Broadway's Dark Summer

According to an article on Bloomberg by mid-July 49% of Broadway theatres will be closed to any production despite coming out of a record year for ticket sales. Many shows ended profitably, some were scheduled to close at this point, while there were the usual commercial failures.

It means that during the height of the summer season there will be a limited choice available to the tourists.

"Our costs to carry a dark theater are very low -- real estate taxes, insurance, heat and electricity -- because we lay everybody off," Philip J. Smith, chairman of the Shubert Organization, which owns 17 Broadway theaters, told me [Jeremy Gerard].

Smith points out that while the number of dark theaters may be higher than last year, it's business as usual: His houses are all booked with shows scheduled to open in the fall and winter. Hugh "Wolverine" Jackman and Daniel "Bond, James Bond" Craig are moving into the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre with Keith Huff's "A Steady Rain." That new police drama will be produced by the husband-and-wife team of Frederick Zollo and Barbara Broccoli (whose late father, Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, produced the Bond movies).

And the Barrymore Theatre, which had been home to Rush and his dysfunctional royal court, has been booked by producer Jeffrey Richards and his partners for David Mamet's new play, "Race." An acclaimed Los Angeles revival of Mamet's "Oleanna" is also in the offing for the coming season.

Perhaps it will be an Autumn Awakening this year.

Little Bird Goes Under

IFTN reports that Dublin production company, Little Bird - which was involved in films such as Bridget Jones Diary and Into the West - has folded with debts of over €3.5 million.

The company that were in the process of producing a film about the life of convicted murder Catherine Nevin went into liquidation after failing to restructure in receivership. Kieran Wallace the receiver is in negotiations with a British film company to sell the on-going productions and back catalogue rights to Irish television series 'On Home Ground' and 'The Irish RM'.

The company which holds offices in Dublin, London and Johannesburg commented: “We made significant losses in movie production and development during the period 2000 to 2004, in recent months a number of challenges – some our own – others not, like the collapse in international equity markets, have made it difficult to refinance Little Bird's business.”