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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2021
The most surprising fact about the Phoenix Theatre in New York City is that it has survived. Between opening night on December, 1953, and the end of the third season in the spring of 1957, the managing directors, T. Edward Hambleton and Norris Houghton, compiled a cheerful deficit of some $500,000. By the 1960-61 season, if conditions do not change, there is no reason why the deficit should not touch seven figures. Yet there are some citizens, most of them Broadway backers, who continue to pour into the Phoenix money that cannot possibly be recouped, let alone multiplied.
This may sound like an indelicate or misplaced emphasis; it is actually no more than a reminder that money is the prime mover in New York theatre. It takes, we are told, $400,000 to throw a Broadway musical together.
1 Houghton has retained an interest in religious drama; he has since written about it and helped to promote it. In 1957 the Phoenix presented a Religious Drama Series of five plays, including Fry's most exciting work, A Sleep of Prisoners. Top orchestra price for this series was $2.90.
2 The Lady's Not for Burning had its first production at the Lyric, Hammersmith. So did another Fry play, Thor, With Angels. I believe that the Company of Four was not expected to pay for itself. It was a philanthropic offshoot of Tennant, H. M., Ltd., one of the three or four producing organizations that controlled postwar London theatreGoogle Scholar. There was, at the time, plenty of criticism of this oligopolistic structure; very likely the Lyric was a good will venture, intended to still some of the criticism and to evade legislative action by monopoly-chasing Labour M.P.'s. At all events, the Lyric turned out to be a startlingly successful enterprise. As a Londoner, I saw and enjoyed many of the productions there.
3 Mr. Sundgaard has also written, among other plays, Down in the Valley, for which Kurt Weill composed the music.
4 In Search of Theatre, p. 34.
5 The Living Shakespeare, ed. Oscar James Campbell, p. 1044.
6 Walter Winchell commented: “Robert Ryan made $200,000 this year, playing tough guy roles. But his Harvard conscience prevailed and he returns to broadway (sic) … .at $100 a week…“
7 I am inclined a) to swallow the generalization that in New York good reviews lead to good business, and b) to admit that there are exceptions, of which The Seagull was a prime example.
8 Another later comment by Houghton on the subject of experimental productions (Jan., 1959, in a lecture to the New Dramatists’ Committee): “If we could fill a theatre the size of the Phoenix with avant-garde plays for eight performances a week, there would be no ‘garde.'” Nicely stated, although it implies that if avantgarde were a commercial proposition Houghton and Hambleton would be all for it. So would Broadway.
9 I use the word material here, rather than drama, because Houghton has not talked about the non-naturalistic techniques of movies and television.
10 The bloated word festival seems to be replacing the humbler season, to describe an aggregation of three or more plays, operas, ballets, etc., produced in close sequence.
11 This is a matter of my own opinion. As far as I know, no official announcement put out by the Phoenix has either confirmed or contradicted it.
12 Camus, it appears, wanted the play translated by William Faulkner, Whose Requiem for a Nun he had put into French. Faulkner was too busy or unwilling to oblige.
13 Twenty-eight days is the limit set by Equity for Phoenix rehearsals, since the rehearsal pay is about half the performing rate, i.e., about $45 to $50 a week.
14 The White Devil was one of the Phoenix’ more exuberant productions. “It worked,” Jack Landau, the director, told me, “because none of us gave a goddam about the critics.” This is a rare and healthy viewpoint for a director and cast to have. It is rare and healthy for a theatre management, too.
15 ”… We are planning to throw a ‘Surprise Party’ on Sunday night, April 28. [1957], here on our stage. To entertain our guests, a galaxy of glamorous theatrical lights will be on hand … Kaye Ballard, Jack Cassidy, Harvey Lembeck, Mildred Natwick, Bibi Osterwald, Charlotte Rae, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Nancy Walker, Alfred Drake, Tom Ewell, Hermione Gingold, Shirley Jones, Nora Kaye, Cyril Ritchard, Menasha Skulnik among them… Why are we doing this? Frankly, to make new friends and some extra money… Invitations for the Surprise Party (costing from $35 down to $5) will be tax-deductible… We have never made a public solicitation for funds—we are not doing so now, for we feel we shall be giving our guests more than their money's worth…” Note excerpted from a Phoenix showbill.
16 The Old Dominion Foundation and the Avalon Foundation recently announced that they would each bestow grants of $75,000 on the Phoenix, the money to be made available over a three-year period, and on condition that the Phoenix find 9,000 subscribers for the coming season. At the time of writing, the Phoenix has collected 9,030 subscriptions, and is therefore assured of $50,000 a year for the next three years. This sum is perhaps a small mouthful to an organization that has such a large bite, but it will help to keep the Phoenix in action and may well set other foundations an honorable example.
17 The programme proposed for the 1959-60 season looks promising: O'Neill's The Great God Brown, Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, Ibsen's Peer Gynt, Maxwell Anderson's Winterset and “a play by Shakespeare.” These will all be directed by Stuart Vaughan.