Jesse McKinley writes in tomorrow’s New York Times:

All across Broadway, producers, landlords and investors are suffering through one of the bumpiest fall seasons in recent memory, a snake-bit period that has seen one show close in previews (“Bobbi Boland”), another close in rehearsal (“Harmony”) and a Stephen Sondheim show (“Bounce”) close out of town.

The article goes on to discuss “The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All,” which has just closed after one performance, as well as the crappy reviews for “Taboo” and “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks” — not to mention Donna Murphy missing several performances of “Wonderful Town,” and both female cast members dropping out of “The Violet Hour.”

All these failures and problems wouldn’t be so bad if there were as many shows produced on Broadway as there used to be. It doesn’t matter that there are so many bad movies out there, because there are still lots of great ones worth seeing. But the theater isn’t as ubiquitous as the movies anymore; a mediocre show can get a Tony nomination for Best Musical merely because it exists.

Not that any of these complaints are new.

Well, at least there’s Off-Broadway.