Daveed Diggs, Okieriete Onaodowan, Anthony Ramos and Lin-Manuel Miranda in Hamilton (Photo by Joan Marcus)

When it comes right down to it, the question isn’t whether people will pay outrageous sums of money to see Hamilton. It is who will benefit most from these stratospheric prices.

To be sure, ‘Hamilton’s top ticket increases to $849‘ is an eye opener of a headline, but considering ongoing accounts of people paying upwards of $1,000 per ticket on the secondary market, what such headlines were really taking note of was that the show itself would now be getting more of that revenue, instead of outlets like StubHub and Ticketmaster’s own resale service. With every commercial production having a fiduciary responsibility to its investors, it became almost untenable for the show’s producers to allow that much money to go to other parties, bypassing not only investors but the creators of the show as well.

The producers had previously conducted a repatriation of tickets that appeared to have been sold to scalpers in bulk via automated bots (which I’ve written about before, as has Hamilton writer Lin-Manuel Miranda). The show’s producers say they have now put in place measures to stymie such automated sales going forward, limiting purchases not only by customer but by IP address (which limits sales to individual computers or networks). But whenever there’s a valuable commodity that is scarce and undervalued, and Hamilton tickets have been both, there will be profiteers. Even these measures aren’t going to shut down the resale market. Perhaps it will at least put a dent in Hamilton’s, by reducing the aftermarket profits available.

Reportedly only 200 tickets will be sold at $849 per performance, and when I last went online to buy Hamilton seats a few weeks ago, I was already seeing original sale tickets at over $500. But no matter what, this is still a leap. To counter the inevitably outcry, the producers also expanded the daily online ticket lottery, making 46 tickets per performance available at $10 each, for those able to attend with little notice and the luck of the draw. Also noted was the show’s arrangement with the New York City Department of Education, whereby some 20,000 tickets were made available to schools at about $10 each, with the Rockefeller Foundation underwriting another $70 per ticket, still less than half the original asking price.

But as it has come to symbolise new musical and dramatic styles, as well as an embrace of diverse artists, Hamilton has also sadly come to represent the growing inaccessibility of Broadway, and indeed a great deal of professional theatre, from the widest possible audience. Even recognising the basic economic imperatives of supply and demand at play with Hamilton, it’s unfortunate that theatre has a new round of headlines that reinforce the idea of theatrical elitism and an economic divide, at the very time when so much of the field is waking up to the need for equity, diversity and inclusion on the stage and in the audience. Despite the move’s inevitability, it remains an unfortunate new price precedent. As someone who clearly recalls the outcry when The Producers introduced VIP pricing just 15 years ago, I’m quite sure it won’t be one that stands forever.

The expanded lottery and discounted school tickets notwithstanding, the Hamilton producers didn’t help matters when they made seats from the next block of tickets (January to May) available for exclusive sale for five days to holders of the very top tier American Express cards, fostering an elitism that contradicts the spirit of the show. As for why the tickets then go on sale to everyone this Sunday at 8pm, precisely when die-hard theatregoers begin watching The Tony Awards, it’s simply a mystery.

If the primary motivation behind the new record-setting ticket price for Hamilton was to depress the secondary sale market and undermine scalpers – less than a decade after Broadway industry leaders supported an end to caps on resale markups, helping pave the way to the current scenario – here’s a thought. Maybe some portion of the new revenue (which is at least $60,000 per performance, by my estimate) could fund a new Hamilton Foundation, literally enabling the show to fund its own outreach to communities which could otherwise not attend, perhaps even extending that largesse to other shows without the same means to underwrite discounted tickets. Then the Rockefeller Foundation could support yet other good works, rather than funnelling money to a commercial theatre production, however worthy it may be as art and education and however much it is discounted.

Hamilton was in a no-win situation, and perhaps with time they’ll figure out some new initiatives to balance out the impact of their new pricing structure. But as was the case with Book of Mormon, Jersey Boys and The Lion King, to name just a few, additional productions and time will slowly make it possible for more people to end up in one of the many rooms where Hamilton will be happening, without spending a month’s rent or mortgage payment for the privilege.

Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane in The Producers (Photo by Joan Marcus)

Let’s get the story straight. When Tappan Zee High School’s production of Mel Brooks’s The Producers was performed this weekend, there were swastikas on stage. This shouldn’t be any surprise to those who know the musical, the story of two producers who set out to make a mint by foisting a musical called Springtime for Hitler on Broadway audiences. With a song-and-dance Hitler – embodied at times by two different actors – and a chorus line of male and female stormtroopers in the show’s big number, Brooks’s play-within-a-play travesty of Nazi Germany during the Third Reich pretty much makes the swastika de rigeur, though not absolutely essential.

Garrett Shin, left, Greg DeCola and Jarrett Winters Morley in “The Producers” at Tappan Zee High (photo by Peter Kramer)

If you followed the headlines of Peter Kramer’s original story for LoHud.com or the followup from CBS2 News, you’d be sure that the swastika had been eradicated at Tappan Zee, in response to complaints from, reportedly, four parents after seeing rehearsal photos online. “Tappan Zee parents: Pull swastikas from ‘Producers’,” was the banner across Kramer’s story. “High School Removes Swastikas From Production Of ‘The Producers’ Following Controversy,” declared CBS. In fact, two banners featuring swastikas were removed from the production. Kramer has now reported that the symbols remained on display on costume armbands when called for.

So what’s really at issue here, since it’s not meant to be a sweeping defense of the swastika, a widely-known symbol of the Third Reich, or a celebration of its tenacity in high school theatre? The issue is, once again, the seeming willingness of a school administration to alter a theatrical production at the smallest hint of controversy, rendered in sharpest relief because it ended up pertaining only to oversized uses of an “offensive” symbol, which means the decision was not merely arbitrary, but inconsistent. It certainly contradicts the sweeping statement by School Superintendent Bob Pritchard, who told WCBS reporter Tony Aiello, “There is no context in a public high school where a swastika is appropriate.”

Um, history books? Productions of Cabaret or The Sound of Music? Saving Private Ryan?

Per WCBS: “The optic, the visual, to me was very disturbing. I considered it to be an obscenity like any obscenity,” Pritchard said.”

The swastika itself is not necessarily an obscenity. It is the symbol of obscenities, the Third Reich and the war and the Holocaust. Scrawled on a house of worship, or a cemetery? Yes, I would agree that that is an act of desecration, an obscenity. But in the hands of Mel Brooks, it is also a target to be seen and disdained, to be ridiculed, to be laid low.

Jose Ferrer and Mel Brooks in “To Be Or Not To Be” (1983)

Like a great deal in our lives, and in our arts, that want to do something more than simply blindly entertain or pacify, context is essential. At Tappan Zee High, rehearsal photos showing swastika banners were shorn of context, and for people who may not know The Producers, some dismay is understandable. But the job for the school then (and really, before such a thing even happened) was to put the production in context – for the students in the show, the other students at the school, for parents and for the community. As brassy and broad as the musical The Producers may be (the original movie was more obviously subversive and dark), it remains consistent with Brooks’s oft-stated desire to use the power at his command – humor – to take down the greatest horror of his life time. Let’s not forget that’s coming from a Jewish American who fought in World War II.

Charlie Chapin in “The Great Dictator”

There’s so much that could have been taught at Tappan Zee High over this incident, about World War II and the Holocaust, about the post-war rise of Jewish comedians (in the Borscht Belt not so very far from the school itself), of the role of satire in political and social commentary. That we eliminate and simply ignore the things we do not care for is at least contrary to what students should be learning from this experience, if not downright ironic.

Donald Duck in “Der Fuehrer’s Face”

There is a litany of humorous and satirical responses to Hitler and World War II; The Producers is simply part of a tradition that stretches back to Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be Or Not To Be (which Brooks later remade) and the Donald Duck carton Der Fuehrer’s Face. Even Germany, where the swastika remains outlawed for political use, permits it for historical works (though the German debut of The Producers substituted pretzels for the symbol), such as in the film Downfall. Hitler was even the star of a popular German satirical film, Look Who’s Back.

Swastikas make sense in The Producers, but the show can survive without them. I hope the students at Tappan Zee High had a great success this past weekend. What does not make sense is when a few people voice complaints and the immediate reaction is to heed their call without allowing opposing views a fully equal opportunity to make their case, when the public relations optics trump an educational opportunity, and when things are torn down in response a a vocal minority. What does not survive is productive and indeed educational dialogue around a terrible time in world history, how it led to the very show they were performing, and why exactly “Springtime for Hitler” is a comic and cultural touchstone in its own right, precisely because of the horror behind the swastika.

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School College of Performing Arts. This post originally appeared at artsintegrity.org.

Let’s get the story straight. When Tappan Zee High School’s production of Mel Brooks’s The Producers was performed this weekend, there were swastikas on stage. This shouldn’t be any surprise to those who know the musical, the story of two producers who set out to make a mint by foisting a musical called Springtime for Hitler on Broadway audiences. With a song-and-dance Hitler – embodied at times by two different actors – and a chorus line of male and female stormtroopers in the show’s big number, Brooks’s play-within-a-play travesty of Nazi Germany during the Third Reich pretty much makes the swastika de rigeur, though not absolutely essential.

Garrett Shin, left, Greg DeCola and Jarrett Winters Morley in “The Producers” at Tappan Zee High (photo by Peter Kramer)

If you followed the headlines of Peter Kramer’s original story for LoHud.com or the followup from CBS2 News, you’d be sure that the swastika had been eradicated at Tappan Zee, in response to complaints from, reportedly, four parents after seeing rehearsal photos online. “Tappan Zee parents: Pull swastikas from ‘Producers’,” was the banner across Kramer’s story. “High School Removes Swastikas From Production Of ‘The Producers’ Following Controversy,” declared CBS. In fact, two banners featuring swastikas were removed from the production. Kramer has now reported that the symbols remained on display on costume armbands when called for.

So what’s really at issue here, since it’s not meant to be a sweeping defense of the swastika, a widely-known symbol of the Third Reich, or a celebration of its tenacity in high school theatre? The issue is, once again, the seeming willingness of a school administration to alter a theatrical production at the smallest hint of controversy, rendered in sharpest relief because it ended up pertaining only to oversized uses of an “offensive” symbol, which means the decision was not merely arbitrary, but inconsistent. It certainly contradicts the sweeping statement by School Superintendent Bob Pritchard, who told WCBS reporter Tony Aiello, “There is no context in a public high school where a swastika is appropriate.”

Um, history books? Productions of Cabaret or The Sound of Music? Saving Private Ryan?

Per WCBS: “The optic, the visual, to me was very disturbing. I considered it to be an obscenity like any obscenity,” Pritchard said.”

The swastika itself is not necessarily an obscenity. It is the symbol of obscenities, the Third Reich and the war and the Holocaust. Scrawled on a house of worship, or a cemetery? Yes, I would agree that that is an act of desecration, an obscenity. But in the hands of Mel Brooks, it is also a target to be seen and disdained, to be ridiculed, to be laid low.

Jose Ferrer and Mel Brooks in “To Be Or Not To Be” (1983)

Like a great deal in our lives, and in our arts, that want to do something more than simply blindly entertain or pacify, context is essential. At Tappan Zee High, rehearsal photos showing swastika banners were shorn of context, and for people who may not know The Producers, some dismay is understandable. But the job for the school then (and really, before such a thing even happened) was to put the production in context – for the students in the show, the other students at the school, for parents and for the community. As brassy and broad as the musical The Producers may be (the original movie was more obviously subversive and dark), it remains consistent with Brooks’s oft-stated desire to use the power at his command – humor – to take down the greatest horror of his life time. Let’s not forget that’s coming from a Jewish American who fought in World War II.

Charlie Chapin in “The Great Dictator”

There’s so much that could have been taught at Tappan Zee High over this incident, about World War II and the Holocaust, about the post-war rise of Jewish comedians (in the Borscht Belt not so very far from the school itself), of the role of satire in political and social commentary. That we eliminate and simply ignore the things we do not care for is at least contrary to what students should be learning from this experience, if not downright ironic.

Donald Duck in “Der Fuehrer’s Face”

There is a litany of humorous and satirical responses to Hitler and World War II; The Producers is simply part of a tradition that stretches back to Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be Or Not To Be (which Brooks later remade) and the Donald Duck carton Der Fuehrer’s Face. Even Germany, where the swastika remains outlawed for political use, permits it for historical works (though the German debut of The Producers substituted pretzels for the symbol), such as in the film Downfall. Hitler was even the star of a popular German satirical film, Look Who’s Back.

Swastikas make sense in The Producers, but the show can survive without them. I hope the students at Tappan Zee High had a great success this past weekend. What does not make sense is when a few people voice complaints and the immediate reaction is to heed their call without allowing opposing views a fully equal opportunity to make their case, when the public relations optics trump an educational opportunity, and when things are torn down in response a a vocal minority. What does not survive is productive and indeed educational dialogue around a terrible time in world history, how it led to the very show they were performing, and why exactly “Springtime for Hitler” is a comic and cultural touchstone in its own right, precisely because of the horror behind the swastika.

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative.

Among the many responses I’ve received to my accounts of the censorship of the musical Spamalot at South Williamsport Junior/Senior High in Pennsylvania was a tweet from Dane Rooney, an English teacher and drama director in Shenandoah PA, who spoke of his own school’s Spamalot. I invited him to e-mail me with more information, but instead of a handful of bullet points, I got an essay. I asked if I could share his communication and, with a few adjustments by Dane for wider readership, this is his account of productions of both Spamalot and The Producers at this Central Pennsylvania school of less than 500 students across six grades. – Howard Sherman

BY DANE ROONEY

Ever since I was in kindergarten, I wanted to act and direct. Coming from Shenandoah – a small town in the hard coal region of Northeastern Pennsylvania – opportunities to act were scarce. Even entering high school, there wasn’t a consistent theater organization. That is until 2001, when I was a sophomore and my brother Colin was in seventh grade. We joined the club and performed in Grease, and since then, the Shenandoah Valley Drama Club has produced a musical every spring. I graduated college and was hired as an English teacher at SV in 2007. I also began directing the musicals.

The Shenandoah Valley High School cast of Monty Python’s Spamalot with the visiting ambassador of Nigeria.

Every single year I hoped that Monty Python’s Spamalot would become available. Hours before the opening of Grease in 2001, we watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail to relieve some of our nerves. It became a ritual for a while, and so when Colin and I saw the Broadway tour in Hershey in 2008, I felt that one year, the SVDC would have the opportunity to produce the hit comedy. Colin passed away that year from meningitis, so producing Spamalot took on a deeper meaning than just a silly comedy.

Just like South Williamsport High School planned for their 2015 production, SVDC wanted to produce Spamalot after success with How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. Once the rights were available in PA in February of 2013, the Shenandoah Valley High School principal and superintendent approved the show without any “school edition” edits or optional dialogue/lyrics, which Eric Idle makes available through Theatrical Rights Worldwide. The administration and school board trusted me with the show’s material and felt that it would be a great production choice. On April 19^th 2013, the Shenandoah Valley Drama Club became the first high school in Pennsylvania to produce Monty Python’s Spamalot.

Not only was I excited to direct one of my dream shows, but the students were thrilled about the choice to perform in Spamalot as well; many of them already loved the film version. Typically high school drama clubs have a majority of girls in the cast, however over the last four years, our drama club has become a predominantly male cast. The show fit us perfectly: the cast, the humor, the edginess, and that certain strangeness in most Python works.

Though Shenandoah is an even smaller town than Williamsport (located about 60 miles from us), no questions were ever raised about the gay marriage or the gay characters in the show. In fact, I was more concerned about the song “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway” which is a song poking fun at Broadway and the large Jewish community involved in Broadway productions.

Danny Schaffer and Eric Rooney at the wedding of Sir Lancelot and Prince Herbert at Shenandoah Valley High School’s Spamalot

The students who played Sir Lancelot and Prince Herbert (the couple who get married at the end of the show) treated their characters with seriousness and humor. Both actors were nominated for Best Comedic Actor at our local high school awards, and the senior who played Lancelot (and other various characters) won the award. “His Name Is Lancelot”, the song in which Lancelot comes out of the closet, was by far a crowd favorite. The trick was casting some of the most charismatic students in our school as the gay male rumba dancers. I assembled four football players, the school mascot, and a class clown and we tried to keep it as much of a secret from the student population as possible. We worked countless late night hours at dance rehearsals, working around their sports schedules. When they appeared and the song began, I could hardly hear the music; the crowd burst into an uproar of applause, laughter, and cheers. I’m not even sure if they know the impact they had on the drama club, the student body, and the community; but I hope they know now and I know they were proud to portray gay characters in such a great scene and I am proud of them for doing it so bravely.

This song and this play became a highlight for our drama club. The audience loved the show and, to up the ante even further, we chose to perform The Producers the next year (April 2014). Because of the success of Spamalot (in which our cast size was about 30), we had over 60 kids in seventh through twelfth grade make the cut for the cast of The Producers. With stellar comedic actors, we pulled off another edgy musical, even topping Spamalot according to most audience response.

Angelo Maskornick as Roger De Bris and Eric Rooney as Carmen Ghia in Shenandoah Valley High School’s The Producers (Photo by Mary Sajone)

In The Producers, the students who played Roger De Bris and Carmen Ghia, the gay director and his partner/assistant, were so believable that audience members were “aww-ing” at some of the more tender moments between the pair. During the song “Keep It Gay” in which Roger explains that all theater must have something gay in it, the members of Roger’s production team pulled audience members onto the stage to join in the dance and conga line. The audience couldn’t stop laughing and enjoying themselves. On our final performance, the junior who played Roger went all out after “Springtime for Hitler” by laying a surprise kiss on his onstage partner, sending the audience into an uproar that nearly resulted in a premature standing ovation. It was as if our audience wanted them to be as affectionate as any straight couple in a high school musical.

However, I heard of one concerned comment that was made. Someone was worried about any closeted seventh grader watching upperclassmen portray gay characters in a satiric way. This person’s concern was that a closeted youngster might feel even more afraid to be themselves. I, however, feel passionately that, by choosing shows with gay characters and portraying them in a truthful way, we lighten the weight that a closeted seventh grader holds on his or her shoulders. Seeing a popular junior and sophomore act as a loving gay couple in a successful show like The Producers allows that seventh grader to fear no more; it allows a community to accept, to laugh, and to love. It also opens the doors for other actors to expand the roles they audition for in upcoming years, to make it okay to play any type of role. The high school actors playing gay characters in both Spamalot and The Producers performed for the thrill of acting, entering the stage with humor and bravery; what they never expected is that when they took their final bows, they left that stage heroes.

This year, we estimate that 80 to 90 students will be auditioning for the musical – that’s nearly a fifth of the school’s population. We have become the most popular and largest organization in our school, including all sports and extracurricular activities. Theater is alive and well at Shenandoah Valley High School.

As an educator, it is my duty and an honor to provide my students with everything they need to succeed. It is my job to ensure the safety of my students, and that means creating an environment free of judgment, prejudice, and hate. This story of how the SV Drama Club includes gay characters is one that I’m proud of, but the fact of the matter is, it never needed to be explained or justified over a year ago when we produced it. I am happy to share our story if it means that a high school may stop and think about the harm they are doing upon their community and student body if they decide to exclude a show based on the show’s inclusion of gay characters.

The fact is this: Spamalot is a perfect show for any high school, and if you’re lucky, it will have an astounding effect on your students, community and organization as it did at Shenandoah Valley High School.

It’s a funny thing about milestones, the way certain thresholds get set in our minds. If you follow reporting on the movie industry, breaking the $100 million gross barrier is a major achievement (and for those of us in the arts, an astronomical figure), although its not always connected to the cost of the film under discussion. But that number has been a yardstick for years, once cause for double page ads in Variety whenever it was reached, regardless of whether the movie that achieved it was released in the 60s, 70s, 80s or today – despite inflation making the success happen a little faster with every passing year. To be sure, plenty of movies still don’t make it, but it’s a less rarified club than it was in the days of The Sound of Music or Star Wars.

Once upon a time, when people still spoke of the price of a loaf of bread as an economic indicator, gas prices crossed a big threshold when a gallon broke over the $1.00 price point. People under 40 may not even remember this being breached. This was a big deal in those non-digital days, when prices couldn’t simply be altered with a tiny bit typing; I happened to be in England a few years back when the price of a liter of petrol broke the £1 mark, resulting in some creative solutions to signage that never anticipated announcing such a sum.

In theatre, in my lifetime, the big round number that sticks in my memory was the $100 ticket for The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, though it could be explained away by the massive physical production, cast size and length. It seemed a one-off as opposed to a trend-setter. Miss Saigon had $100 tickets at the start of its run, but didn’t sustain them, dropping back to the then more typical $65. The $100 price cropped up again for the 1999 revival of The Iceman Cometh, which by virtue of its length, simply couldn’t give enough performances in a week to make economic sense otherwise. You may know of other isolated instances.

We didn’t truly reach the $100 asking price per ticket milestone until The Producers introduced the $100 ticket in the wake of rave reviews, also giving us the innovation of the VIP ticket at the extraordinary price of $480. This was in 2001, just 13 years ago. At the time, other hits were quick to match The Producers, with Mamma Mia! jumping to $100 per ticket just two months later.

But it should be noted that the $100 price was the theatre equivalent of a hotel’s “rack rate,” the stated top price for rooms which were in reality variable and negotiable. In theatre, through group sales, discount offers, the beloved TKTS booth and day of show lotteries you could still see a Broadway show for much less than that. As a result, over the past decade, while regular prices have risen, especially at the most successful shows, the average price paid on Broadway stayed under $100 per seat. That is, until last year, the just-completed 2013-14 Broadway season, when the average ticket was $103.92, up $5.50 over the year before.

So while articles may be trumpeting record revenues and record attendance, they’re either downplaying, avoiding or ignoring the true breaking of the $100 threshold, preferring to lead with the allure of numbers in the millions (attendance) or billions (dollars). That’s a shame, because in terms of what matters to the average audience member, the average ticket price seems much more essential news. To me, that’s the headline.

It’s always important when discussing prices over time to acknowledge overall price changes in comparable fields or the economy as a whole. So let me point out that in the period since The Producers in 2001, the Consumer Price Index has risen from 177 to 233, an increase of 32%. The average movie ticket price nationally has gone from $5.65 to $8.13, a jump of 44%. But the Broadway jump from $58.72 to $103.92? That’s an increase of 77%.

I don’t have the resources to analyze all of the factors contributing to that jump, beyond the prevalence of premium or VIP seating, along with hit shows with higher prices that don’t need to discount (The Book of Mormon and Wicked) and superior supply and demand management (The Lion King). Maybe Nate Silver and his Five Thirty Eight team could work on this and tell us whether there’s a valid economic underpinning, or whether its just naked supply and demand having its day.

But surely if Broadway price hikes outstrip the economy and even other entertainment options, Broadway will eventually reach a tipping point that could have an impact on the already dicey economics of producing and running shows. Purchasing decisions based on price could put even more shows at risk for sustaining an economically viable run, whether in theory, as a Broadway engagement is contemplated, or even once it’s up and running.

So I want to call out this pricing milestone for all to see, and wonder where it will lead our commercial theatre yet a few more years down the line. If price resistance takes hold, if the Broadway price-value equation tips too far with the former outweighing the latter, will it be a place where shows can only be smash hits and utter flops, with no mid-level performers managing to run? If that happens, I hope it will prompt more people to sample institutional and independent theatre, here in New York and elsewhere. But on Broadway, and indeed at every level in the arts, ticket pricing is our global warming crisis, steadily rising year after year without raising true alarm and provoking meaningful action, until it threatens to swamp us all.

If supply and demand is a fundamental tenet of economics, then the tweet offer last summer from New York’s Soho Rep, during its sold-out run of Uncle Vanya, made no sense – “99¢ Sunday performance tonight at 7.30pm”. Why would it undermine something so desired as a seat to this show? Why wasn’t the price for this heretofore unavailable cache of seats $299.99?

As explained on its website: “Soho Rep is thrilled to offer 99¢ Sundays on selected Sunday performances to make our shows accessible to the widest audiences possible.”

The catch was that one could only buy the tickets, in person, an hour before the show. While admiring the gesture, I had visions of hundreds of people showing up and most being disappointed, because Soho Rep seats only 75.

Certainly one could look at this offer and think it is great value. That is true for those who were able to buy a seat. For those who were turned away, it was a disappointment and loss of time. And time, to use another basic economic tenet, is money. These days, however, the cost-value equation in theatre is vastly more complicated than ever before. As price has become fluid, it is hard to determine where true value lies.

When people wait in line, sometimes overnight, for the Public Theater’s free Shakespeare in Central Park, the ticket they get is indeed gratis. But if seven or eight hours sleeping among strangers outdoors results in attendance at a disappointing show, which can happen, then there was a high cost for little value (or, with a great show, a cashless bargain), calculable only by a subjective assessment of the worth of each individual’s time (although the overnight experience is its own type of participatory theatre).

While the time commitment necessary for acquiring tickets for Shakespeare in the Park is likely much greater than that required for 99¢ Sunday at Soho Rep (unless one is lucky enough to secure a ticket through the ‘virtual line’ online), the odds are also more favourable, since the open-air Delacorte seats some 2,000 per performance and every single performance is free, although the commitment to acquire a ticket carries risk through the final curtain – should it begin to rain ten minutes into the performance, the show may have to stop and all value is lost.

To go to the opposite end of the spectrum, take Book of Mormon, arguably the hottest ticket on Broadway. The least expensive ticket is priced at $69, but if you can secure one, it may well be for a performance months away. If you do not want to wait so long, you can, if you can afford it, buy a VIP seat for up to $500. This is a pure case of supply and demand, but it is not new. Eleven years ago, The Producers began offering premium seating at $488 per ticket. There were, then as now, various expressions of dismay, but desire trumps thrift.

Some might argue that the scarcity and cost of Mormon serves to make the experience even more valuable, as price can be an expression of worth. Having seen the show becomes a status symbol. In a unique move, perhaps an effort to diffuse frustration on the part of thwarted or economically constrained would-be ticket buyers, Mormon periodically holds ‘fan appreciation day’ performances, distributing tickets for free, akin to the Shakespeare in the Park model.

What falls between these scenarios? Rush tickets, sold on the day of the show or shortly before curtain, have been common in regional theatre fordecades. Somewhat newer ‘pay what you can’ performances are offered by some companies at early previews. Broadway shows have adopted the ‘ticket lottery’ model, holding back front-row seats at young-skewing shows such as Wicked or American Idiot, available at low price through a raffle two hours prior to curtain. In most of these cases, access to the theatre itself is essential. Every instance carries risk (will you get a ticket?), personal cost (time and effort) and value (cheap tickets).

In the UK, the Barclays Front Row scheme at the Donmar Warehouse is a lottery-rush hybrid, guaranteeing 42 low-priced seats at each performance, sold Monday mornings for the coming week (with a website clock counting down to the moment of release).

Discounting is rife on Broadway. All but the biggest hits usually have discount offers, sometimes as much as 40% off the declared value, that can be uncovered with an internet search, or in your mailbox if you are a regular theatregoer. Discounts not only allow, but also encourage, advance sales, with no great time investment. Producers trade savings for guaranteed money in the till.

The TKTS booth in Times Square may yield a 50% off price, only day-ofshow and it requires your time and presence, as lines can be long and subject buyers to the vagaries of weather (in contrast to the Leicester Square booth in London, where I have never waited more than five minutes). Both the UK and US TKTS booths have partially reduced potential disappointment by listing available shows online or by mobile app. The actual discount can be variable.

In another iteration of price/value matrix for theatre tickets, dynamic pricing seems the most clear-cut exemplar of supply and demand. I say ‘seems’ because those who employ such systems, in which prices shift according to popularity, tend only to shift prices upward opportunistically, such as increases during holiday weeks, or as a limited run approaches capacity. Price reductions are not usually found at the box office. Price charts in Broadway theatres are now all displayed on video monitors, the easier to alter as needed. Dynamic pricing is not employed only by commercial productions – subsidized theatres use it as well, raising for some the question of whether not-for-profit theatres are now pursuing profits, or simply maximising their income to support ongoing artistic and community efforts.

There is one more model of the theatrical price-value challenge, seen in the £12 Travelex season at the National Theatre in London and the $25 price for all seats, thanks to Time Warner, at New York’s Signature Theatre. These both offer great value at a most reasonable cost, as both are exceptional companies. The sponsors that make such programmes possible, as well as the theatre staff who secure the funds, are to be applauded. But with the stated goal of making theatre accessible to everyone, it is interesting to consider what both the short-term and long-term implications will be. When top-notch theatre is offered at an artificially low price, does it make the challenge of selling tickets for every competing organization that much more difficult? Could these prices simply be providing those who can afford market price a discount they never sought? Will patrons forgo comparable theatre devoid of subsidy?

In the jungle of discounts and rising costs, we have to look at the National, Donmar and Signature efforts, and others like them, as the start of admirable and essential long-term experiments. Since low-priced tickets are not being offered simply to fill houses, but to make tickets more generally accessible, they are bellwethers that can tell us if price is indeed a barrier to theatre attendance, and if, by removing that impediment, theatre can draw in new and younger audiences.

Signature’s can only be studied at some point in the future, as every ticket is low-priced, flat rate and subsidised for years to come. The National reports that annually, 22% of the Travelex tickets are sold to first time attendees. The very early weeks of the Donmar plan shows some 40% of the Front Row seats going to patrons new to their customer rolls.

As the means of selling and acquiring tickets mirror conventional marketplace practices, while at the same time initiatives rise up to spur sales to more demographically and economically differentiated audiences, the matrix of price and value becomes ever more complex. For producers, there is flexibility to adapt as never before. For patrons, the price points can become advantageous or prohibitive. Hopefully, in this new and perpetually evolving world, theatregoing will not be predicated and expanded solely on the cheapest access possible, but on the fundamental and incalculable premise of the art of the theatre itself having meaning for those who seek to attend.