Alan Cumming\'s \'Macbeth\' Will Join a Crowd of Solo Stars on Broadway

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times From left, Ali Craig, Alan Cumming and Myra McFadyen in the Lincoln Center Festival production of “Macbeth” in 2012, in which Mr. Cumming portrayed every major role.

Broadway producers have always relied on star actors to generate ticket sales for shows, but this spring some stars are the shows, with four plays now on tap that are essentially solo performances. The latest is an avant-garde production of “Macbeth,” with the Tony Award winner Alan Cumming (“Cabaret”) performing most of the characters in the Shakespeare classic; it will beginpreview performances on April 7 at the Ethel Barrymore Theater and open on April 21, the producer Ken Davenport announced on Thursday.

The play is a late entry for the 2012-13 Broadway season, and the fact that it is going into a prime location like the Barrymore reflects the dismal fall on Broadway, where several flops created more vacancies than usual among Broadway’s 40 theaters. The musical “Chaplin” closed at the Barrymore on Jan. 6 after only four and a half months; other productions that closed quickly were the musical “Scandalous” and the plays “Dead Accounts,” “The Performers” and “The Anarchist.” The musical “Rebecca” fell apart even before starting performances this fall, and the revival of “Evita” closed this month, sooner than the producers had hoped.

This “Macbeth” is also unusual because the producer, Mr. Davenport, has never actually seen this version; he missed the show last summer at the Lincoln Center Festival, where it arrived after an acclaimed run at the National Theater of Scotland. But Mr. Cumming’s agent has been shopping “Macbeth” to Broadway producers, and Mr. Davenport said he was intrigued by the pitch.

“It’s a chance to see one of the most versatile theater actors in a unique performance of one of the greatest plays ever written,” Mr. Davenport said of Mr. Cumming, who is also a television star on the CBS series “The Good Wife.” “I think there will be an audience for that.” He also noted that one of the play’s directors is John Tiffany, the Tony winner last year for directing the musical “Once”; the other director is Andrew Goldberg.

Still, Mr. Davenport acknowledged that the production was risky financially. Mr. Cumming is only doing six performances a week, instead of the standard eight, becuse of the emotionally grueling nature of the production, which is set inside a psychiatric unit. Mr. Davenport said the production would cost roughly $2 million and run for 73 performances, and that he was working to reduce the show’s weekly running costs in order to give his investors a shot at turning a profit. Mr. Davenport said he is still raising money and declined to name the investors he had so far.

Generating revenue from a six-performance week will require significant audience demand for “Macbeth” as well as a good number of people purchasing premium-price tickets, which usually range from $200 to $300. But Mr. Davenport said he was optimistic.

“I’m thinking of this as a theatrical event,” Mr. Davenport said. “Some producers would say ‘no way’ to the six-performance business model, but I’m trying to turn it into a positive by saying, ‘You only have 73 performances to see this guy go through it.’” Such a strategy will rely on a strong advance ticket sale! , which i! s more common with musicals than with plays.

With investors increasingly cautious about putting money into Broadway, where only 25 percent of shows ever turn a profit, one-person productions usually have the advantage of selling tickets around a big star name. While this “Macbeth” is somewhat less expensive than more conventional Broadway plays with several actors, which usually cost $3 million or so, one-person shows are by no means cheap. Theater rents and marketing and advertising expenses - big-ticket items in a show budget - are usually the same no matter the number of actors, and star salaries (which can include a percentage of the box office) can add to the costs.

Similar shows coming this spring include “I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers,” starring Bette Midler; “The Testament of Mary,” starring Fiona Shaw as the Virgin Mary; and “Ann,” starring Holland Taylor as the former Texas Gov. Ann W. Richards. Barry Manilow’s concert “Manilow on Broadway” is running now through early March.