Theatre World: Road Shows Down

This week's Variety has a lengthy report on the struggles of the touring road show market. By the numbers, the trade journal reports that the 51-week total gross for touring musicals is $521 million. That's down from $628 million over the same stretch of time in 2004-05, and $711 million in 2003-04.

Variety says the big shows - "Wicked, "Mamma Mia!" and "Monty Python's Spamalot" - did well. The trouble, industry-wise, came with shows such as "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and "Legends," the Joan Collins-Linda Evans performance that Variety called "a colossal disaster, garnering some of the worst reviews in recent road history and causing inital talk of its eventual arrival on Broadway to quickly evaporate."