Plays struggle on Broadway

Only five new plays opened on Broadway this season, reports Jesse McKinley in The New York Times, as musicals continue to dominate the stage.

"The disappearance of the Broadway play poses a significant problem for anyone whose wants to make a living writing plays," said John Weidman, president of the Dramatists Guild, "which, by extension, poses a problem for anyone who cares about the future of the American theater."

With big-name musicals and star-studded, limited-run revivals considered the only relatively safe bets in a famously risky industry, the roster of those producing new plays has shrunk to a precious and wealthy few who are driven by artistic idealism, personal vanity or, very often, both.

It's a similar story in London. The opening of Mary Poppins means that for the first time in history there are now more musicals than plays in the West End.