no no and no (I think that covers all of your questions.)
The r.e. market in nyc has always changed-that's one of the key characteristics of the place. Today, there are new theatres opening in Brooklyn, and the too dangerous to be hip east village I remember became, first, hip, and then trendy and now hedge fund land, while the hipsters moved first to Williamsburg, and are now moving on to Greenpoint and Bushwick. Count them. Count the theatres there 9and in Queens and even the Bronx).If you want stasis, NYC is not your place.
Of course the cost of producing on bway (and off) has increased mightily. So has everything else. But the prices have kept up, and Broadway has evolved into what it, for better or worse, is.
New work by "new" playwrights can and does open on Broadway, generally not directly, but to suggest it should is to not understand what Broadway is today. I could ask the same question about off-Broadway in the reverse: what was IT 50 or more years ago? Again, this is New York-not a comfortable home to stasis.
As I said before, I have no problem with premium prices; what I have a problem with is trying to make Broadway into something it isn't. And one thing it isn't is the place to nurture young theatre-goers (or makers). It's a place to showcase work that has already been proven. (That's for the most part: there are risks taken, sometimes intelligently if charitably, and sometimes stupidly. We have discussions about both here all the time.)
Premium pricing is a logical response to what Broadway is today but to repeat again, equating Broadway with NY theatre is just wrong. Want to show visitors NY theatre-take them to Lafayette Street, not 46th Street.
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