The most surprising fact about the Phoenix Theatre in New York City is that it has survived. Between opening night on December, 1953, and the end of the third season in the spring of 1957, the managing directors, T. Edward Hambleton and Norris Houghton, compiled a cheerful deficit of some $500,000. By the 1960-61 season, if conditions do not change, there is no reason why the deficit should not touch seven figures. Yet there are some citizens, most of them Broadway backers, who continue to pour into the Phoenix money that cannot possibly be recouped, let alone multiplied.

This may sound like an indelicate or misplaced emphasis; it is actually no more than a reminder that money is the prime mover in New York theatre. It takes, we are told, $400,000 to throw a Broadway musical together.