Bloomberg's Jeremy Gerard, looking at the difficult economics of staging a successful Broadway play, wonders why it costs so much to put on a show. Neil Simon-favored producer Emanuel Azenberg explains it all for you:

"Over the last 25 years, all the costs have spiraled with no constraints," Azenberg told me. The physical production, he said, "cost $100,000 then; it will cost $500,000 now."

"The director's fee was $25,000 then," he continued. "It will be $100,000 now. An ad in the Times was $20,000 then; it's $110,000 now. With payments to the pension fund and health plans, the cost of union labor today is $100 an hour."

So it's true! Labor unions and expensive sets are killing Broadway! Anything else that's changed in the last 25 years? Well, the average ticket price in 1984 was $29.06. Last week, it was $69.05 (for your basic back-of-the-theater knee-shredder; the average price of a top ticket was $236.50). But, you know, Joe Mantello and those anonymous stagehands gotta eat. Let's blame it on them.