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• Watch clips from 'Billy Elliot'
• Watch clips from 'God of Carnage'
• Tony Awards website
• 2009 Tony Award nominees

Broadway is booming with escapist fare

You'd scarcely know times are hard from the crowds thronging around Times Square and into Broadway theaters for the Great White Way's version of a stimulus package.

Shows that opened during the 2008-2009 season, which officially ended a week ago, grossed more than $943 million. That gross is up $6 million from the year before, in part due to higher ticket prices, although attendance dipped by 120,000, with 12.1 million tickets sold this season.

The trade group the Broadway League tallied 10 new musicals, eight new plays, four musical revivals, 16 play revivals and five special performances, for a total of 43 shows -- the most since the 50 that opened during the 1982-83 season. When times are tough, the statistics suggest, we yearn more than ever for escape.

'Billy Elliot' dominates Tonys, wins best musical

An movie-inspired British musical and a withering French comedy triumphed over Broadway's American fare on Sunday when the 63rd annual Tony Awards were presented at Manhattan's Radio City Music Hall.

Billy Elliot , the musical about a working-class British boy who finds his passion in the world of ballet, won 10 of the competition-leading 15 Tonys for which it was nominated, including the box office-boosting best musical Tony. Though composer Elton John (who had the idea of turning Billy Elliot into a musical) and lyricist Lee Hall lost the best score Tony to Next to Normal (Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey's daring musical about a woman with bipolar disorder), the show also took the Tonys for best director (Stephen Daldry), best leading actor (shared by the three boys who take turns playing Billy) and best supporting actor.

Billy Elliot also won the Tonys for best book (Lee Hall), best choreography (Peter Darling), best scenic design (Ian MacNeil), best lighting of a musical (Rick Fisher) and best sound

Hot Broadway star tackling Shakespeare

Raúl Esparza is one of the hottest leading men on Broadway, slipping effortlessly between musicals and plays, and picking up tons of acclaim along the way.

The four-time Tony nominee tries to avoid reviews of his work because he's not ''strong enough'' to handle the criticism. But if Esparza caught the critical response to the recent revival of Speed-the-Plow , which co-starred Elisabeth Moss and Jeremy Piven (before mercury poisoning did him in), he'd discover how he grabbed the lion's share of praise for his showy turn as a cutthroat movie producer.

Now, the former Miamian and Anne Hathaway are the romantic leads in the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night , the Bard's screwball tale of mistaken identity. Esparza, 38, portrays Orsino, the duke of Illyria, who is in love with Lady Olivia (played by Tony-winning Audra McDonald), who ignores his advances and falls for the clever page Cesario -- who's actually Viola, dressed as a boy and secretly crushing on Orsino.

Larry Gelbart | Award-winning writer for TV show `MASH'

Larry Gelbart, the award-winning comedy writer best known for developing the landmark TV series MASH , co-writing the book for the hit Broadway musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and co-writing the classic movie comedy Tootsie , died Friday. He was 81.

Gelbart, who was diagnosed with cancer in June, died at his home in Beverly Hills, his wife Pat Gelbart said.

Gelbart is best remembered for his work on MASH , the long-running series whose blend of laughter and tragedy made TV history.

TV raises the profile for Broadway's Tony Awards

You gotta feel for the Tonys.

Compared to the glitz of the Oscars, the Emmys or the Grammys, the trophies that honor the best of Broadway always seem a little musty. They're just so antique. Tuning in to the annual broadcast is a little like watching an awards ceremony for natural history exhibits of stuffed bison and bald eagles.

Still, the annual show remains one of the few acknowledgments on network television that something called theater even exists. And the organizers have done a lot in recent years to drag the event into the 21st century.