While listening on the Internet to the BBC's superbly packaged broadcast
of the Covent Garden "Sweeney Todd," I got some sad news from the
TheaterWorks/Post Street Theater partnership, which has imported the
former's Mountain View production of "A Little Night Music" into the
latter's San Francisco downtown theater.

The show will close this Sunday, Dec.  21, a couple of weeks before
schedule.  The producers account for the problem in a remarkably simple
and honest manner:

"It was attracting good-sized audiences, but not large enough to cover
the significant costs associated with running a show of this size.

"LNM features a cast of 19 actors on stage, 12 musicians in the orchestra,
16 crew members and 6 understudies, making it comparable in size to a
full-scale Broadway production.  The show enjoyed a sold-out, extended
engagement during TheaterWorks' regular season in Mountain View earlier
this fall, before moving to San Francisco."

I did some quick research and found that the Post Street Theater's
capacity is 729, and the Center for the Performing Arts seats 589.
Two puzzles: first, a "good-sized audience" in the larger theater may
be very close to a full house there; second - and a much bigger mystery:
Mountain View's population is 70,000; San Francisco's is a lucky 777,000!
(Oh, and also, this *is* San Francisco.) Wonder what's going on.

I didn't much care for the production, with an invisible orchestra and
- to me - exceedingly loud amplification, but today's audiences have
been conditioned to accept din instead of music.  And, of course, there
is no question about the enduring magnificence of the work itself.  So
how to explain the difference between success there and failure here?

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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