New, Plush Theaters Raise Concerns of Their Own

NYTimes.com: The lamentations over the slow death of commercial Off Broadway theater have subsided, at least for a while. It’s true that over the past decade the city has lost at least a half-dozen spaces once devoted to presenting new work unsuitable for Broadway, including the Variety Arts in the East Village, the Promenade Theater on the Upper West Side (now a Sephora) and the Century Center off Union Square. I suppose we can consider it a happy coincidence that none has become a Duane Reade. The result has sometimes been a stampede to Broadway by shows that by all rights should remain Off Broadway. Witness the recent quick flop of the musical “Lysistrata Jones.”