You don't think Harry Potter will run eight years or more?
The economics of it must be a factor. It's so much more expensive to put up even a modest play, harder to raise the capital that's almost certainly going to be lost and harder to make a run of it. A play that has a solid but not blockbuster run for six months or a year is still probably losing most or all of the investment. And the limited-run smashes that recoup in their final week or two only feed the notion that the only way to succeed with a play on Broadway is to have a star-driven, must-see show.
