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The Beginnings of Decline

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2021

Jack Poggi
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Extract

It is commonly assumed by those who discuss the theatre's present economic difficulties that there were no serious problems before 1929, when the talkies and the stock market crash brought prosperity to a sudden halt.

Actually, activity on the road began to drop sharply about 1910 and in the mid-twenties reached a point not far above the present level. Though the fact is sometimes acknowledged, the decline of the road is rarely seen in relation to the later decline on Broadway. I suggest that we ask whether both might have been brought about by the same causes.

The question has not been asked because it appears to us in retrospect that the economy of Broadway was sound in the years when the road was declining.

Type
Research Article
Information
Tulane Drama Review , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , Fall 1965 , pp. 88 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © The Tulane Drama Review 1965

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References

1 The average number of companies on tour at any one time dropped from 300 in the first decade of the century to about 70 in the mid-twenties. See Alfred Bernheim, Business of the Theatre (New York: Actors’ Equity Assn., 1932), pp. 75-76.

2 Variety, June 26, 1963, p. 71.

3 The author's tabulation, based on material in The Billboard Index of the New York Legitimate Stage.

4 The Billboard Index was used to determine opening and closing dates, and dates of moving.

5 “Now It Can Be Judged,” Theatre Magazine, LI (January, 1930), p. 17.

6 Bernheim, op. cit., pp. 119-205.

7 Length of run was determined from the Burns Mantle series of Best Plays through 1919-20; thereafter The Billboard Index was used.