An old college friend of mine who is a playwright had a full-length work produced off-Broadway. It had rave reviews from the Post, Newsday, and the News, but because it had a bad review from the Times, it closed. He told me that with the notable exception of "Wicked," good reviews from the Times were everything for commercial NYC theater,
This was about ten years ago, and I wonder if this is still true. The current reviewers don't have the same kind of clout Ben Brantley and Frank Rich used to have, but I still wonder. The current revival of "Company" has received some decent reviews, but it got a slam in the Times, and I wonder if that's a death sentence.