Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Broadway’s two dozen dark theaters won’t stay empty for long.

Defying the economic slump, producers are scheduled to present 19 Broadway shows in the next three months. If they all arrive ahead of the June 7 Tony awards, the 2008-09 season will go down as the busiest in two decades, with 40 new productions.

Broadway will have the most openings since 1986-87, when there were 43.

“It’s an embarrassment of riches, which is amazing in this economy,” said Robyn Goodman, a producer of “West Side Story,” which opens on March 19.

“Producers, God bless them, they are so optimistic,” Goodman said.

The emphasis is on star-driven plays, which cost a fraction of what it takes to produce a musical. Like “West Side Story” most of the upcoming big musicals are revivals that need no introduction, such as “Guys and Dolls” and “Hair.”

The multitude of famous actors onstage could pack the Rialto hangout Bar Centrale. They include Will Ferrell in “You’re Welcome America: A Final Night with George W. Bush;” Jeremy Irons as a globe-trotting photojournalist in “Impressionism,” opposite Joan Allen; Jane Fonda, as a Beethoven-obsessed musicologist in Moises Kaufman’s “33 Variations;” Jeff Daniels, Marcia Gay Harden and James Gandolfini in French playwright Yasmina Reza’s social satire, “God of Carnage;” Oliver Platt and Lauren Graham in “Guys and Dolls” and Angela Lansbury in Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit.”

Hopeful Signs

Some shows may thrive amid the traffic jam. In the last three months of 2008, even as equity markets plunged and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. declared bankruptcy, a revival of “All My Sons” earned back its investors’ $3.25 million and “The Seagull” recouped its $2.55 million. Producers of the $2.26 million revival of David Mamet’s “Speed the Plow” said today that its investors were made whole. The show closes on Feb. 22.

There may be additions to the schedule before April 30, when eligibility ends for the Tonys. Producers of “Next to Normal” an unlikely pop-rock musical about a family coping with loss and mental illness, are considering a Broadway run, people familiar with the situation said.

The John Golden Theatre, one of Broadway’s smallest houses and the current home of “Avenue Q,” is a leading candidate for the show if it were to become available, according to people familiar with the producers’ plans.

‘Avenue Q’

Goodman produced “Avenue Q,” a 5 1/2-year-old, ribald puppet musical. She worked with the composer of “Next to Normal,” Tom Kitt, on 2006’s “High Fidelity.”

“I want Tom Kitt to have his show on Broadway, but not necessarily in my theater,” she said with a laugh. “’Avenue Q’ is doing fine right now. We don’t know what’s ahead.”

“Avenue Q” grossed $247,179 last week, down 15 percent from a year earlier, according to the Broadway League, a trade association.

Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” starring Allison Janney and based on the 1980 movie, is the only big new musical confirmed for the spring. Other newcomers are “Rock of Ages,” an inspired full- length skit from off-Broadway that mocks and celebrates rock anthems of the 1980s; and “The Story of My Life,” a two- character show described in a press release as an “original story about friendship, success and the choices we make at the turning points in our lives.”

Coward Returns

Noel Coward’s 1941 farce, “Blithe Spirit,” featuring Christine Ebersole, is having its first Broadway run in 22 years. Christopher Hampton’s “The Philanthropist,” which Frank Rich described in 1983 as “a most enjoyable toy of a play” and stars Matthew Broderick as a philology professor, returns to Broadway after 38 years.

Geoffrey Rush originated his role in the revival of Eugene Ionesco’s “Exit the King” in Australia. He plays opposite Susan Sarandon, as a king who left his country near ruin.

Playwright-screenwriter-director Neil LaBute has his Broadway debut with “reasons to be pretty,” an off-Broadway transfer. The Roundabout Theatre Co. stages “Waiting for Godot,” with Nathan Lane, John Goodman and Bill Irwin.

Irwin appeared in a starry Lincoln Center Theater “Godot” in 1988, with David Hyde Pierce as an understudy. This season, weeks after turning 50, Pierce opens in “Accent on Youth,” about a playwright who falls in love with a younger woman.

“Fela!,” a musical about Nigerian composer, musician and activist Fela Anikulapo Kuti, won’t come in this season. It received Broadway buzz and enthusiastic notices during its two- month run, ending in October, at 37 Arts off-Broadway. Since then, producers have wrestled with how to make an enterprise with 12 musicians and 20 performers viable. In addition to Broadway, they considered St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn.

“We’re trying to figure out what’s the best thing to do for the show,” producer Stephen Hendel said.

To contact the writer on this story: Philip Boroff in New York at pboroff@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 29, 2009 14:23 EST