Slump Goes Boom

Suffering from one of the worst creative slumps in years, Broadway is enjoying one of the greatest box-office booms in history. Packing the theaters are coin-heavy, gas-rationed Manhattan escapists, droves of visiting defense workers hell-bent to spend their mill-gotten gains. The critics, bidding the waves of hogwash recede, are often in a class with Canute. In the past month most critics have trounced Frederick Lonsdale's Another Love Story, Lou Walters' Artists and Models, Gypsy Rose Lee's The Naked Genius (which even the author held her nose at), Rose Franken's Outrageous Fortune. All four are hits.

But for producers even heaven has its headaches: a swamped Broadway has developed a staggering housing problem. Theaters are fought over the way ragamuffins scuffle for pennies. Some shows traipse about Broadway like gypsies. Others cannot even get to town. One show (Lady, Behave!), opening this week, must find a new home by next.

But the box-office boom itself is not quite so anarchic as it looks. Most of the season's horrors, though often an unconscionable time a-dying, have died. Of 33 shows that have opened, 19 are under the sod. It is largely to plays of a certain age--last season's Star and Garter, The Doughgirls, Janie and a raft of others--that Broadway's rich playboys & girls still pay lucrative court.

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