THE ROAD: Luxury in the Sticks

The road used to mean extreme discomforts for audiences as well as touring actors, while Broadway theaters were havens of relaxation. Today the situation is just about reversed. “Broadway is ostensibly the center of the theater industry,” said Actor Brian Aherne last week, recalling a cross-country tour of Dear Liar (TIME, March 28). “But it is elsewhere, all over the U.S., that you find the modern facilities and the new theaters.”

Among the best: Dallas’ 450-seat Kalita Humphreys Theater, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, which has a turntable stage flanked by two side stages, a unique lighting system, superstereophonic acoustics; Palm Beach’s 813-seat Royal Poinciana Playhouse, whose stage apron curves out to provide more acting area, or, in the case of a musical, slides back to open an orchestra pit; Hollywood’s 1,024-seat Huntington Hartford Theater, lavishly decorated with relief sculpture; Phoenix’ 523-seat Sombrero Playhouse, which includes clubrooms and an art gallery.

All of these theaters in “the sticks” have decent dressing rooms and spacious lobbies; most also have bars or restaurants. By contrast, most Broadway houses have creaky stage machinery, dirty, badly ventilated dressing rooms, cramped auditoriums and lobbies, offer no food or drink beyond the usual soapy orange juice. There are some notable exceptions, Aherne concedes, but generally, “Broadway comforts are so poor I am surprised people go to the theater at all.”