Two decades where Broadway got its rhythm

The theater, like most of humanity's fun and profit, never falls as neatly into blocks of time as we'd like to pretend.

Unlike a lot of other stuff, however, the theater has actually gotten better in the past two decades -- at least in quantity and at least in the commercial theater. In the '80s, Broadway was basically British mega-musical blockbusters surrounded by empty theaters. Now producers circle booked-up playhouses, waiting for space to open so they can land.

On the sadder hand, Off-Broadway, like the country's other nonprofit culture, has struggled to define itself in the rubble of government neglect, the roiling insecurities of private funding and the marginalization of artists by the scarily successful culture wars. The results -- big surprise -- tend to be safe choices and a hit-mentality straight out of Darwin.

In 1991, the top ticket for the priciest musical, "Jerome Robbins' Broadway," was $60. Now, Broadway's top ticket for "Priscilla Queen of the Desert" is $145. If you want to feel like a big shot with a "premium seat" -- this decade's legalization of ticket scalping -- make that $175-$200.

Twenty other trends, happy or merely true:

BACK TO WHERE THEY ONCE BELONGED

The American musical, which used to write the songs the whole world sang, found its voice again -- make that many different voices, from old-Broadway to pop and rock. Except for "Billy Elliot," which we love, there hasn't been a new Brit mega-musical since "Sunset Boulevard" in the mid-'90s.

DISNEY TURNED OUT NOT TO BE THE DEVIL

Not only did the Mouse House restore the fantastical Art Nouveau New Amsterdam Theatre, it was allowed to keep its own historic name. And instead of filling it with tracing-paper cartoons, those smart guys hired avant-garde designer-director Julie Taymor to reinvent the spectacle musical with the awesomely inventive "The Lion King." The image of Broadway's family market has never been the same.

THE PERFECTION OF STUNT CASTING

Long-running shows used to be usually good for two, maybe three replacement casts. Producers Fran and Barry Weissler figured out a way to turn "Chicago" into a revolving door for short-term turns by hundreds of stars, demi-stars and sorta stars, making this 1996 restaging of Bob Fosse's 1975 murdering-floozies satire into the longest-running revival in Broadway history. (Christie Brinkley is Roxie today.)

THE CHOREOGRAPHER AS DIRECTOR MAKES A RETURN

Broadway dance went into a tailspin with the deaths of Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett and Jerome Robbins (and the semiretirement of the much-missed Tommy Tune). But the dance-driven musical, what the '70s called the "dancical," came high-flying back with Susan Stroman's "Contact" in 1999 and Twyla Tharp's "Movin' Out" in 2002.

THE MAINSTREAMING OF GAY THEATER

It took a horrible plague, initially, but plays on gay subjects -- including Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart," Terrence McNally's "Love! Valour! Compassion!," William Finn and James Lapine's "Falsettos" and Richard Greenberg's "Take Me Out" -- have created a remarkable body of work that catapulted these two decades into a theatrical golden age.

THE UNDOMESTICATION OF AMERICAN THEATER

Until Tony Kushner's "Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes" swept away awards and audiences in 1993, popular and serious American plays were obsessed with dysfunctional families and individual pathology. Kushner may not have been the first big-picture activist playwright, but he parted the seas for them all.

AUGUST WILSON DECADES

Although August Wilson began his magnificent 10-play cycle about the 20th-century African-American experience on Broadway in the mid-'80s, the bulk of these astonishing plays ("Two Trains Running," "Seven Guitars," "King Hedley II") unfolded in the last two decades. He finished the final installment in 2005, then died, leaving untold stories for the world to know.

THE RISE OF DOCUDRAMA

Anna Deavere Smith may not have been the first playwright to create theater out of verbatim interviews (though I'm betting she was). Either way, in 1992, her astonishing multicharacter solo, "Fires in the Mirror," demonstrated how artists can reflect many sides of reality with a power that both uses journalism and transcends it.

THE VINDICATION AND REDISCOVERY OF EDWARD ALBEE

It is hard to believe, but this singular playwright had fallen out of New York fashion until 1994, when "Three Tall Women" opened and won him his third Pulitzer Prize. We lost Arthur Miller, Wendy Wasserstein, August Wilson and Harold Pinter in these two decades. So the reclamation of this provocative, wildly articulate troublemaking creator of grown-up theater is not just vindication, it's positively ecological.

A NEW HIT PARADE

Before rock and roll grabbed the mic in the late '50s, hit popular songs all came from Broadway shows. It wasn't until "Rent" in 1996 that Broadway got its first original rock musical since "Hair." And it wasn't until "Spring Awakening" in 2006 that authentic rock started changing the sound of Broadway. Seems almost quaint now, doesn't it?

DON'T LAUGH: AMERICAN SHAKESPEARE

Many, most specifically Joe Papp, tried for years to reconcile American actors and Shakespeare's language. Until Jack O'Brien's direction of "Henry IV" at Lincoln Center Theater in 2004 and Daniel Sullivan's "The Merchant of Venice" (with Al Pacino) last year in Central Park and on Broadway, however, the gold standard for Shakespeare was inevitably with a British accent.

HOLLYWOOD HEARTS BROADWAY

It wasn't long ago that the biggest movie and TV stars thought Broadway was, uh, not cool. Now everyone and James Gandolfini wants to be seen live onstage, frequently in tough new plays but at least in revivals. This is terrific, when they are, but few want to commit for longer than a few months. Also, veteran stage actors are finding the oxygen has been sucked out of the room by stardust.

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT

Theatergoers tend to settle in for marathons (the seven-hour "Angels," Tom Stoppard's eight-hour "Coast of Utopia"). And they like the quickies -- the 90-minute plays that seem in synch with contemporary rhythms and leave time for a meal. It's the plays and musicals in between the massive library of two- and three-hour scripts that seem suddenly old-fashioned.

STEPHEN SONDHEIM, SUPERSTAR

It only took 60 years, but America's master of grown-up musicals is no longer considered an acquired taste. The mass appreciation is about so much more than Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd, but, hey, that didn't hurt.

THINGS CHANGE, THINGS STAY THE SAME

When Joseph Papp died in 1991, it seemed that nobody could juggle the multistage Public Theater with the smarts and guts that made him the most important figure in modern American theater. Nobody could ever replace him, but George C. Wolfe and, now, Oskar Eustis, have made the place their own. Meanwhile, on Broadway, though the loss of Shubert creative powerhouses Bernard Jacobs and Gerald Schoenfeld remains raw, the business seems as robust as ever.

THE NAME GAME

It is hard to forgive the Roundabout Theatre Company for selling its 42nd Street marquee as a billboard for American Airlines. The financial decision did not quite set off the feared onslaught of corporate brands on beloved Broadway houses, though even a few is too many. The Roundabout did noble penance last year by naming the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. So there's hope.

LIVE MUSIC, R.I.P.?

It has been a tough couple of decades for preserving live musicians in Broadway orchestras, and the union contract is up again soon. The bright spot -- and was it ever -- was the full orchestra that Lincoln Center Theater used for its wonderful 2008 revival of "South Pacific." When was the last time an orchestra felt so inextricable from the experience?

LINCOLN CENTER THEATER? CAN'T HAPPEN

For years, nobody could make the ungainly white box on the far side of Lincoln Center into a theater worthy of its opera, ballet and symphonic neighbors. But Gregory Mosher and Bernard Gersten changed history in 1985. And when Mosher moved on in 1992, Andre Bishop moved in and made the Beaumont/Newhouse complex into the treasured home for quality new work and masterly revivals. The awesome "War Horse" is there now.

WHO WORKS IN THE CITY IN JULY?

And who needs a multicultural arts festival in the summer when the city is a festival all through the rest of the year? We didn't know what we needed until we got the Lincoln Center Festival, which has introduced irresistible theater, dance and music from around the world and, lately, helped turn the gorgeous old Park Avenue Armory into a performance center. The festival's Beckett fest in 1996 and the Pinter fest in 2001 are special memories, as are visits from French visionary Ariane Mnouchkine.

PERFECTING A CRITIC-PROOF SHOW

That would be "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark." If you have to ask, you haven't been paying attention.

THEATER -- THEN AND NOW

TOP TICKET

1991 -- $60 for "Jerome Robbins' Broadway"

2011 -- $145 for "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" (premium $175-$200)

MOST SPECIAL EFFECT

1991 -- A real helicopter lands onstage in "Miss Saigon"

2011 -- Real stunt doubles (usually) land onstage after flying in "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark"

THE PROGRESS OF TONY KUSHNER

1991 -- Unknown playwright opens first play, "A Bright Room Called Day," at the Public, directed by Michael Greif.

2011 -- Pulitzer and double Tony winner opens latest, "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures" at the Public, directed by Michael Greif

CONSUMER PROTECTION

1991 -- The city's Commissioner of Consumer Affairs tells Broadway producers they must tell theatergoers when shows are in previews.

2011 -- The city's Department of Consumer Affairs tells Broadway producers they must tell theatergoers when shows are in previews. No, really.