem well-suited for festivals.

Dodger Stages housed the National Alliance for Musical Theater Festival in the fall; 59E59 houses the Brits Off Broadway festival in the spring; and Theater Row housed the Tepper-produced Summer Play Festival last summer. Dodger Stages has even considered installing a kitchen to service caterers during events.

Granted, these places are different from one another.

Dodger Stages and 37 Arts have bigger theaters and are commercial enterprises. Theater Row (which cost $12 million) and 59E59 ($7 million) are nonprofit. 59E59 even offers a membership and advertises its shows collectively.

Film multiplexes have economies of scale that legit ones do not. They can run a single film in many theaters at once, fill the day with showtimes and use one projectionist for many screens.

37 Arts and Dodger Stages don't offer its renters lighting or sound equipment, and Off Broadway spaces rarely have fly systems, so technology savings aren't on par with those of film multiplexes.

37 Arts will have a different concession stand for each theater.

"I can't treat people who pay $75 a ticket the way you treat people who pay $8 a ticket," Schuster says.

But legit multiplexes have advantages that film ones do not.

In theater, unlike in film, the creatives, artists and technicians work at the multiplex, thereby creating networking opportunities.

"If we have a stage manager on one show and we have another coming in without a stage manager, we absolutely pass on resumes," says Feldman. "It happens with tech staff, it happens with house staff."

Putting many theaters into one building isn't new, of course. Older nonprofit complexes such as Gotham's Public Theater and London's National Theater also have multiple stages. But those are run by nonprofit companies that produce all of the shows in their theaters, as opposed to renting out their spaces to outside companies.

Some say these new complexes create a glut of Off Broadway theaters, and that there aren't enough shows to fill them. But others suggest they are simply taking the place of older, more traditional one-plexes that have recently closed or are skedded to close -- the Variety Arts, John Houseman, Douglas Fairbanks and Jane Street - a trend that also hit the film industry, rankling movie theater purists throughout the multiplex era.

Blockbusters beget ratings

From Variety

"Million Dollar" who? "Finding" whatsit?

Critics may be kvelling over such masterworks, but, judging by box office, this year's Oscar race will feature the most obscure slate of best picture nominees in two decades. Conventional wisdom says the noms' popularity affects viewership. Should ABC be worried?

Statistics appear to back up the assumption that big nominees -- or one extremely big nominee -- can bring big ratings. Looking at films released from 1982, the year with both the top-grossing best pic nom and the highest average among all five noms, if you account for inflation, was 1983.

That year, "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" had earned $659 million (in 2004 dollars) by Oscar time, boosting the average to $229 million. Taking second place in both categories is 1998, when "Titanic" had $573 million (in 2004 dollars) and the average was $194 million. Not surprisingly, those were the two most-watched telecasts -- 53.3 million viewers in 1983 and 55.2 million in 1998 -- in the past 22 years.

An unscientific examination of the figures over this 22-year period does seem to show a correlation between total viewers and average gross of the best pic noms (top gross seems correlated as well). The major outlier is the 2003 ceremony ("Chicago"), which -- as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq days earlier -- got only 33 million viewers, the smallest audience in the 22-year period, despite relatively high grosses.

So how do this year's noms measure up to those of the past? Not very well.

Through the weekend ending Jan. 30, the average gross of the five best pic noms was $47.8 million. If the Oscars had been held that day, that figure, in real terms, would be the lowest average in the 22-year-period, though this year's figure will surely pass the 1985 average of $50 million (in 2004 dollars).

So will this year's pics spell a ratings disaster? Not necessarily.

Box-office take is an imperfect measure of a film's popularity. For example, it does not account for video and DVD rentals for the noms that are in stores by Oscar time, such as "Seabiscuit" and "Gladiator." ("Ray" was rushed for a Feb. 1 video/DVD release.)

In addition, 2005 is only the second year that the Oscars have taken place so early.

"It gives a little less time for the audience to become enthusiasts for certain films," notes Oscars producer Gil Cates.

Jeri Wang, ABC's senior VP of primetime sales, says while grosses among best pic noms are down, "The word of mouth on a couple of the titles will still trigger interest."

Also, there's more to the Oscars than best picture. First-time host Chris Rock is known for his edgy humor, and some might tune in to see how far he'll push the envelope. Plus, Rock might help draw more eyeballs from his main fan base of young males, which is historically a relatively weak demo for the spec known as "the Super Bowl for women."

In 1995, David Letterman -- a similarly bold choice who also appeals to young males -- brought in 48.3 million viewers, the third-most over the period discussed, behind the "Titanic" and "E.T." years. But Letterman's year featured "Forrest Gump," whose $393 million in 2004 dollars made it the No. 3 best pic nom over the period.

Then there are the acting noms. Flashy double-nominee Jamie Foxx is the favorite to win lead actor and could attract young males. Both Rock and Foxx could also bring in African-Americans, another weak Oscar demo.

In addition, Wang notes that ABC's overall primetime rating among 18-to-49-year-olds this season to date is up 11% from last season, so promos for the Oscars will have more viewers than they did last year.

None of this ratings speculation seems to have affected ad sales. Wang reported that ads were bought earlier than usual this year, and the majority of the ads were sold even before Cates tapped Rock in October. Sources have pegged the average cost of a 30-second spot at $1.6 million.

While the low-profile slate comes just after the Emmys and Golden Globes saw small ratings, the Oscars' prominence among ad buyers might be immune to year-to-year variations.

"Ratings can fluctuate," notes Bill Cella, chairman-CEO of media buyer Magna Global Worldwide, "but the reality is that it's a very must-see-TV-type of environment, water-cooler type of environment, where people are going to talk about not just the talent the next day but creatives and the commercials."

And maybe, just maybe, they'll start seeing the films.

Playwrights heed muse of music

From Variety

Philadelphia Theater Co. dramaturg Michele Volansky calls them tree frogs -- playwrights lurking about, desperately waiting for a theater to scoop them up and give them a home.

Recently, writers from tree frogs to frog princes came down in biblical proportions upon the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, a summer retreat for writers to workshop new plays, after it made a controversial decision to stop accepting unsolicited submissions.

On Sept. 24, a week after the O'Neill announced its decision, around 100 playwrights showed up to a now-infamous meeting at New Dramatists to express their concern to Conference artistic director James Houghton. (The center's financial straits, but not the controversy over the new submissions policy, played an indirect role in Houghton's sudden resignation from the O'Neill last week. See story, page 48.)

Even before the controversy, writers felt frustrated. After Sept. 11, the harsh economy forced 54% of 112 nationwide nonprofit theaters in a recent Theater Communications Group survey into deficit for their 2002 fiscal years. Such troubles have caused cuts in literary staffs and, some say, increasingly conservative programming choices favoring revivals or well-received Gotham plays over premieres.

The O'Neill was "a beacon of hope" for young playwrights to gain exposure, as Houghton put it, and when it shut its doors, that was simply the last straw.

Though reactions ranged from understanding to irate, most sympathized with Houghton.

"Trying to go through 900 pieces of material for a company that isn't about producing, isn't going to make any money in exchange for doing them and isn't asking for sub(sidiary)-rights participation is a daunting task," says agent Beth Blickers, whose agency, Helen Merrill, was allowed just two nominations and had to find other nominators for its clients.

But now that the dust has cleared, the question remains: Are opportunities for undiscovered playwrights dwindling, or is this recent uproar just a symptom of young scribes' perpetual angst?

Some say things aren't so bad.

"I don't think there's this sense that the rug's been pulled out from under us or anything," says Ann Filmer, managing director of scribe-nurturing org Chicago Dramatists, which now produces at least one world preem a year. "I think it's been tough all the time."

Others think there has been a temporary dip.

"There are probably fewer opportunities because of the economy and everything being what it is," says playwright David Lindsay-Abaire, whose big break came with "Fuddy Meers," a play he workshopped at the O'Neill in 1998. "I don't think it's at a historical low point. I think playwrights have always felt like there's no way to break in. I'm sort of lucky that if I have a script I want to be seen, I have a couple places I can go."

But some, such as Todd London, a.d. of Gotham's New Dramatists, an org with the mission of nurturing its 48 emerging to midcareer member playwrights, say opportunities have been steadily declining over the last decade. Though there are more theaters, London says, there are fewer slots for productions, especially "significant productions of new plays by unknown playwrights, and by significant I mean when a playwright can actually earn some royalties ... that the pages of American Theater magazine or the pages of Variety will actually cover that work."

"The number of slots for doing a new play is diminished," agrees Volansky, the president of Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas. Volansky's theater also recently ended unsolicited submissions.

Hard numbers that might decide the issue are scarce.

What's certain is that Seattle Rep, Denver Center Theater, Dallas Theater Center, San Jose Rep, Berkeley Rep, and Seattle's Intiman Theater and A Contemporary Theater have made cuts in literary staffs, as the Northwest was hit especially hard when the dot-com bubble burst (Berkeley Rep and Denver Center Theater scaled those cuts back, however).

Seattle Rep, for example, stopped accepting unsolicited inquiries, cut its entire staff and the number of performances per show by 20% each and initially slashed its productions from nine last season to six this season (and world preems from three to one). But on Oct. 15 it announced the risky endeavor of two additional world premieres in early 2004.

Another blow was the closing of play development organization A.S.K., where, says Volansky, the "likes of me sort of looked to see who was coming out of the West Coast, and the loss of that is profound."

This past summer the O'Neill cut back its conference from four and a half weeks to three and a half. Plus, only 11 writers (down from 15 in 2002) were allowed into "playwrights heaven," as five-time vet Adam Rapp describes a program that combines emerging playwrights with biggies like August Wilson and Lee Blessing in a bucolic rural setting and only asks of the playwright, "What do you need?"

The number of theaters accepting unsolicited full-length scripts has been dwindling over time. Playwrights Horizons is the only high-profile Gotham theater that still accepts them. A.d. Tim Sanford or a member of his three-person literary staff reads the 1,000 they receive annually and responds within six months, a policy that requires a huge institutional commitment.

"A literary office is a cash flow drain," says Playwrights literary manager Lisa Timmel. "I bring in no money for this organization."

Sanford says he's never produced a submission by a writer he's never heard of. A promising play by an unknown will instead lead to a meeting or a reading.

In fact, many professionals find a healthy amount of relationship-building between playwrights and theaters.

Mark Bly, head of the Yale School of Drama's graduate playwriting program, says although there are fewer production opportunities, "There has never been a time when playwrights in the U.S. have had more opportunities to send their work to theaters to have theaters do readings and workshops," and many agree.

But London is skeptical of theater-sponsored development.

"Playwrights perceive those quote-unquote development opportunities to be non-developmental. They're doing a lot of rewrites to please other people, and those other people aren't producing them anyway."

For example, London says, in the 1980s playwrights "lived on NEA grants" given directly to individual scribes, which have since given way to the NEA/TCG Theater Residency Program for Playwrights, where theaters have more of an upper hand.

Fortunately, the O'Neill's cutbacks have a silver lining where relationship-building is concerned. According to Houghton, last year 900 writers sent unsolicited proposals (a synopsis, character breakdown, 10 pages of dialogue, and a letter of intent) and the conference requested full scripts from 175 of them.

Now that this initial step is eliminated, readers from around the country will have time to read all of the 250-300 scripts they're expecting. Like last year, each full script will be read by at least two readers, and a group of finalists (last year it was 45-50) will each be read by at least two people in the nine-member selection committee. More top professionals reading scripts means more exposure for young writers.

But it's difficult even for Houghton to laud his decision, as he hopes to eventually bring back unsolicited submissions.

"What I was encouraged by, ironically is that people were so upset," he says. "It means that people value the Playwrights Conference and they value what it symbolizes."

Hang in there, tree frogs.

Off B'way Trio Revisits History

From Variety

While television and other media scale down their Sept. 11 remembrances this year, Gotham is hosting a trio of Off Broadway plays -- "Omnium Gatherum," "Recent Tragic Events" and "Portraits" -- that explore various aspects of the tragedy. All three begin previews within a week of the attacks' two-year anniversary.

Until now, only two high-profile New York plays have taken on the events directly: Anne Nelson's "The Guys," about a journalist helping a fire chief write eulogies for his men, and Neil LaBute's "The Mercy Seat," about a man who spent the attacks at his lover's apartment instead of the World Trade Center, and contemplates pretending to be dead and leaving his family.

This season's new wave comes at Sept. 11 from softer angles. They largely involve characters peripheral to the events, and the distance allows for comedy. But it remains to be seen whether theater audiences are still interested in the subject matter. Both "Guys" and "Mercy Seat" were notable for their starry casts: Sigourney Weaver appeared in both, as it happened, playing alongside Bill Murray in the former and Liev Schreiber in the latter. What's more, both were done at small not-for-profit theaters.

Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros' "Omnium Gatherum," by contrast, is a full commercial production bowing at the Variety Arts without a single star name in its cast. And it's been a tough couple of years for commercial stagings Off Broadway -- the Variety Arts itself hasn't seen a hit play since Donald Margulies' "Dinner With Friends."

But "Omnium," which begins previews Sept. 9 and opens Sept. 25, has a couple of things going for it: It was the darling of April's Humana Festival in Louisville, Ky., and its cast of characters will be suspiciously familiar to Gotham's glitterati: The play takes place at a surreal dinner whose guests bear certain resemblances to such boldface names as Martha Stewart, Tom Clancy, Christopher Hitchens and Edward Said.

"(Sept. 11) is so big and our response is so small, and that's the joke of it," says director Will Frears (himself the son of movie director Stephen). "There's a moment when the characters are arguing about the rightness of military action and one of the other characters yells, 'But what about me, what about my feelings?' The joke is that we can't get past ourselves to get to the world."

But "Omnium's" producers, perhaps wary of turning off audiences with the potentially somber subject matter, aren't exactly playing up the 9/11 aspect; the show's advertising campaign and press materials certainly don't mention it.

The relatively unknown "Portraits" is another a commercial production without a big-name cast. It begins an open-ended run at the 499-seat Union Square Theater Sept. 9, after just a few perfs at the Ridgefield Playhouse in Connecticut last September.

After the attacks, playwright Jonathan Bell compulsively collected Sept. 11-related articles, which he later adapted into six monologues. One, for example, is about an EMT who rushed to the city after the attacks, while another is about an upstate New York busybody who inquisitively calls her own phone number in the 212 area code.

Bell structures these speeches around a painter presenting his portraits. Though this narration conveys his experience as an artistic outsider reacting to a catastrophe, "It really wasn't about me going through this catharsis," says Bell, who instead wanted to "help people have some kind of remembrance and resolution to the whole thing."

Lead producer Vincent Curcio and his investors will donate profits to charity.

The starriest production is the one being produced in the relatively safe confines of the not-for-profit world. Craig Wright's "Recent Tragic Events," opening Sept. 28 at Playwrights Horizons, marks the Gotham stage debut of Heather Graham. Her character lives in Minneapolis and goes through with an awkward blind date on Sept. 12, 2001, complicated by her quirky neighbors, a drinking game, musings on fate and news that her sister is missing in Manhattan.

"Along with the grief and the shock and horror was a sense of optimism that went along with the terror and sense of unity and a sense of community, or at least a hunger for community and people wanting to be together," says Playwrights artistic director TimSanford.

Does the two-year delay suggest Gotham theater previously was more wary of the subject, or that artists have taken two years to "process" the events?

Not necessarily: Sanford points out that these three plays all were written within months of the attacks, premiered regionally last season, and are now arriving in New York -- the typical multiyear journey from page to Gotham stage. ("Events" first went up last September at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington, D.C.)

And Sanford predicts the end of the "Sept. 12 play."

"No one's going to write that play now because it's two years ago," he says. "They're going to write about Iraq, or have flashbacks to (the attacks). Oddly enough, producing a play that was set two years ago feels like a period piece. Two years later, I don't see the same hunger for unity; I see divisions, I see more danger."