Going to see a play? Here’s how local theaters are trying to keep it affordable

I have a friend who loves to go to theater. He recently returned from New York City, where he took in a couple of Broadway shows and an Off-Broadway show or two.

“Ticket prices are killing theater,” he emailed me. “They have already started to do so.”

He didn’t want his name used in my column, for whatever reason. Neither did another friend of mine, who used to work at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota. Now, she told me, she can’t afford to go to shows there.

Rising tickets prices are a problem. All the local performing arts companies are aware of it. They’re caught between the rock of paying for productions and the hard place of needing to attract audiences.

There are myriad causes. Overt greed isn’t one of them. At least not around here.

Janene Amick, the CEO of Manatee Players, points out that theater can’t really be streamlined. If it took you two months to make a car 50 years ago, she says, maybe now you can do it in two hours. If you staged “Hello, Dolly” 50 year ago, you might have had to rehearse for two months. Today, you still have to rehearse for two months. It takes just as long for actors to learn their lines, for dancers to learn their steps, for designers to create sets, lights and costumes.

“You can’t shorten the process, but at the same time you have to pay all those people more than you did 50 years ago,” she said.

Manatee Players have managed to keep their ticket prices reasonable — under $40 for the best seats — but because they’re a community theater, they rely on volunteer casts and crew members.

Problems can be exacerbated for fully professional theaters, which must pay everyone involved in a production.

“They’ve graduated from college, and then they’ve gone on to graduate school,” said Brendan Ragan, one of the two artistic directors at Urbanite Theatre in Sarasota. “They have as much training as a doctor. You can’t just pay them a stipend.”

And local performing arts companies know that if ticket prices get too high, then parents won’t be able to afford to bring kids to theater. Those kids, who should make up the next generation of ticket-buyers, may grow up not appreciating live performance.

Urbanite Theatre combats that trend by offering discounts for anyone under 40. Not over 65, as a lot of businesses do, but under 40. And Urbanite’s student tickets are only $5. That helps bring people into the theater who may keep coming for another 40 or 50 years.

“Besides,” Ragan said, “people over 65 are the prime theater demographic in this area. If we offered senior discounts, we’d go broke.”

As part of its mission, Sarasota Opera strives to make opera accessible to everyone it can. It always has two rows of seats that it sells for $19. Other seats go for over $100, but there are a few dozen $19 seats for every performance. They sell out quickly, though. And production costs continue to rise.

No matter what the performing arts organization, at least on the local and regional level, ticket prices pay for only part of the production. Most companies feel pretty happy getting about 45 percent of their production costs from tickets sales; the rest comes from grants and donations. Manatee Players get about three-quarters of their money from “earned income” — ticket sales and advertising in programs — but that’s unusual.

The problem’s even more acute on Broadway, where theater is often a tourists’ destination, and audiences want spectacular production values. Some tickets for “Hamilton,” the hottest show of the 21st century, are going for well over $1,000.

One problem those high-ticket shows face is legal scalping, in which companies buy up blocks of tickets and re-sell them for a profit. The hit show “The Band’s Visit” is battling that trend by not allowing any ticket-buyer to print a ticket until 48 hours before curtain time, thereby leaving no time for companies to re-sell.

Other shows and producers are fighting ticket-price inflation in different ways. “The Book of Mormon,” on Broadway and on tour, has a lottery that allows some people to get tickets for $25; other shows have followed suit. The National Theatre in England started selling tickets to its Shakespeare productions for half-price, because the shows weren’t selling out, and theater officials figured a full house of people who paid half-price was better than a half-empty house of people who paid full price.

Increasing tickets prices hurt theater people more than anyone. People who make theater, in general, love to go to theater. And people who make theater, in general, don’t make a ton of money.

“When I went to see ‘Newsies’ (in Tampa) I took my two daughters and one niece, I spent more than $500,” Amick said. “It was a wonderful, memorable evening, but I can only do that once a year.”

This story was originally published January 26, 2018 at 11:30 AM with the headline "Going to see a play? Here’s how local theaters are trying to keep it affordable."