UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, August 18, 1997
13D
Broadway productions shine since Tony awards
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — In the dog days of summer, only the strongest shows survive on Broadway.
The most startling success story in the nearly two months since the June 1 awards ceremony is *Titanic*, which won the coveted best-musical prize in a crowded year that saw five musicals open the week before the Tony-nomination deadline.
Close behind was the best-play winner The Lost Night of Ballyhoo by Alfred Uhry, which got a box-office boost from the award.
And among the other shows helped at the box-office by the Tonys were Barrymore, which earned lead Christopher Plummer an acting trophy; Ibsen's A Doll's House, a revival that made Janet McTeer a Broadway star; and Chicago, which was a big hit before the Tonys and an even bigger hit afterward.
"This past season had about as active a spring as the theater has experienced in years," said Michael David of Dodger Productions, one of the producers of *Titanic*. "There were so many choices. Everybody was suffering from the fact that there were
show has momentum or not. *Titanic* clearly did. Not to mention a favorable, if quiet word of mouth.
"This past season had about as active a spring as the theater has experienced in years."
"We had, in spite of everything, some pretty serious moment. We were wrapping $100,000 a day, give or take $5,000 or $10,000, by the time we got to the Tonys," said David. "Audiences were enthusiastic. I think what the Tony did was empower theatergoers to yell their enthusiasm."
more shows than there were audiences."
Those that didn't get any recognition quickly expired; musicals like Steel Pier, a $7.5 million flop, Dream and Play On!, which didn't even wait for the Tony nominations to fold, and plays like The Young Man From Atlanta by Horton Foote and Wendy Wasserstein's An American Daughter.
All of them needed the Tony's if they were to flourish, and, considering the subject matter, the $10 million Titanic seemed the least likely of the lot. When several Titanic previews were canceled or stopped in mid-performance because of technical problems, headline writers had a field day with the verb "to sink."
Coupled with mostly mixed-to-negative reviews, *Titanic* seemed destined for a less-than-length run. Yet a funny thing happened to the musical on its way to a closing notice: Its wraps started rising.
A similar situation occurred at Ballyhoo, Uhry's.
Michael David Dodger Productions
"Wraps" — Broadway ling for the daily take from box office and credit-card sales — can determine if a
on occurred at Bautyhoo, Unry's sentimental comedy about a Jewish family in 1939 Atlanta coming to terms with their roots and each other.
"Now audiences come in ready to laugh," said Jane Harmon, one of the producers of Ballyhoo. "The Tonys gave them permission. It was the seal of approval."
The play, which arrived in February, opened to a condescending notice from The New York Times, making its ability to attract serious theatergoers more difficult.
"Word of mouth sustained us—and the fact that we were very conservative with our running costs." Harmon said.
Weekly grosses for the show increased after the Tony win, pushing more than $200,000 for
a show that had been doing substantially less. Its $1.2 million production costs are expected to be recouped before the end of next season.
Before the Tonys, Titanic had a $1.7 million advance; now it is more than $5 million. The week after the Tonys, Ballyjoo had doubled its advance, and it keeps building, said Harmon, who declined to reveal specific figures.
The day after the Tony's, *Titanic* wrapped $355,000 and then settled down to do between $150,000 and $200,000 a day since then, consistently higher than other hits such as Tommy, Guys and Dolls and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. For the week ending July 20, *Titanic* played to 99 percent capacity at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater, grossing a record $676,507.
Also helping both shows was the dramatic increase in viewers for this year's broadcast of the Tonys. Ratings for the CBS broadcast were substantially higher — more than 45 percent — than last year's figures.
News president wants to bolster credibility, pride
The Associated Press
CBS ready for ratings
NEW YORK — Instead of standing behind the television lights, CBS News President Andrew Heyward was in front of them. And it was getting mighty hot.
The news conference to announce that Rep. Susan Molinari would be the host of a Saturday morning broadcast had turned, let's say, unusually hostile.
How could the network of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite assign someone with no experience to host a news show, someone who didn't even pretend to be a journalist?
Heyward was taken aback. He knew hiring Molinari was a bold move that would provoke some skeptical questions. But nothing like this.
Could viewers trust the reporting of a network employing a person who had delivered the Republican National Convention keynote speech only months before? Could Molinari interview her pal Newt Gingrich with any semblance of objectivity?
"I think what people were responding to was: It's not your old CBS News," he said weeks later.
No, it certainly isn't. And maybe Molinari's hiring will serve as Heyward's watershed — either a lightning bolt of genius that helps pull the division back to glory, or yet one more befuddled move by an organization that once stood at the pinnacle of broadcast journalism.
Either way, Andrew Heyward clearly isn't afraid to roll the dice.
Heyward would seem an unlikely candidate to shake up CBS News. He's practically a lifer, joining the New York affiliate WCBS-TV as a
What he did say was, in effect. 'Look, we're going to get back to the CBS News we used to know.'
Mike Wallace 60Minutes
news writer in 1976, four years out of Harvard. He quickly rose to executive producer of the evening newscast and was about to defect to ABC when Dan Rather stepped in and got him a network job in 1981.
Heyward worked on Rather's broadcast, developed 48 Hours and produced Connie Chung's news magazine. He was executive producer of the CBS Evening News when he was elevated to news division president in January 1996.
He took over after years of costcutting had sapped the ranks of talent and morale. CBS News wasn't a leader anymore; it was behind ABC and NBC in both ratings and reputation.
Mike Wallace remembers the day Heyward came to address the troops at 60 Minutes, a link to the news division's best years and its only consistent success story now.
"What he did say was, in effect, 'Look, we're going to get back to the CBS News we used to know. It's going to be a hard chore, it's going to take time, it's going to take money. But if you are patient, you will regain the same sort of pride you used to have."
"Whether he's going to be capable of delivering that, candidly, I don't know," Wallace said. "All I know is
he knows what job has to be done."
What job has we done here?
Heyward has nudged the old lions at 60 Minutes, urging them to compete fresh stories in the summer to compete with rival news magazines and bringing in Christiane Amanpour and Bob Simon as part-time correspondents.
But 60 Minutes was the least of his worries. Rather's evening broadcast, the morning show and the network's other news magazine all needed his attention.
Heyward and Rather set out trying to make CBS's evening program the most respected program, with Rather and NBC's Tom Brokaw even rumbling publicly about who deserved the mantle of King of Hard News. To some eyes, CBS's broadcast has become sharper in the past year; the ratings show it a close but consistent third.
After years of fruitlessly trying to compete with Today and Good Morning America with the same format, Heyward has tried something new in the early hours. This Morning turns its first hour over to local news, with some national cutins. Ratings are up, slightly.
And 48 Hours has gone back to its original format, trying to capture the drama of a single story in an hour. Not many people are likely to notice, though. In a time slot against NBC's ER and, this fall, ABC's 20/20, the joke at CBS is that the show has gone from the worst time period in television to the worst time period in television history.
Then there's Bryant Gumbel's news magazine, which premieres this fall.
Heyward, who talks in the quick, caffeine-fueled cadences common to newsrooms and constantly rewinds to edit himself, likens his job to a circus performer who keeps plates spinning on a stick. And each stick needed a hard spin.
"The idea of settling down and focusing on just one thing would seem like a wonderful luxury right now," he said.
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