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THE high cost of culture is an important topic these days; steep ticket prices keep a broad swath of the nation away from visual art, classical music, historic architecture and, often, theater. I once spoke to playwright Donald Margulies (Sight Unseen, Dinner With Friends) about his parents – who I take to be lower middle-class Brooklyners in mid-century – attending theater all the time, back in the day; to them, plays were a “serious” kind of culture that was also affordable.
While today, Broadway tickets often cost hundreds of dollars, and even nonprofit theaters are jacking up prices, in part because the rough economy and meager public funds, and a decline in season subscribers mean that many theaters see little choice.
A New York Times story documents how far we’ve come in the last few decades since the days when a night at the theater was accessible. New York’s largest nonprofit theater, the Roundabout, is charging $162 for the best seats for its Cabaret revival.
Writes Patrick Healy:
Raising prices for the theatrical version of a rerun is brazen, even by the increasingly aggressive standards of New York’s nonprofit theaters, which — shielded from many of the financial pressures of Broadway — have been the incubators for such pathbreaking productions as “A Chorus Line,” “The Coast of Utopia” and “Spring Awakening.” Nonprofits are where new works with homegrown actors are produced, where challenging Pulitzer Prize-winning plays are introduced, and where, until recently, ticket prices were low.
The story offers a good summary on the state of nonprofit theater (especially in New York), and what some of nonprofits are doing to keep costs down.
My sense is that part of what’s taken theater costs so high — and this is true especially of Broadway shows — is pressure to match the special effects and sensory overload that have dominated film and popular culture in recent decades. Whether lots of electronics and hardware makes a play or show better is something we can debate, and it surely varies from production to production. But better or worse, the higher cost is surely passed along to the ticket-buyer.
My favorite story on this important subject was by culture critic Lee Siegel, who wrote during the Broadway run of Philip Seymour Hoffman-starring Death of a Salesman
Certainly few middle-class people, or at least anyone from any “middle class” that Loman would recognize, are among the audiences attending this production. What was once a middle-class entertainment has become a luxury item. Tickets for the original run, in 194
9, cost between $1.80 and $4.80; tickets for the 2012 run range from $111 to $840. After adjusting for inflation, that’s a 10-fold increase, well beyond the reach of today’s putative Willy Lomans.
Then again, in 1949, the top marginal tax rate was 82 percent. The drop in that rate to 28 percent by 1988 helped create a stratum of people who could afford to pay high prices for everything from inflated theater tickets to health care and college tuition.
Siegel’s story is about the plight of the middle class as well as the hike in price for culture; it deserves to be read in its entirety.
ALSO: George Packer’s long New Yorker story on Amazon has been read and argued over for a few days now – there is much of value in it, though his critique will be familiar to many.
Near the end of the piece, he includes a thought especially meaningful to me, as someone who’s written a book on the creative class and has endured numerous insults on how the “gatekeepers” – whether record-store clerks, editors at publishing houses, newspaper culture critics, and so on – are evil, parasitic, lazy, or “elitist.” Packer hits it just right here:
Bezos is right: gatekeepers are inherently élitist, and some of them have been weakened, in no small part, because of their complacency and short-term thinking. But gatekeepers are also barriers against the complete commercialization of ideas, allowing new talent the time to develop and learn to tell difficult truths.
The Times piece on non-profits’ ticket prices avoids a deeply disturbing issue: Non-profits of almost every stripe pay their CEOs exorbitantly. CEOs on non-profit hospitals, for instance, are paid about twice as much as those at for-profit hospitals. They defend it by comparing their salaries other CEOs of other non-profits. if you look at CEO pay for museum directors, directors of major ballets and operas, you’ll see where a lot of that ticket price is going.
The thing is, Milton, that in the United States, as we know, the CEOs of non-profits are expected to do a great deal of fundraising. Despite the presence on staff of a Director of Development, the CEO is fundraiser-in-chief as well as administrator-in-chief. Individuals with special talents in both those areas are rare birds, so organizations will pay a premium to secure their services.
(In continental Europe, the equivalent talent would be for handling politicians and bureaucrats.)
The expectation is that these well-paid executives will more than cover their salaries with the increased contributions they secure; if they don’t, the expectation goes, their organizations will run into financial trouble and they’ll lose their jobs. (There are unfortunate exceptions to that rule, of course; I’m sure we can all think of a few.)
Its unfortunate that those who responded to the NYTimes article took it at face value. While the facts are accurate, the story was one sided and didn’t address the question of what makes a theater not for profit. Many of us offer $25 tickets far in advance for purchase. If you look at Cabaret for example, 25 tickets were offered to those 35 and under and thousands were sold. Cabaret has not begun performances. The writers also don’t focus on the value to subscribers and members who all pay well below market price and yet receive the best seats in the house in direct contrast to the commercial theatre’s premium ticket practice. .Why shouldn’t a not for profit charge the same as their commercial counterparts for those people who only want to attend the high profile hits. They are not the audiences the not for profit is meant to support but rather those that can’t afford to attend theatre on a regular basis. That is our commitment in the not for profit. I would also add that the writers neglect to discuss the breadth of services that make for a not for profit theatre. It is not just about the work on stage but its about the service each of us in the not for profit provide to our community whether its discounted prices, development of young artists or arts education services in our public schools and much more. With limited if any government support, dramatic reduction in corporate support for arts organizations and yes drops in earned revenue alongside increased costs for producing, not for profit theatres need to find a way to balance their budgets. Charging market rate to single ticket buyers who have no loyalty to our organizations is one way to subsidize those subscribers, members and younger audiences who need and want to experience the breadth and depth of theatre that not for profit theatres across our country offer. And by the way, let’s also remember that if a production like a Chorus Line or a Cabaret are successful enough to actually make money for the institution, its goes back into the company to provide more services. For Roundabout in particular, Cabaret allowed us to create two small public schools in partnership with the NYC Department of Education back in 2003, schools in which we remain committed, It allowed us to buy Studio 54, a historic theatre that otherwise would have been lost to the theatre community. And it allowed us to create Roundabout Underground, a program designed to produce works by young writers. To date 70% of our commissioned have been produced and all tickets to these productions in our black box theatre are $20 for all.
Let’s be sure we are telling the entre story of our industry – the impact we have on the lives of those we touch, our commitment to reaching a wide and diverse audience through a variety of ticketing opportunities, and our commitment to our community through education programs and other engagement efforts. We certainly aren’t here for the high salaries all commentary to the contrary — we are here to encourage and support participation in this art form, If only opera, symphonies and ballet had commercial counterparts, maybe ticket pricing wouldn’t be such a story….and those of us in theater weren’t always put in the position of defending our ticket pricing strategies.
your comment is an eye opener; thank you for taking time to make this insider view available to the outside public interested in having access to affordable culture
Re Julia’s defense of Roundabout’s pricing: So obviously there are several major differences between an organization like Roundabout and a for-profit – say Broadway – production. In addition to all of the clearly subsidized benefits she cites that they provide, how about the simple fact that Roundabout exists as an ongoing effort.. They don’t open a single show, run it as long as possible, and then fold their tents, having either paid off their investors, or sent them a final, bad news /good news accounting.
At the end of the day, this model is much closer to that of a private university (most of which are also non-profit). Not only do the “paying customers” not cover the full cost of the freight, but there is a very wide range in how much various customers pay. Some pay the full Fifty-to-Sixty thousand dollar fare, some are given scholarships and other forms of aid for part of their tuition, and a few are given a completely free ride. No one seems to be questioning whether or not THEIR non-profit status is justified.
In fact, a few of these institutions are SO successful that some prominent publications have suggested, not that their status should be changed, but that they should offer ALL of their students a free education! That’s, of course, primarily because of the incredible size of their endowments – which, as the Times points out, is something the Roundabout is also focusing on. Good for them. The University model is the one we should be imitating in the performing arts. It has a long history of demonstrable success.
I think everyone should read Julia’s comment. The high ticket prices bother me, of course, but I don’t think it’s the fault of a single theater (or a greedy CEO). The problem is systemic, and it seems like Roundabout has done a lot of things right.
I’ve been reading the posts and articles on this topic. I’m a bit frustrated with the conversation – – what about the value of our productions (nonprofit theatre)? I haven’t seen commentary that focuses on the value of our work. After all in our consumer culture, the cost of a product is tied to the value of the piece (or the perceived value) and not whether the producer is commercial or nonprofit. Whether intended or not, the underlying message of these posts suggests that our productions are of lesser value than commercial productions and so should have lower ticket prices.
For what it’s worth: I’m sympathetic to Amanda Nelson’s comment. Often in this blog, and in my other writing, I emphasize that artistic value can’t be reduced to a number, and that culture fits only imperfectly into consumerism or a neoliberal framework. The reason I and others care about the issues of theater tickets is that we think the art form is important, and that a wide range of people should be able to experience it.
Is nonprofit theater less important, less sophisticated, less fully realized that the for-profit equivalent. That notion has surely never crossed my mind. But I posted the New York Times story because I found the price inflation jarring.
As I’ve said earlier, I don’t blame the Roundabout, which has a substantial deficit it needs to remedy, but a larger system. Culture Crash hopes they and other nonprofit venues thrive!
Neither the actor nor the audience cares about the tax status of the theater; it’s the experience and the availability of that experience (ticket price and other costs) that matter. The Times seemed shocked that nonprofits will go to great lengths to get revenue, but of course they do what they have to to survive. Once you’ve decided that your organization is a nonprofit, the opportunity — some might say responsibility — to offer the product at a reasonable price ought to go with the territory. In smaller places with less resources, the ticket price equals whatever the nonprofit can get to make ends meet. But in a richer environment, shouldn’t theaters and operas and orchestras see it as a key component of mission to keep prices down to a reasonable level? It’s easier said than done, of course, but raising more money to fill the income gap seems far more preferable to me — and more sustainable in the long run — than raising ticket prices to the point where only an elite, often aged audience can afford to attend.