Ashley Brown in “Mary Poppins,” Sierra Boggess in “The Little Mermaid” and Josh Tower in “The Lion King.”

By PATRICK HEALY


NEW YORK - With three of its own Broadway musicals vying with one another in a difficult economic climate, Disney Theatrical Productions has been heavily discounting tickets.

But though revenues are down - in some weeks sharply - compared with 2008, Disney executives maintain that the shows attract distinct audiences. They have said“The Lion King” draws more foreign tourists,“Mary Poppins”does better with an older crowd, and“The Little Mermaid”has proved popular with New Yorkers.

What the three musicals have in common, however, is a struggle to fill seats on weeknights, as well as competition with Broadway shows like“Shrek,”“Hair”and“West Side Story”that appeal to parts of the core Disney audiences.

“Disney faces major questions in this economy. Can it sustain three shows at a time when the cost of going to Broadway is very high for a family of three or four, say, and can it differentiate its shows from‘Shrek,’‘Wicked’and other competitors?”said Stuart Oken, a theater producer who spent nine years at Disney Theatrical, where he served as executive vice president before leaving in 2003.

A comparison of ticket sales for the first 15 weeks of 2009 with the same period of 2008 shows that gross revenues for“The Little Mermaid”have declined 27 percent ; the gross of“Mary Poppins,” meanwhile, has declined about 17 percent while“The Lion King”is off about 5 percent.

“Families used to see maybe three or four shows a year; now they can afford to see maybe two or one,”Mr. Oken said.“A bad economy is a bad time to be competing against yourself, which is a situation Disney inevitably faces.”

In an interview on April 1, announcing their latest discounting program, David Schrader, executive vice president of Disney Theatrical, said the company was positioned to battle the recession, which he blamed for cutting into the shows’grosses.

He said that Disney’s winter discount program, Kids Go Free, which covered performances from January 6 to March 13, had sacrificed average-ticket-price sales in favor of larger audiences.

As for his shows’grosses, Mr. Schrader noted that“Mary Poppins” was facing competition with other Broadway“nostalgia shows”- productions that draw audience members who have an affinity for an earlier film or theater version of the show. He cited“South Pacific,”“Hair”and“West Side Story.”

Yet some producers and directors outside Disney rejected the idea that“Mary Poppins”had declining grosses because of other so-called nostalgia shows, noting that“Poppins”- as well as“The Little Mermaid”- received mixed reviews (and some notably negative ones) and may simply have a problem with quality.

“While‘The Lion King’has become an institution on Broadway, you don’t have anywhere near that same appeal with the other two Disney shows,”said Emanuel Azenberg, a longtime producer who is bringing two revivals to Broadway next season: Neil Simon’s autobiographical “Brighton Beach Memoirs and“Broadway Bound.

Disney has given no signal that it has plans to close a show . But whether periodic discounting is enough to sustain three Disney shows on Broadway depends, in the end, on whether Disney sees enough value and profit in the endeavor.

“Discounting is always dangerous because once you start, it’s very hard to ever stop,”Mr. Oken said.

“When you’re discounting as heavily as Disney is, it’s sometimes a sign of the beginning of the end of a show.”