NICE HITS - GLTF scored a couple of big productions in the first half.

Equating the first half of the 2006-'07 theater season to one of the gridiron bowl games now clogging TV arteries, you'd have to say that the campaign so far has been a well-fought, defensive box-office battle, with artistic scoring limited to a skimpy field goal or two.

The not-so-glamorous but oh-so-heartening significance buried in the pigskin analogy is that most local playhouses are carrying operations into a second consecutive season from a definite, if delicate, position of financial security.

Two years ago, for no discernible reason, the fall-through-holidays schedule for the broad range of North Coast theaters tanked like one of Sly Stallone's accommodating sparring partners. In the disastrous area-wide shortfall, even such surefire, kiddie-catnip vacation treats as Beck Center's Seussical the Musical spent Christmas as lonely as a boarding-school orphan. "We never figured out what happened," says Beck boss Scott Spence, echoing the puzzlement of the majority of nonplussed administrators. Ê

In 2005, however - and again with no perceptible cause - the same period produced a stunningly lucrative about-face. Crosstown and across the board, box-office coffers were resuscitated through most of the autumn, and especially replenished by crammed yuletide attractions like the Cleveland Play House's A Christmas Story, Beck's Beauty and the Beast, Cleveland Public Theatre's pairing of The Santaland Diaries with a return engagement of the wacky Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge, as well as Great Lakes Theater Festival's old reliable, A Christmas Carol.

To general emotional and economic relief, this bountiful phenomenon has been repeated in 2006 to an even somewhat increased degree. The recurrence is due in no small measure to the shrewd calculation by several playhouses to bring back a gaggle of the previous season's holiday gilded geese to hatch another litter of their opulent ova.

Wondrously, "Christmas Story surpassed last year's totals," announces a justifiably gratified Michael Bloom, CPH chief. Unsurprisingly he adds, "We'll probably do it again next year." At Beck, Beauty once more lived up to its title, says Spence, by "matching 2005's record-making figures." Mindy Herman, CPT communications director, reports that the reprise of Santaland "has been filling to capacity," while newcomer The Rocky Horror Show "has enjoyed very healthy crowds." Even warhorses are making Seabiscuit-type runs. GLTF spokesman Todd Krispinsky confidently predicts the perennial Carol will reach a projection slightly greater than that of its last go-round.

Largesse, happily, wasn't limited to the yule-prompted giving spirit. "Single ticket sales for the year," Bloom boasts, "are 39 percent over goal." And CPH has recorded for 2006-'07, "the highest eight-play subscriber renewal rate in the theater's history - 92 percent." GLTF's fall repertory of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Love's Labour's Lost "exceeded combined expectations," according to Krispinsky, "with Forum performing especially well."

Though a pair of shows in CPT's politically and aesthetically offbeat series experienced attendance shortages, its unisex take on Measure for Measure rang a register bell or two. As for the riskiest schedule in town, which this year dared the folk opera Porgy and Bess and a female Hamlet, Spence was pleased to account Beck's fall as "in total, on the plus side."

In less celebratory contrast - and also exactly mirroring 2006 - this season's first half has been artistically impoverished enough to file for bankruptcy. Last year, amid myriad disappointing and mildly interesting stagings, just Beck's Urinetown and Beauty qualified as anything particularly special. Likewise, at midpoint of 2006-'07, only a pair of pure entertainments - Forum and the Beauty revival - stand out as truly notable achievements. To be sure, there've been numerous fine performances, some astute direction and classic works undertaken. But too often, these efforts - when not just unexciting, average exercises - have ultimately stagnated in either superior productions of execrable plays (Dobama's The Pillowman) or misguided misinterpretations of great ones (CPH's My Fair Lady).

Yet, if we're going to talk about bottom lines, there are many who would argue that the one furthest down the balance sheet is the fact that you'd be hard-pressed to put on any sort of theater - bad, indifferent or outstanding - without the means to do so. In this pragmatic school of thought, keeping theater organizations alive and functioning is top priority in the crusade. And playing to populous audiences and turning a profit are not bad ways to begin reaching that end.

Whether that concept is in fact - or should be - the first principle of theatermaking is a question for another time. But, to mangle the old joke, whether you're theatrically rich or poor, it's nice to count box-office receipts.