On Theater: Who could replace these stars?

Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch officially open for reviews in "A Little Night Music" at the Walter Kerr Theatre next Sunday. Peters plays a world-wise actress named Desiree, with Stritch as her mother, an aged high-class courtesan, in this revival of Stephen Sondheim's wicked and gorgeous 1973 musical about sophisticated liaisons in a luxurious 19th century Swedish night.

Sound familiar? Of course, it does. This is the same production that played to massive box office from December through mid-June. The difference - as you surely know by now - is that Catherine Zeta-Jones, who won a Tony Award, and Angela Lansbury are gone; Peters and Stritch are in.

Notice, please, that the word "replacement" appears nowhere in my opening paragraphs. As the show's producers stress in a written answer to my question about the new casting, "Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch aren't replacements. They are major Broadway stars and we were so fortunate they could join this production. They make the roles their own."

In other words, when you're changing the leads in a star-driven Broadway hit these days, the "r" word is impolite and simply not used.

More to the point, these days, replacing is simply not done.

I'm not talking about "Chicago," where stars, semistars and demi-stars have been zipping through the revolving door since 1996.

In the star-driven, once-in-a-lifetime, limited-run reality of today's highest-profile theater, the recasting of "Night Music" is more anomaly than tradition.

"Fences" broke all house records at the Cort Theatre, turned a profit after just eight weeks, but still closed July 11 after the scheduled 88 performances. Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, who both won Tony Awards, were not - here comes the word - replaced so the Tony-winning revival could go on.

The same was true for "A Steady Rain," the money machine that was completely sold out for all 80 performances last fall with Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig. "A View From the Bridge" ran its promised 81 performances, then closed when Liev Schreiber and Tony-winning Scarlett Johansson left the building.

"God of Carnage," the best play Tony winner of 2009, did try recasting - twice - after the major magic of James Gandolfini, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis and Marcia Gay Harden dispersed. The brutal comedy did manage to become the third-longest-running play of the decade when it closed in June. But the second cast, including Christine Lahti and Jimmy Smits, couldn't compete with the originals. And the third cast, despite terrific acting and Daniels' clever return in the Gandolfini role, never caught fire at the box office.

Producing on Broadway has always been a gamble, but the stakes have never been so high. This is especially true for plays, which, unlike musicals, depend almost entirely on Broadway's addiction to what amounts to casting crack - huge movie stars in limited runs. Despite daunting production costs and ticket prices, the profit potential is massive. For example, according to Bloomberg.com, a $100,000 investment in the two-man, 85-minute, no-spectacle "A Steady Rain" was transformed into $165,000 in a mere 12 weeks.

Robert Cole, one of the producers of "A Steady Rain," walked me around the land mines that surround the recasting of stars, in general, and his stars, in particular. "As producers, we had an obligation to pursue whatever reasonable possibilities were in the best interests of our investors," he explained diplomatically. "We sent some feelers out - no, I won't say to whom."

But the play couldn't extend for more than a month, when another show had the theater. And Jackman and Craig - "a joy to be with," according to Cole - could not stay the extra month. "If they had extended for just a few weeks, it was going to be gravy for everybody."

Finding available stars is often impossible. And how big is big enough? Rehearsing them is expensive. Then there are the feelings of the original stars, who are still performing while producers are trolling for their replacements. Cole and co-producer Fred Zollo did not start looking for other actors until about three-quarters of the way through the run. "We never wanted to do anything that might put our cast off."

"We were unlikely to find other stars of this magnitude," Cole said. "Just as it would have been extremely difficult to replace Denzel." Cole wouldn't name names, but some stars actually have contracts that stipulate they cannot be replaced, that the show cannot go on without them.

I can understand the philosophy. If you call your stars irreplaceable, a special event gets more special, a hot ticket hotter. The message to theatergoers is that they must see it now - or die without ever seeing it.

Cole and Zollo know the territory. Shortly after the bonanza of "A Steady Rain," the independent producers entered into an unusual in-house development agreement with the Shubert Organization. For the most part, the deal is that they supply big stars and short runs in exchange for available prime Shubert theaters.

He has heard all the complaints about stars on Broadway. "Actors and producers can say the stars are screwing up the business," he said. "I don't disagree. But I didn't create it. It has been that way for a long while and it may not go away for a long while.

"This is deep in the theater now, and there isn't anything subtle about it." In our economy, "there aren't enough people who can afford to see a lot of shows. But enough people have enough money to see stars."

Stars don't want to do plays for long runs. "And no matter how successful you are, how many premium seats you sell, you can't do 16 performances a week. You can only gross so much per week."

Big stars and short runs may be a short-sighted solution to looming Broadway problems. But clearly, a replacement for the star system is not in the stars. At least, for now, we're getting good ones.