The Broadway producers of 1974 decided that the key to producing shows on Broadway was to limit the cast for any given show or play to six characters. This was due to the inflation that gripped Broadway at the time. (Economists have since identified 1967 as the "culprit year" that kicked off this inflation.) A producer, in fact, once "buttonholed" a friend of mine and me and told us he was in the market for a play of that size.
Needless to say, that did not stick. It wasn't long before those same producers said, "Let's produce good shows. If the public wants to see them, it will pay whatever the seats cost." The producers were right--and the public has been talking of the high cost of tickets to shows ever since.
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