What's Wrong on Broadway

To be a persistent playgoer in Manhattan, a man must really love the theater. If he wants to see a hit play on Broadway, he is likely to be insulted by the box-office attendant, scalped by a ticket broker, upstaged by the usher and snarled at by a fireman. He will find no place under his seat to park his hat, he must refrain from smoking, and, if he wants a drink between acts, he must fight his way through the crowds and buy it somewhere down the street.

These nightly forfeits paid by New York theatergoers may partly explain why Broadway has only ten shows currently playing (see below), while London has 37. One expert who sees the point is Howard S. Cullman, inveterate first-nighter, chairman of the New York Port Authority, and one of Broadway's archangels. Last week Playgoer Cullman suggested that New York's City Council change some of its antiquated laws.

Manhattan has not had a new theater, Cullman noted, since 1927. For the past two years the City Council has studied the possibilities, but has done nothing about revising the building code to permit theaters in office and apartment buildings. Not only would this cut down real-estate overhead, but with present building methods such a theater would be "as safe as Gimbels' basement."

Getting into a theater should not be such an expensive chore. "Try to get a decent location in a hit show at the box office. It cannot be done. It has driven hundreds of thousands of individuals away from the theater who will not patronize black markets and are not on an expense account." For the Department of Licenses to allow "200,000 to 300,000 house seats from theater owners per annum to get into the hands of special brokers . . . makes no sense. Obviously these are the best seats."

Once inside the theater, the customer should find it "a place of amusement and relaxation." Smoking? "It is ridiculous that we can smoke in most of the motion-picture theaters and in all of the nightclubs, but one is treated as a pyromaniac when he lights a cigarette in a theater . . ."

Another suggested help to overhead and audience happiness: a bar in the theater. Said Cullman: "Half the delight of the London theater is getting a good Scotch that helps a bad show."

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