The Slow Death of the Season Subscription

TCG's annual "Theatre Facts" survey has some sobering news for subscription-based theatre companies. As Chris Jones reports:

According to Theatre Facts 2010, the annual research snapshot released by the TCG lobbying and support organization, subscription income is dropping at American theaters at an alarming rate. Between 2006 and 2010, the report (released Monday) says, national subscription income dropped by an eye-catching 15.1%. Some 14% fewer subscripion tickets were sold and the closely watched subscriber base dropped by 15%.

Are you really surprised, though?  Do you subscribe to anyone's season? When you look at the offerings for your local regional, or even the NYC nonprofits, do you see any justification to fork over upwards of $200 up front for a ticket  to four or five shows you're not sure about? (More likely, one or two you're interested in and the rest... eh.)

Yes, your parents and grandparents in the suburbs might still like planning their social calendar and commuting plans around a monthly theatre visit. But the rest of us might prefer to, oh, I don't know, buy tickets only when we want to see something?

Hence:

Interestingly, single-ticket income rose modestly during each of the years in the study. And between 2006 and 2010, the number of single-ticket buyers rose by 3%. 

So think it over, Managing Directors of America. Yes, you're spoiled by years of up-front financing from those subscription renewals.  But how can you retool the business model for the 21st century?

Spidey Gets the Last Laugh?

And they said it wouldn't last...

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark celebrates a...um, bittersweet anniversary of that disastrous first preview, exactly one year ago today.  And after all the upheavals, openings and re-openings, firings and hirings, here they are still running, and raking in an impressive $2 million gross for Thanksgiving week.

This hardly makes it profitable yet. The question for Spidey has always been can they run the many years necessary to recoup that $70 million investment?  Not anytime soon, but the producers are hitting the circuit this week, talking the show up and doubling down.

Weekly running costs alone for “Spider-Man” total $1 million or more, by far the highest amount on Broadway, while its net income has ranged recently from $100,000 to $300,000 a week. At that rate the show would need to play on Broadway at least five more years — and possibly quite a bit longer — to pay off debts, a run very few shows achieve. In other words, it would need to turn into a hit on par with “Wicked” or “The Lion King” (the latter directed by Ms. Taymor), which after lengthy runs still regularly sit atop the weekly Broadway box office charts.

[...]
 

[The producers'] bullish outlook derives from the show’s robust weekly box office sales since early summer, and what the producers say is $12 million in advance ticket sales driven by tour and school groups, and visitors from outside the New York region. (Those visitors from farther afield account for about half its audience.) Mr. Cohl said the musical has had advance ticket sales of about $1.6 million a week on average this month, a sizable amount. Those advance sales numbers could not be independently confirmed; they would be less than those for hit shows like “Wicked,” “Lion King,” and “The Book of Mormon,” but still enough to demonstrate staying power.

Mr. Cohl said he was also emboldened by surveys of those attending “Spider-Man” that indicate half its audience were people attending their first Broadway show.

True, I guess an audience that wants a themepark experience doesn't care about whatever dramaturgical flaws Spider-Man may display. But is it even satisfying themepark material?

Still, hats off to the sheer determination to keep the show running this long. But, then again, anything's possible when you've got money to burn and lots and lots of patience.

Last Word on Shakespeare Conspiracy Theories?

"[H]ow could a man who had only a grammar-school education and spoke Latin and a little Greek possibly have written something as bad as All’s Well That Ends Well?"

-Eric Idle, satirically sticking it to the "Oxfordians" in a recent New Yorker.

He continues: "Queen Elizabeth, who was obviously a man, conspired to have Shakespeare named as the author of his plays....It was obviously an upper-class twit who wished to disguise his identity so that Vanessa Redgrave could get a job in her old age."

Wooster Group & Royal Shakespare Company Tag-Team "Troilus"

These seeming transatlantic opposites are collaborating on what promises to be the weirdest Troilus yet:

The Wooster Group is teaming up with the Royal Shakespeare Company on a production of Troilus & Cressida, Shakespeare's tale of the Trojan War, to premiere at the London 2012 Festival during the Olympics.

We know it sounds nuts, but the RSC and their associate director Rupert Goold approached us about this unlikely collaboration. We found it irresistible....

The gameplan is this: The RSC will play the Greeks. The Wooster Group will play the Trojans. And just as the play is structures as a series of alternating scenes between the two camps, our rehearsals will be similarly divided. The Wooster Group will build the Trojan world at the Performing Garage and the RSC will build the Greek wold in the UK. We will meet for five weeks of rehearsal together before the opening in Stratford-upon-Avon in August 2012, followed by performances in London and New York.

From the Group's own fundraising appeal. (Their NYC rehearsals won't be funded by RSC, so they're asking for donations here.)

Unfair to judge from early, early rehearsals, but here's a glimpse of their process:


TROILUS & CRESSIDA - movement rehearsal [07.12.11] from The Wooster Group on Vimeo.

"ITunes for Plays"?

That's what Indie Theatre web publisher/impresario Martin Denton calls his new brainchild, Indie Theater Now, a deluxe online "bookstore" for the latest in scrappy scripts.

How does it work?

It is a dynamic, constantly expanding digital library of plays by indie playwrights whose work meets the criteria of our publication program. (Learn about our curating process here.) For a very small price, plays may be purchased for reading only (i.e., plays may not be printed nor copied to reader’s computer). Revenue is shared with the participating playwrights.

I'm very curious about the potential success of this. One key question is: will companies/producers outside of NYC actually come to this site looking for plays and playwrights they don't know?

More Adam & Ish

Such buzz did Charles Isherwood's online surrender to Adam Rapp create that Riedel had him on Theatre Talk this past weekend to explain.

By the way: Isherwood's piece only ran on the Times website as a "blog" post. (I consider "institutional blog" a total oxymoron.) It never ran in print. A small milestone, perhaps, for the medium of theatre blogging in the mainstream media?

Oh, and do check out this site that he mentions.

Review: "Pangs of the Messiah"

Straight outta Israel! "Pangs of the Messiah" is a play Motti Lerner wrote about the Jewish West Bank settlements...back in the 80s, believe it or not.  He's now revised/updated it and Edward Einhorn's Untitled Theatre Company #61 is giving it a long overdue NYC premiere. My review in Time Out (online only) is, alas, not a thumbs-up. But if you follow such issues, this is a play (and writer) you should know about.

Mamet's "Breakdown"?

"What I think that has happened to Mr. Mamet is that he is an artist and a contrarian, and I think that somehow, living under the shade of the Southern California palm tree engendered a kind of contempt in him for himself. And a decompensation occurred, which resulted in his putting on the suit of The Conservative. He’s always despised hypocrisy, and I think he’s in a kind of war with the hypocrisy within his community and within himself. Look, it’s not unlike when Bob Dylan became a born-again Christian. It’s the trajectory of someone searching for truth. The fact that his ideas at the moment are riddled with contempt and that he’s in bed with people who would quite happily see him dead is just another iteration of believing that you have answers when there aren’t any, really. I’m not really interested in David as an ideologue. I’m interested in his poetry as a playwright and his sense of humor. That’s the real Mamet to me. The real Mamet is an actor who became a writer and had a real sense of the criminal and the sleight of hand in American life. I think that sometimes writers feel sort of small, and he’s always suffered from a preponderance of testosterone. And I think being a liberal or a progressive can make a particular kind of Chicago guy, which David is, feel kind of small. So I think that he’s just in the middle of a breakdown."

-Jon Robin Baitz, asked about fellow playwright David Mamet's political, um, reawakening?

He goes on to call him "possessed by the devil," too--but you should probably check the context of that.

The Devil's next play--about a Weathermen-esque unrepentant 60s radical--does indeed to seem to promise more of the same. And yet, would I pay to see Patti LuPone and Laurie Metcalf go at each other in Mamet-speak? Fuckin'-Ruthie yeah!

Review: Dancing at Lughnasa

My Time Out review of the Irish Rep's Dancing at Lughnasa is now available as an exclusive online bonus feature!

Ok, exclusive to anyone with a computer...

Some Pinter

Three years after the man's death, they're still finding new stuff by Harold Pinter. Well, old stuff, really, but previously unpublished. The Guardian last week reprinted a 1960 comedy sketch, "Umbrellas," with intro and commentary by critic/Pinter-man, Michael Billington.

So, without further ado...

Umbrellas
Two gentlemen in deckchairs on the terrace of a large hotel. Wearing shorts and sunglasses. Sunbathing. They do not move throughout the exchange
A: The weather's too much for me today.
PAUSE
B: Well, you're damn lucky you've got your umbrella.
A: I'm never without it, old boy.
PAUSE
B: I think I'd do well to follow your example.
A: Yes, you would. Means the world to me. I never find myself at a loss. You understand what I mean?
B: You're a shrewd fellow, I'll say that for you.
PAUSE
A: My house is full of umbrellas.
B: You can't have too many.
A: You've never said a truer word, old boy.
PAUSE
B: I haven't got one to bless myself with.
PAUSE
A: Well, I can forsee [sic] a time you'll regret it.
B: I think the time's come, old boy.
A: You can't be too careful, old boy.
PAUSE
B: Well, you've got your feet firmly planted on the earth, there's no doubt about that.
PAUSE
A: I certainly feel secure, old boy.
B: Yes, you know where you stand, all right. You can't take that away from you.
PAUSE
A: You'll find they're a true friend to you, umbrellas.
PAUSE
B: Maybe I'll buy one.
PAUSE
A: Don't come to me. It would be like tearing my heart out, to part with any of mine.
PAUSE
B: You find them handy, eh?
PAUSE
A: Yes ... Oh, yes. When it's raining, particularly.
Blackout
© The estate of Harold Pinter 2011

Love that suddenly sentimental "tearing my heart out"--pure Pinter.

Okay, maybe not why he won the Nobel. But, beats SNL at least.

Who's Writing the Reviews?

David Cote offers a primer on who the big critics are--all around the country.

Marat/Sade: Still Alienating After All These Years

The Royal Shakespeare Company is having something of a succès de scandale with playwright/director Anthony ("in yer face") Nielson's new modern-dress production of Marat/Sade at their spiffy new Stratford digs:

At one preview show, 80 theatregoers left the show at the interval....A review in the Financial Times called it "comprehensively perverse", adding that it constantly challenges "both dramatic conventions and audience composure". Some of the more shocking scenes include a gang rape and a character being tortured with a Taser.

RSC's response to the walkouts: simply to advertise that the play "is not suitable for younger audiences. Recommended minimum age 16 +."

Nice to see a company stand behind a director, even if it means those many tourist families in Stratford can't bring the kiddies.

I haven't seen it, of course, so maybe it's brilliant, maybe it's crap. But there's something to be said for reminding audiences why an old play was once shocking.

More production photos here.

Broadway Ghosts

One of my favorite Sunday Times features is actually in the Real Estate section.  No, not listings. It's Christopher Gray's "Streetscapes" column, a kind of weekly excavation of old buildings, gone buildings, and other curiosities of NYC history.

This photo, a column earlier this month, is especially approppros in light of the splendid new revival of Sondheim's Follies. The image above is of the half-demolished Helen Hayes Theater (not the current Helen Hayes Theater) in 1982. The Hayes (on 46th between Broadway and 8th Avenue) and an adjoining house, the Morosco, were leveled that year, but not without a spirited fight from the New York theatre community, who came out in large protests.

(The occasion for Gray's column, by the way, was a recent auction of surviving slabs and other detritus from the Hayes demolition.)

Follies, you may recall, is set in an old Broadway theatre about to be demolished, haunted by the ghosts of Ziegfelds past. In fact, legend has it the inspiration for that 1971 show came from a Life magazine photo of aging star Gloria Swanson  in the wreckage of the then-recently demolished Roxy Theatre (see below).

And where is the current revival of Follies playing? At the Marquis Theatre. Part of the Marriott Marquis hotel--the very building the Hayes and Morosco were torn down to make way for.

Ghosts, indeed....

Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Oxfordians

I'm pleased naturally with the multiplicity of comments on my last post on the anti-Shakespeare movie, Anonymous.  And I can't help notice that those who--for some reason, in this day and age--have sworn to defend the good name of Edward DeVere, 17th Earl of Oxford, have been doing their Googling and ended up at my site to spread their propaganda and say bad things about debunker-debunker James Shapiro wherever they can.

Welcome to my blog, folks! Nice to meet you.

Just glancing at your comments, though, I see the same old lazy debating points that have never convinced me before and still don't. So I'm inviting you to step up your game and really show me why I should take your arguments seriously. You probably don't think I have an open mind, but one thing I do respect is evidence. So while I have always been perfectly satisfied that the plays of William Shakespeare were written by the guy who everyone in his own time said wrote them (namely, one William Shakespeare)... I'd like to think I'm objective enough as a scholar and theatre historian to at least evaluate your evidence fairly.

So here is my challenge to you, Oxfordians: show us what you got.  Tell us what you think is the ONE most decisive piece of evidence that Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford wrote these plays. Not that he could have. But that he absolutely did and is the only person who could have.

Notice: I did not say tell us why you think William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon didn't write what's credited to him. Because even if you somehow could prove that negative, that doesn't mean De Vere did write them, does it? So you must argue in the affirmative, not the negative.

Some take your best shot, conspiracy theorists. I'll take on each comment point by point and promise to grant credence to anything I find actually credible. And if it's not credible to me, I'll tell you exactly why in rational argument. Not just because I'm some stupid Bard-idolator, ok?

Shakespeare Conspiracy Action Flick Hits the Screens...and the Schools

The Shakespeare-denying swashbuckler Anonymous, certainly Hollywood's oddest premise for an action flick in ages, is about to open wide and thankfully some scholars are getting out there to stop the bullshit.

James Shapiro continues his crusade against such pseudo-academic misinformation in yesterday's Times, drawing attention to the potential wide reach of the film's message beyond the cinema:

Roland Emmerich's film “Anonymous,” which opens next week, “presents a compelling portrait of Edward de Vere as the true author of Shakespeare’s plays.” That’s according to the lesson plans that Sony Pictures has been distributing to literature and history teachers in the hope of convincing students that Shakespeare was a fraud. A documentary by First Folio Pictures (of which Mr. Emmerich is president) will also be part of this campaign.  So much for “Hey, it’s just a movie!” 

Daily Beast's Chris Lee has more:

The studio (Sony) plans to concurrently release Last Will. & Testament, a documentary about the authorship debate, through First Folio Pictures (a production shingle whose president is none other than Roland Emmerich) and has been providing materials to educators that encourage teachers to “make this thought-provoking new film part of your class plan.” 

Yes, and make your class part of our subsidiary box office profits!

A corporate spokesman for Sony responded to a request for information about the scope of its marketing push into schools with a statement: “The objective for our Anonymous program, as stated in the classroom literature, is ‘to encourage critical thinking by challenging students to examine the theories about the authorship of Shakespeare’s works and to formulate their own opinions.’ The study guide does not state that Edward de Vere is the writer of Shakespeare’s work, but it does pose the authorship question which has been debated by [wackjobs] [armchair historians] scholars for decades."

In other words..."teach the controversy."

Remember this next time you hear about "privatizing" education.

Last word goes to Prof. Simon Schama:

None of [the controversy] would matter very much were there not something repellent at the heart of the theory, and that something is the toad, snobbery—the engine that drives the Oxfordian case against the son of the Stratford glover John Shakespeare. John was indeed illiterate. But his son was not, as we know incontrovertibly from no fewer than six surviving signatures in Shakespeare’s own flowing hand, the first from 1612, when he was giving evidence in a domestic lawsuit.

The Earl of Oxford was learned and, by reports, witty. But publicity -materials for Anonymous say that Shakespeare by comparison went to a mere "village school" and so could hardly have compared with the cultural richness imbibed by Oxford. The hell he couldn’t! Stratford was no "village," and the "grammar school," which means elementary education in America, was in fact a cradle of serious classical learning in Elizabethan England. By the time he was 13 or so, Shakespeare would have read (in Latin) works by Terence, Plautus, Virgil, Erasmus, Cicero, and probably Plutarch and Livy too. One of the great stories of the age was what such schooling did for boys of humble birth.

Yes, it's called Renaissance Humanism. Look it up.

Just to be clear, I am not very disturbed that some Hollywood schlockmeisters want to attempt some highbrow genre picture. Movies spread all kinds of nutty theories (from JFK to The DaVinci Code) and we've survived.  But I'm with Shapiro on the schools thing. Again, not that I blame Sony for trying. But beware if desperate and/or gullible teachers or principals take them up on their revisionist product placement scheme.

Capturing a Performance

 Frank Langella in the Roundabout's Man and Boy

photo: Sara Krulwich, NY Times

Another Krulwich gem.


The perfect caption for this might actually be this from Michael Feingold's review in the Village Voice:

The particular pleasure of [Langella's] performances comes from the precision with which he applies his old-stager's technique to the specifics of his role. A showy actor by instinct, he has the discipline to hold his innate flamboyance in check until the character has some justification for behaving flamboyantly. The fun of watching him leap for these glittery tidbits—a silent seizure of gleeful triumph here, a sudden upsurge of fury there—is balanced by the elegant way he weaves them into the overall texture, binding them together with a smiling, soft-spoken charm.

The Nano Play?

So who ruled that all plays must be 2 to 3 hours, anyway?

As cultural consumption increasingly focuses on smaller and smaller forms of entertainment--IPod-able songs, YouTube vids, E-reader short stories--is it time to exploit theatre's own longstanding short-form traditions?

The Guardian's Alexandra Coghlan makes a worthy opening move in such an argument, reminding us that the one-act has a great history in the modern theatre--from Chekhov to Beckett, from Tennessee Williams to Sarah Kane. The main problem such works have had in getting performed (outside of school directing class exercises) is chiefly financial--how do you charge full price for less than a "full" evening's out. Or at least 90 minutes.

But isn't it funny that such arbitrary--and now arguably outmoded--measures of leisure time have determined what is "acceptable" dramatic form.  Sure, we are seeing theatres challenging this more and more lately, as contemporary playwrights appear to be gravitating to the shorter forms. But you know they must hear from their subscribers when they bring them all the way downtown for just 75 minutes of theatre?

So here's a thought: some clever company must come up with a new way to market the one-act. Not as the usual "omnibus" evening of two or three long ones that still satisfy the 90-minute/2-hour threshold (a la Broadway's Relatively Speaking. But something more like a cabaret, maybe even allowing for staggered audience coming-and-going, where folks can pay a cover, sit, have a drink, and watch a few scenes, hear some music, maybe some some stand-up. Maybe they stay for their 2-3 hours' worth. Or maybe just 45 minutes?

I mean, we've got to do something with all those things playwrights write for those 10-Minute Play contests!

Is Arts Funding Going to Those Who Need It?

A philanthropy watchdog group reports that "billions of dollars in arts funding is serving a mostly wealthy, white audience that is shrinking while only a small chunk of money goes to emerging art groups that serve poorer communities that are more ethnically diverse."

What else is new, I know. Still, the numbers are instructive:

According to the study, the largest arts organizations with budgets exceeding $5 million represent only 2 percent of the nonprofit arts and culture sector. Yet those groups received 55 percent of foundation funding for the arts in 2009. Only 10 percent of arts funding was explicitly meant to benefit underserved populations. 

Or to put it another way:

"It is a problem because it means that – in the arts – philanthropy is using its tax-exempt status primarily to benefit wealthier, more privileged institutions and populations," wrote the report's author, Holly Sidford.

The philanthropy class looking after their own kind, maybe?

This brings up an eternal debate in such levels of funding: Do we fund simply our perceptions of "the best" art? (aka, the Rocco Thesis?) Do we prioritize the art that serves the most people--or the small pockets of forgotten and underserved communities? Is arts funding primarily for entertaining audiences or for engaging (and employing) artists?

I'm a bit torn because in a European "State Theatre" model, of course the priority is to build up formidable institutions producing the finest work at the highest level. But does the vast size and diversity of our nation merit a different approach?

Another quandary is raised by the different roles played by public and private funding. In the article, Kennedy Center boss Michael Kaiser says, "The biggest issue for arts organizations of color is that they have been overly reliant on foundation and government funding," and that they "really need more individual donors, not just foundation donors."

But hold on a sec, Mike: Isn't what you're really saying is that it's a lot easier for Kennedy Center to rope in those big private donors and foundations (because they're your friends and neighbors) than it is for, say, El Museo del Barrio? In that case--one may well ask--why is Kennedy Center getting any of that scarce government funding at all? Why don't you guys rely on the rich people and the rest will get the public funds--making it truly "public" funding after all.

Or to put it another way... Maybe you shouldn't take public money if the public can't afford to come to your offerings. (I mean, what's the Roundabout and MTC doing charging $100 Broadway prices, right?)

Adam and Ish

Times critic Charles Isherwood today finally addresses the long obvious, barely under the surface tension between him and playwright Adam Rapp, whose work he has consistently, um...disliked. And so he is now taking the seemingly unprecedented step of offering to recuse himself from any future Rapp reviews.

Contrary to popular myth, drama critics don’t salivate at the chance to savage a playwright’s work. It’s still less appealing to continue doing so, year in and year out. Who wants to be cast as the playground bully who won’t leave the poor kid alone? I have passed on reviewing a couple of Mr. Rapp’s plays during my tenure at the Times. Caryn James called “American Sligo” “keenly observed and wonderfully acted and directed (by the playwright).” His new play, like many of his works, provoked wildly diverse responses from critics, ranging from unqualified enthusiasm to unbridled dismay (mine).

But aside from that hope-springing-eternal thing, I have felt I should keep reviewing Mr. Rapp’s work because he is produced at some of New York’s most prestigious not-for-profit Off Broadway companies, and often attracts significant acting talent....

For similar reasons, however, one could argue – and one is! — that perhaps it’s time to allow Mr. Rapp’s writing to be assessed by a critic who responds more naturally or sympathetically to his aesthetic. Criticism is, after all, a subjective form of writing. There is no right answer. And since the artistic staff at some of the city’s major theaters – and a deep roster of acting talent – obviously appreciates something in Mr. Rapp’s writing that I continually do not, perhaps it would be in everyone’s best interests to let another writer weigh in on Mr. Rapp’s future work. The Times is fortunate enough to have a pretty deep roster of critics.

Obviously a critic would not want to recuse him or herself from writing about any and all artists whose work he or she doesn’t care for.....But Mr. Rapp’s stupendously fertile output – and the by-now obvious discordance between our ideas of what constitutes a compelling work of theater – make him a singular case. 

I well remember Isherwood's review of Rapp's big "uptown" debut at Playwrights Horizons in 2007 (Essential Self Defense) which sharply exposed the uptown/downtown fissure in the New York theatre community. Specifically I'm thinking of the line where Ish mocked the playwright and his style as more befitting "funky bars in Williamsburg, Brooklyn." (Yes, NYT had to make sure readers did not think "Mr. Rapp" was some tricorner-hatted denizen of Colonial Williamsburg.) Although I didn't see the play myself, I sensed even then that Isherwood was simply on the wrong "beat" as a critic. And that unless the paper wants to deliberately send to downtown plays a representative of the New York Times class, as a kind of ambassador or travel-writer to pass on recommendations to readers about "native" theatrical fare, they might indeed provide a greater service by sending someone who is at least....well, more hip to the jive. Someone who can translate the natives' language, as it were.

Anyway, kidding aside, I actually find Isherwood's honesty refreshing and admirable for a critic and think he's essentially right. Although, ideally, he wouldn't have to step down from the Rapp beat if the Times had a more interesting approach to reviewing, like having multiple critics weigh in on the same show. But barring that, they should take him up on his offer. I mean, after all, it's not like they have the classical music critic review Beyoncé.

(PS. Nice NYT shoutout above to Stagegrade!)

Billy Elliot and the Changing Broadway Economics

"When you’re grossing $700,000 a week, which is not bad, and losing money, there is a problem.”

 

-Billy Elliot lead producer Eric Fellner on why he's decided to quit while he's ahead and close the show in January.

Riedel also adds for the record that in spite of its weekly operating costs of $800K the show did recoup its $18 million capital investment in its first 14 months, and will end up with about $6 mil in the black. So I guess in this economy a 30% return on anything is cause for celebration.

Billy is a pretty big production to mount, granted. (Large cast, complicated set.) But note that the box office "break-even" threshold is approaching $1 million a week.