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Next month, the curtain will rise on one of the most hotly anticipated shows of the Broadway season: the revival of the 1936 Clare Boothe Luce comedy, The Women.
Not only will it feature an unusually large cast - an all-female group of 26 - but also a bumper crop of stars, including Cynthia Nixon, Kristen Johnson and Jennifer Tilly.
For many producers, such a project would have been unthinkable. In fact, with the dicey economics of Broadway these days, a play with more than a handful of actors has become a rarity.
But The Women's producer is no ordinary theatrical power. It is the Roundabout Theatre Co., a nonprofit subscriptionbased group that has the luxury, and the habit, of playing by its own rules.
"I'm not here to compete with commercial theater," says Todd Haimes, the Roundabout's artistic director. "I'm here to fill an artistic gap."
Some task! In the last year, Mr. Haimes' 37-year-old company has grown to the point where by most accounts it is now running neck-and-neck with longtime leader Lincoln Center Theater for the title of the largest nonprofit theater in the country. In the last two years, the Roundabout's annual operating budget has ballooned by more than 50% to $32 million. And that does not even include the $22 million budget for its wildly successful production of Cabaret, which has been running for more than four years.
Now, the theater company plans to up the ante yet...