Note: I fear the headline that ran with this piece was misleading, since the column focused more on how companies not known for traditional musical theatre were making it a part of their producing mix. That said, if the resources expended on opera were allocated to new musicals then, well, wouldn’t it be loverly?

Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson in Sweeney Todd. Nathan Lane reprising his career-making role in Guys and Dolls. Film actor Billy Zane and musical veteran Jenn Gambatese in The Sound of Music. Three intriguing stage productions with one common thread: none was produced by a theatre company.

Respectively, they were mounted by the New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall and Chicago Lyric Opera. They drew upon Broadway artists, but none were on Broadway.

It seems that when non-theatre companies want a sure thing they turn to musicals. While theatre companies, subsidized and commercial alike, seek to sustain audiences amid an array of entertainment options and ever-escalating price barriers, musicals are offered as budget balancers by symphonies and opera companies, with ever greater frequency. That’s on top of theatre companies which were once devoted solely to dramatic works having made an annual musical de rigeur. And when it comes to the big halls, it’s big names, both for titles and performers.

These events owe a great deal to the Encores! series at City Center, which has proven the significant audience for limited run versions of great musicals, some rarely seen. But they also attest to the broad appeal of musicals when companies step outside their own repertoire.

Thirty years ago, it was considered startling when the late New York City Opera embraced Sweeney Todd. Theatre only seems to attempt opera perhaps once every decade or so, notably with Baz Luhrman’s La Bohème and Peter Brook’s La Tragédie de Carmen. It seems that when it comes to producing across disciplines, for theatres it’s primarily a one-way street.

With the English National Opera’s announcement of plans to produce commercial musicals, it’s not quite the “unique” venture cited in their announcement. In their efforts to “embrace the new climate where audiences seem to enjoy the blurring of boundaries between opera, theatre and musicals,” one cannot help but wonder how the balance will play out if a West End berth, as stated, is a goal for these projects. Several years ago, the Metropolitan Opera announced a joint venture with its neighbor Lincoln Center Theater to develop works along such lines, but it has yielded little.

Given the budgets for major operas, or the musical richness of a full symphony, it’s easy to see why musical theatre artists would be eager to work outside their usual sphere. But so long as musicals are viewed as cash cows, economic pressure will dictate reliance on the tried and true, with the same repertoire being repeatedly mined by ever more groups. What musical theatre really needs is more resources and new models for sustaining new works beyond the hit or flop reality of Broadway and the West End. If only the symphonies and opera companies could help out there.

It is unquestionably a sign of his achievements at The Young Vic that David Lan has been named consulting artistic director for the planned arts centre at the site of the former World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.

Selection to be a part of this important element in rebuilding Ground Zero, the site of the 2001 terrorist attacks, was also a mark of achievement for, among others, Signature Theatre Company, architect Frank Gehry, and The Joyce Theatre.

But in the ensuing 10 years, the Signature abandoned its for Ground Zero and successfully built and opened a three-theatre complex on West 42^nd Street. Gehry’s involvement going forward is in limbo. The Joyce, a home to numerous dance companies, still hopes for a role in programming the arts center, but has seen plans for the largest theatre among the three still under discussion drop from 1,000 seats to 550, only slightly larger than their longtime home. In the scheme of New York theatres, the city’s relative paucity of 1,000 seat venues other than on Broadway might have been more useful to the ecology of the arts.

Mayor Bloomberg, whose administration was involved in discussions for the redevelopment plans over his 12 year tenure, is out of office now. Before leaving, he allocated $50 million in city funds to a rival new arts facility, the Culture Shed, but none for the Ground Zero project. The city’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, has yet to appoint a cultural affairs commissioner and is quiet on the project.

Even Mr. Lan’s participation seems somewhat fleeting, in that his appointment is only through September and he has told The New York Times that he does not foresee a programming role for himself. Maggie Boepple, president of the arts center’s seven member board (Stephen Daldry was recently named to the group) told the Times that there was no need for full-time artistic leadership because performances won’t begin until 2018 or 2019. What creative influence will Lan’s temporary engagement have in the next six months?

When the arts centre concept was first announced, the talk was heartening. The city committed to the idea that the arts had both a spiritual and economic role to play in healing lower Manhattan. Over time, the importance of that message has eroded.

Given the planning, emotional and political implications that surround the rebuilding of Ground Zero, it’s difficult not to be sceptical. The Wall Street Journal cites a daunting cost of $469 million, with only $155 million allocated by the federal government. Fundamentally, the Ground Zero Arts Center is a real estate project first and an arts project second, and that often places impractical burdens on creative work. Even during his limited engagement, I hope Mr. Lan can talk frankly and practically, challenging all existing presumptions, if the project is to ever succeed.

When theatre professionals turn catty about work they’ve seen and disliked, they arrogantly and foolishly compare it to the work of amdram troupes (who are deserving of appreciation, not derision). But when they really want to draw a condescending laugh out of their peers, they invoke the institution of dinner theatre, imagining diners noisily chewing their way through shows. Who remembers the parody in the film Soapdish, which had Kevin Kline performing Death of a Salesman amid clattering tableware?

While dinner theatre may never garner respect under that name, the genuine merging of food and theatre is making inroads in the US at scales both grand and intimate. And in doing so, it fulfills two popular concepts that are much discussed in the arts these days – engagement and immersion.

In the past few weeks, I’ve experienced the spectrum of theatrical dining: a homely table laden with both store-bought and homemade desserts to accompany the faux village ceremony at the heart of Dog and Pony Theatre Company’s Beertown (a Washington DC import at NYC’s 59 E 59 Theatre). Then there was a Russian sampler at Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet (at a tent in Times Square’s theatre district). At Queen of the Night (in the long-empty subterranean Diamond Horseshoe nightclub) there was a complete banquet with speciality cocktails and heaping platters of lobsters and beef. In each case, the food was completely integral to the show, rather than adjunct; this wasn’t just a quick bite during a lunchtime play or, God forbid, meatloaf juxtaposed with Miller.

What could be more immersive than eating? How can one possibly remain at a detached distance while sharing a table with other audience members, or when you’re exhorted to pile up a plate of goodies before taking your seat? Communal dining breaks down one’s reserve – even more so when alcohol is part of the repast. At Great Comet, selling drinks is not only a part of the experience, it’s part of the economic structure of the production; while a drunk audience might get out of hand at the sensual Queen. There’s even a theatre company named Three-Day Hangover that specialises in producing Shakespeare in bars, not simply in rooms above the pub, and encourages consumption via drinking games, just the thing for the much-desired “next generation of theatregoers,” provided they’re not abstainers.

Considering that “dinner and a show” is part of the lexicon for many arts attendees, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the two might be wrapped up in a single experience – and ticket. Going back to the 1980s, Tamara The Living Movie, a long-running hit in Los Angeles (with a briefer New York stay) fed audiences members rather lavishly at intermission, a respite from chasing actors playing out multiple storylines across myriad rooms years before Punchdrunk. Today, Sleep No More may not have fully integrated drinking and dining with its mashup of Hitchcock and Shakespeare, but bars and a restaurant echoing the design of the show share space at the retrofitted McKittrick Hotel in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood.

This is not to suggest that every show can be made immersive by adding a meal. The much-discussed clafoutis in God of Carnage would prove a messy distraction if passed out to each and every audience member, and it’s quite possible that a good show could be brought down by mediocre food. Even theatres that have dining rooms wholly separate from their performances have learned the pitfalls of becoming restaurateurs, as the art and business requires a different skill set from that needed for the stage.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that of the examples here, none have been produced in spaces purpose-built as theatres; finding such spaces in New York or London places an added production challenge on any show.

We seek to lure audiences away from their satellite TV, their Netflix subscription and their video games, on ever-larger TVs, all of which they can enjoy over take-out food or with sustenance they prepare. Perhaps looking at theatre as a package deal rather than an a la carte offering can make sense, engaging not only minds but mouths.

A star being replaced early in a Broadway show’s run is usually a sign of trouble. They’re unhappy with their role, perhaps, and getting out at the earliest opportunity. Maybe they’ve been offered a better paying gig, and it’s worth it to them to buy out their contract and move onto greener pastures. So what does it mean when even before a show opens, the star’s replacement has already been announced?

In the case of the recently opened revue After Midnight (which boasts renowned trumpeter Wynton Marsalis as artistic director), it means the producers have deployed a whole new strategy, in which the show is designed to accommodate a rotating roster of headliners. While Fantasia Barrino, an American Idol runner up who has gone on to a successful recording career and who previously appeared on Broadway in The Color Purple, will steer the show through its first four months, she’ll be succeeded in February by KD Lang, who, after one month will in turn yield the stage to Babyface and Toni Braxton who will appear for just two weeks.

The producers have given Barrino top billing as ‘special guest star’ to indicate the transient status of the position, and she performs only four numbers in the show, which like most revues is essentially modular. It will be fascinating to learn what the producers have in store for those who follow in her footsteps, since their individual style may not naturally mesh with the same material.

Obviously, for people who enjoy the show, return visits will yield partially different rewards, since a handful of numbers in the 90-minute piece will at least vary in style and might, perhaps, be swapped for different songs. For members of the public less engaged with Broadway, they may be lured in by these pop performers appearing in an intimate venue. Without any pejorative connotation, After Midnight – modeled on revues at legendary nightspots like The Cotton Club – even evokes memories of vaudeville. If you don’t like this week’s bill, come back in two weeks.

This approach is a logical progression from similar efforts on the Great White Way. The producers of the long running production of Chicago have made a specialty of rotating stars of varying fame in and out on a regular basis, generating new waves of press every time a ‘bold-faced name’ steps in as Roxie, Velma, or Billy Flynn. Once again, the vaudeville style of the show itself ends itself to easy transitions; it’s not as if a new Lear was joining an acting troupe every four weeks. The Play What I Wrote also employed weekly mystery guest stars, and, as an aside, it’s worth noting that this Morecambe and Wise-derived show marks the only time Kenneth Branagh has performed on stage in the US to date.

Another precursor to this format was the series of post-show guests employed by Million Dollar Quartet, a largely fictionalised retelling of the one-time recording session of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. To bolster its sales, the show began offering two or three song mini-concerts after the final curtain to add to its marketing draw. Though I’d seen the show early in its run, I arranged to sneak in at the tail-end one night to see the real Jerry Lee Lewis duet at the piano with his Tony-winning doppelgänger Levi Kreis. It was, I have to say, a thrill.

I’m not advocating a parade of stunt casting. The risk is too great, even if, upon seeing stage novice Melanie Griffith in Chicago, New York Times critic Ben Brantley wrote: “Ms Griffith has only minimal command of the skills traditionally associated with musical comedy. She dances very little, and her well-known baby-doll voice has only a casual relationship with melody. Yet she is a sensational Roxie.” But that rave shocked even the show’s producers.

In this era of star appearances in theatre that run for only 12 to 16 weeks, perhaps this is a new paradigm which recognises that many stars can’t commit for long runs, and creates a way to deploy their drawing power in a manner totally organic to the show, for the benefit of audiences and investors. I for one can’t wait to see Madonna in After Midnight in 2017.

Macbeth. Twelfth Night. Richard III. Romeo and Juliet. No Man’s Land. Waiting For Godot. Betrayal. The Winslow Boy.

The syllabus for a university survey course in drama? No. Instead, it’s the roster of eight of the 16 titles scheduled to open on Broadway between now and the end of 2013.

To be sure, British plays, artists and productions haven’t ever been strangers to Broadway, but this preponderance of works – featuring actors such as Jude Law, Mark Rylance, Rachel Weisz, Daniel Craig, Anne-Marie Duff, Stephen Fry, Orlando Bloom, Roger Rees, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart – in the 40 theatres that comprise Broadway, all at the same time, is an embarrassment of riches. Add in concurrent Off-Broadway productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with David Harewood and Kathryn Hunter (opening the new Theatre for a New Audience space in Brooklyn) and Michael Gambon and Eileen Atkins in All That Fall, and it appears that Anglophilia is running rampant in the playhouses of New York.

Much of this is coincidence, since it’s not as if producers conspire on themes. Indeed, from a marketing standpoint, it’s not necessarily even a good idea, since the theatregoers most drawn to this work may have to face some tough buying decisions unless they have unlimited resources and time. Cultural tourists won’t even be able to fit all of these terrific sounding shows in, should they fly to the city for merely a long weekend.

But whether the productions are transfers from the UK or newly minted in America, as is the case with No Man’s Land, Romeo and Juliet, and Betrayal, the British imprimatur seems as if it’s a requirement this year, even if only in part. UK director David Leveaux is staging Romeo and Juliet with a North American cast capped by Bloom. US director Julie Taymor tapped Harewood and Hunter for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, her first project since the highly-publicised and contentious Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark (a tell-all book by her collaborator Glen Berger will be released just as Midsummer performances begin). Even the US classic The Glass Menagerie is being helmed by John Doyle. Only Classic Stage Company’s Romeo and Juliet, with Elizabeth Olsen and TR Knight, is wholly comprised of American artists, though their Romeo is Japan-born.

The English theatre can certainly take pride in this abundance of talent exported to American shores, and I look forward to each and every one of these shows enthusiastically. Indeed, I’ll pass on my annual autumn trip to London since I’ll need only take the subway and not British Airways.

But it does beg the question of whether classical work can succeed on Broadway without a UK connection. Are producers giving up on our best American actors and directors taking on British and Irish pieces without at least some of that heritage in the shows’ DNA? To be sure, not-for-profit companies may lean American overall (LCT’s Macbeth is Ethan Hawke), but has public television conditioned us to desire the “genuine” article? Great American plays appear on British stages frequently, ranging from A View From The Bridge to Fences to Clybourne Park, without the perpetual need to import Americans, let alone the cream of American talent, to make them work. Yet the power of UK casting appears to be such that even multiple Macbeths are deemed economically viable, with Alan Cumming having played virtually all of the roles on Broadway only months ago and Kenneth Branagh due at the Park Avenue Armory in June 2014.

I don’t like calling attention to national divisions when it comes to art, but the fall theatre season in New York simply can’t be overlooked. Despite the luxury of all of the great theatre on tap, the timing sends the message to US actors, theatre students, critics and audiences that when it comes to staging foreign classics, the talent exchange flows more strongly from west to east than in the other direction.

But looking on the bright side, perhaps this means we’ll soon enjoy one more benefit of the English stage, and be able to buy ice cream at the interval.

While the arts are often notoriously slow adopters of new technology, the rapid rise of social media would seem to dictate that commercial theatre jump on the bandwagon and hold on tight.

But social media may be best suited for use by subsidised companies, rather than the shows that populate the West End and Broadway.

Certainly, every show has the basics in place, a Facebook page, a Twitter feed and so on, in addition to the now de rigeur website. But producers and their marketing teams seem to view most social media as an extension of advertising or PR, feeding out casting announcements, special ticket offers and ‘exclusive’ photos and video all directed at driving sales.

The problem is that for most productions, especially early in their runs, there aren’t necessarily enough people who have followed or liked the show to read what’s on offer, and the content is often repurposed for other uses, diluting the impact that ‘exclusivity’ might still carry.

Shows appear drawn to the media portion of this new manner of communications, when it is the social aspect that is most innovative and compelling. Social platforms offer rapid and direct communications with individuals, but the fact is that people engage most with those who actually engage with, or entertain, them. It may take place on an overwhelming scale when it comes to major celebrities, but in the theatre, it’s quite easy for fans to strike up conversations with stars, writers, designers, directors and even critics – something virtually unimaginable a decade ago. So, if shows don’t actually engage with their audiences beyond tarted-up press announcements, they’re dropping the ball.

Of course, the challenge is how creative on an ongoing basis any one show can be, since they’re a relatively fixed offering (people, on the other hand, can have remarkably varied day-to-day lives) and how much  they’re willing to invest to be socially rather than sales-oriented, focusing on the long game rather than immediate gain. Except for a very small portion of the audience,  attendance at a commercial show is a one-off event, not an ongoing commitment, seemingly at odds with the basis of social media. The building of relationships afforded by social media can create a stronger bond for an ongoing company producing an array of works over months or years.

In 2009, when social media was still working its way into public consciousness, the Broadway production of Next to Normal garnered great attention and achieved a remarkable million followers through two initiatives. It offered one night “live-tweeting” the plot of the entire show for anyone who cared to follow. Shorn of songs and even most dialogue, they were serialising an outline in real time, but it was a distinctive effort that marked the show as creative and tantalised people with the framework of a show they might then choose to see in real life.

Next to Normal also ran a campaign in which Twitter followers were encouraged to make suggestions for a new song for the show, creating a connection directly with the authors, who did indeed write a song based on suggestions. While it wasn’t added to the finished work, fans could hear it online. It’s a shame that, since the account still has 946,000 following (though it is closed), it hasn’t tweeted since April of last year, leaving a huge untapped base of potential ticket buyers for other productions.

Despite the efforts and success of Next to Normal, social media still seems an afterthought for most Broadway shows. In a survey of Broadway theatres in early May, prompts to interact with the show through social media activity (primarily Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) were on display at 15 theatres – yet a nearly equal number (14) had no such reminders in their front of theatre or box office lobby displays (a number of theatres had no tenants at the time). A few showed real initiative in advocating social media use (a photo backdrop outside the Lunt-Fontanne for Motown; a ‘photo stop’ in the upper lobby of the Gershwin for Wicked).

Unfortunately, others simply displayed social platform logos without the specific names used by the shows in those arenas, so one would have to seek them out; it’s akin to posting ‘we have a website’ instead of giving a URL.

If productions don’t feel that social media gives them sufficient bang for their buck, perhaps they shouldn’t establish a presence only to give it short shrift. On the other hand, as some shows are demonstrating, with a little thought, a show can build its profile at a proportionately low cost, amplifying the power of the ever essential word of mouth, so long as they’re willing to commit to subtly promoting their presence by offering intriguing content and damping down the urge to shout “BUY NOW”.

During the 2012/13 Broadway season, a total of nine new musicals appeared on Broadway (hitting the average annual level of recent years). Of those nine, only four are still running. As I write, there are seven new musicals playing Off-Broadway, with an eighth due in a few weeks; there may well be others. What does it tell us when 12 months of Broadway yields just about as much new musical material as we find Off-Broadway in only a couple of months?

To be fair, many of the Off-Broadway musicals are limited runs in the seasons of subsidised companies, and two are commercial transfers from such companies from earlier this year. Only one will play in a theatre which is comparable in size to Broadway venues, and in that case it’s under the auspices of Shakespeare in the Park; most are in spaces where one week of performances equals the capacity of one Broadway performance. A transferred Off-Broadway hit can easily become a Broadway casualty given the commercial demands of larger theatres and higher costs.

Certainly, hit Off-Broadway musicals are hardly new; one need only look to The Fantasticks, You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, Godspell and Little Shop of Horrors for precursors, and it’s unlikely the current new shows will ever attain the longevity of those icons. But in recent years, the standard model has tended much more towards the Off-Broadway to Broadway transfer for success, as evidenced by shows ranging from Rent to Avenue Q to The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Even shows that began in rudimentary stagings at the New York International Fringe Festival and the New York Musical Theatre Festival have fought their way to Broadway, including Urinetown and Next to Normal.

Surveying the variety of material, it would appear that the modest scale of Off-Broadway allows for a greater range of topics and styles than the Great White Way, from the sung through pop opera of Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (based on a portion of War and Peace, and performed in a tent) to David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s Imelda Marcos disco bio Here Lies Love. There’s one musical that is drawn from a film (Far From Heaven) and two with their roots in Shakespeare (Venice, after Othello, and Love’s Labour’s Lost). Several adopt variations on an environmental, break-the-proscenium approach (Here Lies Love, Murder Ballad and Great Comet). None model themselves on the formula of the classic American musical.

I suspect that no one is getting rich off of these productions, while the backers of Kinky Boots, Matilda and Motown on Broadway will surely do quite well over time. For these Off- Broadway musicals to become true earners for all involved, they will either have to manage sustained runs under a commercial model, on Broadway or Off, or spawn productions across the country and abroad. But even if that doesn’t come to pass, what they are doing is providing a superb showcase for predominantly new talent and unexpected subjects; they are bolstering the musical repertory at a pace at least equal to Broadway and building the reputations of artists.

This shouldn’t suggest that musical success Off-Broadway is a breeze, and it’s worth noting that many of these shows are only mounted with significant donor underwriting or “enhancement” from producers who hope the property will turn out to be Broadway-worthy. But with different scale and different expectations, Off-Broadway musicals may well be supplanting Broadway in advancing the form.

Hindsight doesn’t benefit anyone, but it is hard to resist wondering whether the short-lived Hands on a Hardbody might have fared better at director Neil Pepe’s Atlantic Theatre Company instead of in a Broadway theatre. Ironically, that was the birthplace of Spring Awakening, a musical that had struggled through a number of developmental productions over the years only to find praise, first Off- Broadway, then on.

There’s an old saying that one can’t make a living on Broadway, but can make a killing. It’s not easy to make a living off of Off-Broadway musicals either, but you can build a career.

I’m often asked by journalists for observations about trends, on Broadway, Off-Broadway, or about theatre in general. One recent call queried me about the prevalence of shirtless men on Broadway this season, a topic on which I had little to say.

Although I was taught in my press agent days that two similar items are a coincidence but that for journalistic purposes, three similar items make a trend and get covered as such, I still tend to look at confluences on Broadway in any given season as accidents. Shows come together (or not) at certain times for many reasons, without co-ordination. But it’s hard not to look at the spring Broadway crop of one-actor shows and let it go unremarked.

In a span of only eight weeks, four of Broadway’s 40 theatres will be home to new one-person shows – all genuine plays, not musical revues or autobiographical monodramas – representing four of the ten new plays due this spring. They tell the stories of three influential women, all deceased – Hollywood agent Sue Mengers (I’ll Eat You Last), Texas governor Ann Richards (Ann) and Jesus’ mother (The Testament of Mary) – and those Scottish social climbers, The Macbeths. Not having seen any of them as yet, I know that the Scottish play has a single actor (Alan Cumming) playing every role; whether there are multiple characters portrayed in the other shows is to be seen.

Is this confluence the result of ‘star casting’ run amok? Not really, since of the four actors involved– Cumming, Bette Midler, Fiona Shaw and Holland Taylor (in alphabetical order) – only Midler is a multi-generational ‘big name’ in the U.S. The other three are all accomplished and honoured actors, and Cumming’s star has risen sharply since he joined the cast of TV’s The Good Wife, but none is necessarily box office catnip. Taylor last appeared on Broadway three decades ago in the infamous Moose Murders, while Shaw’s only prior appearance was as Medea during a brief run 11 years ago. Midler, we hear, won’t be singing, the feature of her previous Broadway forays in the 1970s.

So what to make of this monomania? In all likelihood, it’s simply a quirk of fate, but it has potentially lasting effects. As new plays on Broadway are typically launched into long lives in regional and later amateur theatres, is the theatrical canon being expanded with this work? One only has to see how Red and The Mountaintop have flourished around the US to see the Broadway effect on plays’ future lives, perhaps due to their tiny casts helping to balance out large plays elsewhere in a theatre’s season. Will these solo plays make the same journey – or are they taking the place of larger pieces that need a marketing boost to make that leap?

One-person shows place a significant burden on one person’s shoulders. In any venue, there’s the risk of the actor becoming ill or being injured; while subsidised theatres in the US often don’t use understudies – they’ll carry them on shows like these. But  will any audience want to see a substitute for the person truly charged with the singular task of holding a stage by themselves?

If the shows are hits, and do spawn future productions, they could further diminish cast sizes nationally. The economic temptation will be there, and perhaps playwrights who worry now about writing shows that require even six or seven actors will start to think in a smaller scale, to the detriment of the dramatic canon. We can ill-afford a scenario in which God of Carnage is a theatre’s ‘big’ show.

I look forward to each of these plays, which promise a variety of subject and style. But if solo shows become Broadway’s dramatic bread and butter, they’re likely to be met with the sound of one hand clapping.

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.

I have yet to see Pinter in the Pinter or Sondheim in the Sondheim. I have, however, seen Ayckbourn in the former and, incongruously, Pee Wee Herman in the latter. For anyone confused, I am referring to the recently renamed Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End and Broadway’s Stephen Sondheim Theatre. I applaud the naming of these venues, and I am equally enthusiastic about the Caryl Churchill Theatre that will open in Surrey next year. They are manifestations of a topic I find myself musing upon: using theatre naming as a means of promoting the awareness of theatrical history.

On the one hand, the name of every Broadway and West End theatre carries history, since the venue name will be associated perpetually with famous productions that played there. However, names are not exactly fixed in stone. While Broadway’s Belasco and New Amsterdam may stretch back to a century ago, the current Helen Hayes Theatre is the second building to honor “the first lady of the American Theatre”; the original (which had two names before Hayes) was torn down some 30 years ago. Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? premiered at the Billy Rose Theatre 50 years ago; today, that same theatre is the David T. Nederlander, named for a member of the family that now owns it.

The point is that theatre names are somewhat fluid, and the rationale behind their naming, past and present, can have a variety of motivations. It was certainly the style, once upon a time, for the impresario who built the theatre to name it after himself, but in New York, there has been an intermittently enlightened approach that has resulted in such venues as the Lunt- Fontanne Theatre (named for the husband and wife acting duo in 1958) and the August Wilson Theatre (renamed in 2005, just after the pioneering African American playwright passed away, the building’s sixth name). Among Broadway’s 40 theatres, two are named for legendary critics, the Brooks Atkinson and the Walter Kerr, and a third for newspaper caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, no small recognition for the fourth estate.

Other theatres are named for more practical reasons: when the not-forprofit Roundabout Theatre Company reclaimed a theatre on 42nd Street, part of the restoration and its ongoing funding was secured through a long term sponsorship that named the new venue the American Airlines Theater. Purists were dismayed, but to my mind, it was not affront, since it reestablished a working theatre where none had been for decades.

But I return to the Wilson, the Lunt-Fontanne, the Sondheim, the Hayes, because to me they are exemplars. Maybe, just maybe, patrons seeing shows in those theatres might take the time to find out about these storied names, both bygone and current. Perhaps programmes or websites can provide not just the history of the theatre, but of its namesake. Could our theatre capitals take the opportunity to make themselves billboards for theatre history with more judicious naming? In New York, what of a George Abbott, a Comden and Green, a Wendy Wasserstein Theatre? And they need not be posthumous. Harold Prince, one of the most influential figures in New York theatre from the 1950s to today, might be thusly honoured (even if he has had, at one time, not one but two theatres named for him in Philadelphia). In London, what of Ayckbourn, Stoppard, or Ralph Richardson?

This is not a decision that can be achieved through public opinion, since the authority rests with the owners of the buildings themselves. But perhaps while theatres retain the truly memorable, essential names, the more generic ones can become theatrical history markers. By way of example, both New York and London have Lyceums that might be better off personalized, if preservation regulations allow it. Since theatre is not a religious rite, why do London and New York both have St James Theatres if he was the patron saint of furriers and chemists?

Some theatres’ historic names have been proven outdated, the figures they were named for more fleeting than expected. Perhaps we must change these pieces of the theatre’s history in order to better promote theatre history and commemorate it for subsequent generations.