From: murray@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu (Thomas Murray)
Subject: Upcoming Broadway shows...
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences, Evanston, IL
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 14:37:43 GMT


Saw this on the net (clari.new.arts) this morning.  Thought others
might be interested.

It repeats alot of information presented by Andrew Ku as well as by a
recent issue of Theatre Week. But what the hey!

Reprinted without permission.

Enjoy!

-tom murray



	NEW YORK (UPI) -- Theatrical producers seem reluctant to cash in on
Broadway's record 1991-92 season, judging by the small number of shows
scheduled to open in the first half of the new season.
	Only seven shows have definite opening dates at Broadway theaters
before the end of the year and the season doesn't really pick up until
next March. So far 21 shows have definite theater bookings registered
with the League of American Theaters and Producers, 10 of them revivals.
	Although more shows will be announced later, the 1992-93 season is
not likely to match the 37 new productions mounted last season, nine
more than in 1990-91. Nine of these shows are holdovers in the new
season.
	The gross ticket sales last season exceeded $290 million, up $27
million over the previous season, reflecting a healthy interest in live
theater and the highest price tickets ever, with orchestra seats for hit
musicals costing $65.
	Last season offered a lot of star value ranging from Glenne Close and
Alec Baldwin to Joan Collins and Jason Robards. The new season offers
the less glitzy constellation of Tyne Daly, F. Murray Abraham,
Bernadette Peters, Tony Randall, Maryann Plunkett, and John Lithgow.
	Four shows have opened since the season began officially in May and
only two of them are still running. They are a solid revival of Tom
Stoppard's comic ``The Real Inspector Hound'' and a lame musical version
of ``Anna Karenina'' whose nights appear to be numbered.
	There will be at least nine more musicals opening before the season
ends including the long awaited, off-again on-again sequel to ``Annie.''
Titled ``Annie Warbucks,'' it is tentatively scheduled to open in March
with Harve Presnell again as Daddy Warbucks, Lauren Gaffney as Annie,
and a dog named Chelsea as Sandy.
	March and April will account for nearly half the new show openings,
reflecting a pattern established during the past several seasons by
producers who want their shows to get a boost from Tony Award
nominations and the awards themselves.
	Their theory is that Tony nominators and voters best remember shows
that opened near the end of the season and give short shrift to shows
that opened before Christmas and may already have closed. They reason
that awards should help current shows at the box office, not honor shows
that failed to find an audience, however excellent.
	The fall season blasts off Oct. 1 with a spectacular 75-performer
Brazilian revue, ``Oba Oba,'' which will introduce the samba-reggae
dance craze to Broadway. Opening later in October are a Jewish ragtime-
jazz review titled ``The Sheik of Avenue B'' and ``Woman in Black,'' a
play about the supernatural starring F. Murray Abraham.
	November brings ``Amphigorey: A Musical,'' a collage based on the
works of author-illustrator Edward Gorey starring Paxton Whitehead, a
revival of George Kelly's 1924 comedy, ``The Show Off,'' starring Pat
Carroll, and a revival of Chekhov's drama, ``The Seagull,'' with Tyne
Daly as Irina Arkadina.
	Patrick Stewart of TV's ``Star Trek'' returns to Broadway in December
for his brilliant one-man re-enactment of ``A Christmas Carol.'' Other
December openings are a musical version of the Peter O'Toole film, ``My
Favorite Year,'' starring Tim Curry, and a revival of G.B. Shaw's wry
comedy, ``The Apple Cart.''
	``Face Value,'' a new play by David Henry Wong of ``M. Butterfly''
fame, opens in January along with revivals of Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer
Prize-winning drama, ``Anna Christie,'' with Natasha Richardson and Liam
Neeson and Shaw's ``St. Joan'' with Maryann Plunkett.
	The pace picks up in March with a Marvin Hamlisch musical version of
the Neil Simon film, ``The Goodbye Girl'' with Bernadette Peters, a
horror musical based on ``Jekyll & Hyde,'' a revival of the Stephen
Sondheim's musical, ``A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,''
and ``Annie Warbucks.''
	April has the most entries scheduled including Lanford Wilson's
latest drama, ``Redwood Curtain,'' about a Vietnamese girl's search for
her G.I. lover, and a new Cy Coleman-Ira Gasman musical, ``The Life,''
about the denizens of Times Square in the early 1970s.
	A play, ``Money and Friends,'' with John Lithgow and Christine Lahti,
a stage version of the film, ``Three Men on a Horse,'' with Tony Randall
and Jack Klugman, and a musical, ``Abyssinia,'' about a black girl
coming of age in Oklahoma in the 1920s, round out April's offerings.
	One of the most anticipated new shows will open not on Broadway but
at Lincoln Center's Mitzi Newhouse Theater in October.
	It is Wendy Wasserstein's ``The Sisters Rosensweig,'' a play about
sibling rivalries starring Jane Alexander, Madeline Kahn and Frances
McDormand. It is Wasserstein's first play since ``The Heidi Chronicles''
which won her a Pulitzer Prize.