DOLLARS AND CENTS

A TALE OF FOUR BUDGETS

If you want to put on a show, you need abudget; even living room and charity produc-tions require the careful allocation of time andof in-kind donations.

To illuminate more clearly the economicdecisions that theater administrators face, weobtained the actual pre-production budgetsfrom four shows that have run within the pastseveral years, and we compare them at right,category by category. We chose budgetarilydiverse shows, from a $7,500 off-off-Broadway play to a $2 million Broadwaystraight play, and we strove to find budgetsthat were representative at each level.

Of course, there’s no such thing as a “typi-cal budget.” Each show faces different circum-stances; in footnotes, we explain several keyvariances in production conditions. Also, thebiggest economic barrier for many theatergroups—that of renting affordable space [see“Small Companies Squeezed by HighRents”]—is often accounted for in annualcompany budgets, and may not be reflected at

right. Where included, rent expenses are cate-gorized in the Rehearsal Space category.

For added insight, we’ve interviewed thegeneral managers for the listed productions;like the shows we looked at, their names arenot being published. These interviews, com-bined with the data in this comparison, sug-gest some striking conclusions:

● Generally, the biggest expense categoriesfor a show are Advertising/Marketing andPhysical Production. Between them, theseitems make up about 40 percent of a typicalbudget. Within the Physical Production cate-gory, scenery is the largest expense, consuming12.5 percent of the entire Broadway budgetand 8.2 percent of the off-Broadway budget.

● One way this survey’s off-off-Broadwayshow reduces expenses is by not paying itsactors—even though some of them are mem-bers of Actors’ Equity. Small nonprofit pro-ductions may use unpaid Equity actors underthe Showcase Code provision, so long asthey’re mounted in a theater no larger than 99seats. If not for this provision, the show wouldnever be able to afford Equity actors.

Do

llars

an

d C

ents

Wonderful Town

48

Off-Off-Broadway Off-Broadway (nonprofit)

Off-Broadway (commercial)Broadway

Union

Contingency/reserve

General administrative

Advertising/marketing

Front-of-house

Rehearsal expenses

Salaries

Fees

Physical production

(for figures, see facing page)

HOW THE PIE IS SLICEDEXPENSE BREAKDOWN FOR FOUR NEW YORK PRODUCTIONS

National Arts Journalism Program, 2002

Production type BROADWAY OFF-BR (COMMERCIAL) OFF-BR (NONPROFIT) OFF-OFF-BROADWAY

Capacity 1,350 seats 287 seats 165 seats 60 seatsLength of run Open-ended Open-ended 56 performances 15 performancesTicket price $25-$70 $47.50-$50 $40 $15

$ % $ % $ % $ %

Physical production $418,250 20.9% $66,500 11.1% $34,050 15.5% $1,250 16.7%Scenery $250,000 $37,500 $18,000 $900Costumes $50,000 $7,500 $2,000 $250Lighting $50,750 $11,000 $3,000 $100

Fees $179,300 9% $42,789 7.1% $22,500 10.2% $3,150 42.1%Director $50,000 $9,138 $3,800 $1,000Author n/a1 $7,000 $3,600 $0Designers $100,300 $14,388 $10,000 $1,300

Salaries $161,288 8.1% $40,050 6.7% $51,180 23.3% $0 0%Actors $75,120 $24,000 $23,760 $0Understudies $30,048 $2,108 $0 $0Stage management $36,670 $5,958 $9,770 $0

Rehearsal expenses $187,000 9.4% $55,100 9.2% $12,900 5.9% $1,000 13.4%Stagehands, load-in $130,000 $15,250 $11,500 $0Rehearsal space (rent) $13,000 $5,000 $02 $1,000Workshop expense $0 $28,500 $0 $0

Front-of-house $40,000 2% n/a3 $12,730 5.8% $120 1.6%Box office $40,000 n/a $9,460 $0Programs $04 n/a $750 $120

Advertising/marketing $469,000 23.5% $165,500 27.6% $57,300 26.1% $1,955 26.1%Publicist $8,000 $5,500 $2,400 $1,000Opening night $60,000 $7,500 $2,500 $0

General admin. $211,162 10.5% $75,459 12.6% $15,423 7.2% $0 0%Payroll taxes $28,778 $10,727 $9,323 n/aInsurance $25,000 $5,000 n/a5 n/a6

Legal $20,000 $16,000 $07 $0

Contingency $166,500 8.3% $100,000 16.6% $0 0% $0 0%

Union bonds $167,500 8.4% $54,602 9.1% $13,678 6.2% $0 0%Actors Equity $150,000 $27,882 $11,014 $0ATPAM $10,000 $2,740 $0 $0

Total (pre-opening) $2,000,000 $600,000 $219,761 $7,475Per-week expenses $223,281 $50,000 $5,000- $937.50

$11,000

Do

llars and

Cen

ts

National Arts Journalism Program

49

1No author expense because play is public domain 2Company pays annual rent3Front-of-House expenses accounted for under other categories4Programs are free unless color or additional pages are added5Included in annual company budget6Included in annual company budget7Services donated in-kind

National Arts Journalism Program, 2002

● The downside of this Showcase provi-sion is that if a small show using donatedEquity labor winds up being successful, it canrun no more than 16 performances. Beyondthat, it must be transferred to another theaterwhere it must pay Equity rates to its cast. It isdifficult to get much steam behind a show injust 16 performances, especially since reviewsof off-off-Broadway productions rarely appearbefore the middle of a run.

● This off-off-Broadway show cannotafford print advertising. It relies primarily onlistings and reviews—and therefore on thewhims of the city’s entertainment editors.

● Given a budget five times larger, this off-off-Broadway managing director said he wouldincrease advertising spending more than thatof any other category. But in a 60-seat theater,the company couldn’t hope to recoup fivetimes the expenses, so it would have to moveto a larger theater. But not too much bigger,because most 100-plus-seat theaters are unionhouses, which would entail much higherexpenses. As a result, there exists a budgetary“no-man’s land” between about $25,000 (thehigh end of non-Equity productions) and$150,000 (the low end of Equity productions).

● This off-off-Broadway company doesn’tdepend much on in-kind support because get-ting free goods and services is a headache, oftencosting more in the long run in wasted timeand labor. It does use a few donated set piecesand some volunteer front-of-house labor.

● Ticket prices—topping out at $40 forthe nonprofit off-Broadway show and $65 forthe Broadway show—can be misleading.When theater memberships, student discountsand comps are factored in, the take for theaverage “$40” ticket is just $20 to $25. Andmany Broadway and off-Broadway shows alikeland eventually at the Theatre DevelopmentFund’s TKTS booth, where day-of-show tick-ets are sold at a 50 percent discount.

● Union costs are codified according tovarious factors, including the budget size, thetheater’s for-profit/nonprofit status, andwhether the play in question has been recent-

ly produced by another company.● This nonprofit off-Broadway budget does

not include contingency money to cover gen-eral cost overruns, poor advance sales and thelike. Any shortfall is made up from the compa-ny’s annual budget. This Broadway produc-tion’s contingency budget, though it comprisesnearly 10 percent of the total budget, is lowcompared to others on Broadway.

● Once these Broadway and commercialoff-Broadway shows opened, the author, direc-tor, designers and producer each received“points”: percentages of revenue. TheBroadway budget designates a total of 16.5points; the commercial off-Broadway budget,13 points.

● As a result of discounts and all of theabove factors, recoupment of pre-productionexpenses—breaking even—is a challenge. Thisoff-off-Broadway production had to sell 85 per-cent of its tickets to do so, and comps ate intothat very small margin of error. (Productionsare an acknowledged money-loser for the com-pany, which operates a space used also by twoaffiliated groups. The company is able toremain viable through space rental and co-pro-ductions in which it supplies the space andmarketing and others supply the production.)

● This nonprofit off-Broadway company’sproductions generally earn ticket revenuesbetween $10,000 (for a bomb) and $45,000(for a smash) a week. Given an eight-week runand weekly mid-run production expenses of$5,000 to $11,000, it’s pretty rare to recoup thepre-production cost. This is despite the fact that1) legal services are donated by board membersand 2) this company has its own performanceand rehearsal space, which saves a big chunk ofmoney in a budget category that’s a large con-cern for similar off-Broadway companies.

● This commercial off-Broadway showneeded full houses for 18 solid weeks or 55percent houses for more than two years tobreak even. In its two-year run, it did notbreak even, though future sales of film, foreignand other ancillary rights may eventually tipthe show into the black. ■

Do

llars

an

d C

ents

Wonderful Town

50

For productions,

there exists

a budgetary

“no-man’s land”

between about

$25,000 and

$150,000.

LABOR VERSUS MANAGEMENT:A TUG OF WAR

Next only to “critics,” no word is more polar-izing in the New York theater-productionworld than “unions.” Stage unions take the rapfor skyrocketing costs, for enforcing regulationsthat strangle creativity and for generally keep-ing the industry mired in the past. While thesesweeping charges may contain bits of truth,they oversimplify myriad and intricate relation-ships btween labor and management. TheLeague of American Theatres and Producerslikes to advertise theater on the Great WhiteWay as “Live Broadway.” Yet live theater, bydefinition, is a labor-intensive art form; with-out human labor, there can be nothing “live”about it.

Unions have played a major role in shapingthe American theater from the late 1890s, espe-cially in the traditionally labor-friendly city ofNew York. The International Alliance ofTheatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the U.S.and Canadian union that includes stagecraft,motion picture and television productionemployees, is the oldest among them; it wasfounded in 1893 and now has 500 local chap-ters. It forged an alliance early on with theAmerican Federation of Musicians, whichformed in 1896. AFM now has 110,000 mem-bers in 250 locals.

Actors’ Equity Association was not found-ed until 1913, and it struggled considerably inthe face of alliances linking theater ownerswith competing unions. Many of Equity’s43,000 current members also belong to atleast one of its sister unions, the Screen ActorsGuild and the American Federation ofTelevision and Radio Artists. The Society ofStage Directors and Choreographers (SSDC),founded in 1962, is considered the “babyunion.” Its 1,700 members are employees and,frequently, royalty-holders, a combination thatcan be highly problematic. Although therehave been periods of cooperation, theaterunions often clash with one another and gen-erally decline to join one another’s pickets.

Many national tours of Broadway shows thatshun Equity or the AFM, for instance, havethe full blessing of the SSDC and IATSE.

On the surface, the financial crisis in NewYork theater that followed the Sept. 11 attackbrought labor and management groupstogether. That cooperation offers some hopefor solving other long-range problems. Themajor Broadway unions made four-weeksalary concessions of up to 25 percent thathelped keep seven shows open that might oth-erwise have closed. Several weeks later, theproducers began to make good on their prom-ise to pay back the lost wages as theater atten-dance returned to near-normal levels morequickly than anticipated.

But some union representatives began togrumble that producers were riding out thecrisis on the backs of their actors, musiciansand stagehands. “The definition of collabora-tion, or so it frequently appears, is when theunion gives,” griped Equity President AlanEisenberg. “One might ask, for example, withthe millions of dollars that some of theseshows have made—such as ‘Rent,’ such as ‘LesMiserables,’ such as ‘Phantom’—why do [pro-ducers] have to ask for cuts from the unionsand the guilds when they have made millionsand millions of dollars over the years?”

How much cooperation will remain inthe near future is uncertain, especially as moresystemic and deeply rooted issues reemerge ascentral concerns. There are currently severalkey struggles between management and laborthat will help shape the future of the theater inNew York City. One relates to cutbacks inlabor for touring shows, which could easilyseep into New York as new technologies gaininfluence and cost-cutting remains para-mount. Another involves how much actorsshould be paid for performing inside theBroadway box even if the show in question isproduced by a nonprofit entity. A thirdaddresses the ownership of intellectual proper-ty, such as a director’s stage directions.

Here’s a quick glance at these issues andtheir possible implications.

Do

llars and

Cen

ts

National Arts Journalism Program

51

MUSICIANS OR MACHINES?An ongoing issue that divides actors’ and musi-cians’ unions from management is the “virtualpit orchestra,” a device designed, built and pro-grammed by Real Time Music Solutions ofNew York. Essentially, it’s a synthesizer loadedwith pre-recorded music samples. Unions call it“karaoke theater,” a graceless replacement oflive musicians that’s the latest example of thedecline of the American art form known as themusical. Management prefers the term “orches-tra enhancement system,” and says it’s the besttechnology now available to pit musicians. Nomatter the terms used to describe the device, itdrew pickets last season by AFM memberswherever the non-union tour of “Annie”(which used this device) played. The clashcould very well be a harbinger of Broadway’sfuture. The virtual pit orchestra is but one ofthe multimedia gadgets that producers in NewYork and elsewhere are considering to juice upthe theatrical experience and cut costs.

Cleveland is also a union town, andthanks to the presence of the ClevelandOrchestra, the city’s local chapter of the AFMis one of the strongest in the country. But thatdidn’t make much difference when “Annie”came to town: Even picketing by local musi-cians did not keep patrons from lining up topay full price to see a little red-headed girl sing“Tomorrow” to the accompaniment of aneight-member non-union orchestra and thatnotorious synthesizer.

“It by no means was meant to replace theorchestra,” “Annie” music director KepKaeppler said of the machine. “It was designedto do what [electronic] keyboards do, but witha great sense of musicality. We can layer moreinstruments and get a more full sound. Wehave complete control over tempo, dynamics,entrances and cutoffs, to keep the show a liveexperience. We can even vamp.”

Mell Csicsila, a Cleveland-area cellist whooften plays in pit orchestras for touring shows,said the device is the beginning of the end oflive theater. “It’s basically a Sony PlayStationorchestra. This is canned music,” he said. “It’s

a profit decision, not an artistic decision. Ifthey get away with this, at this level, how longwill it be before they get rid of live musiciansaltogether?”

THE FADING LINE BETWEENBROADWAY AND REGIONAL THEATERTheatergoers may think they are seeingBroadway shows when they buy tickets for“The Invention of Love” at the LyceumTheatre, “Contact” at the Vivian Beaumont or“Betrayal” at the American Airlines Theatre.They’re advertised as Broadway shows, andthey can be nominated for Tony Awards.

But Harry Weintraub, legal counsel for theLeague of Resident Theatres (LORT), the tradeassociation representing 75 major regionalcompanies, gets paid to draw a finer line.“These are all LORT houses. It is not helpful tocall them Broadway houses. Commercial playsare not produced in them. To call themBroadway would betray a certain understand-ing of what they do. They are Tony-eligiblehouses, but that is a marketing issue and not alabor issue.”

Weintraub is adamant because there’s sig-nificant money at stake. Equity actors atLORT theaters make a minimum of $500 to$725 per week depending on the size of thetheater, compared with $1,252 on Broadwayfor “production scale.” Although most peoplethink of LORT houses as operating in placeslike San Diego, Cleveland and Seattle, threesuch theaters operate in New York: LincolnCenter, the Roundabout and Theatre for aNew Audience. Two of those, Lincoln Centerand the Roundabout, operate in their owntheaters, located within what is known as theBroadway Box. A fourth will be added whenthe Manhattan Theatre Club, which is reno-vating the Biltmore Theatre, becomes a LORTmember.

Weintraub’s distinctions, however, don’tmollify Alan Eisenberg as he pleads his case forEquity’s 40,000 members. “Our mission is tomake things easy, but we don’t want to get[expletive] in the process. Our main concern,

Do

llars

an

d C

ents

Wonderful Town

52

The virtual pit

orchestra is

but one of the

multimedia

gadgets that

producers are

considering to

juice up the

theatrical

experience

and cut costs.

Do

llars and

Cen

ts

National Arts Journalism Program

53

each member of the company]. Is that fair? Theproducers are doing inexpensive research anddevelopment, but what are the artists gettingout of it? The producers will say, ‘They’re get-ting a job.’ We need to recast the artist as a par-ticipant in the creative process, not ‘labor.’ Isometimes think it was the worst thing foractors to have formed a union in 1913 and for-ever be branded as ‘labor.’ The LORT theaterswhere many of these shows started are getting aroyalty. I don’t understand why the cast as aunit cannot get 1 percent of the royalties.”

Weintraub, on the other hand, warnsthat if commercial producers are further dis-couraged from bringing new shows and risk-taking revivals from LORT theaters to com-mercial houses, Broadway will be a lessinteresting place and fewer jobs will be avail-able. “We treat the Broadway box as somekind of holy place. It’s a very large district,and it would be healthier if there were amosaic of theatrical productions in it and notjust commercially developed shows. Buteveryone wants you to play by their little setof rules, so we see the commercial producersdragging every musical revival out of the clos-et, no matter how bad. Meanwhile, Equitykeeps beating its tom-tom about employmentin the Broadway district.”

WHO OWNS STAGE DIRECTIONS? Money and working conditions are not thecentral concerns for the Society of StageDirectors and Choreographers, whose mem-bers by most estimates are sufficiently com-pensated. But a conflict looms over a complexset of issues involving intellectual rights.Though the SSDC is a union, executive direc-tor Barbara Hauptman said the situation iscomplicated “by the fact that directors and

our only concern, is: ‘What’s the fair share forthe artist?’” To Eisenberg, “A show that isTony-eligible is a Broadway show, and theactors in it should be paid at production scale.”

Particularly contentious are shows pro-duced by a LORT theater in a venue that istraditionally considered a commercial site,such as Lincoln Center’s “Invention of Love”at the Lyceum and Roundabout’s “Follies” atthe Belasco.

“The LORT houses that operate insidethe Broadway box do things that no commer-cial producer would do,” Weintraub said.“Look at Roundabout, doing ‘Follies’ in theBelasco. That would be insane for a commer-cial producer because it’s not a very big theater[1,018 seats] and it’s located on the easternfringes. But for artistic reasons, that was wherethey wanted do the show, which is set in adilapidated theater. If the Roundabout weretreated like a commercial theater, it would goout of business.”

Another thorny issue arises when a showtransfers from a LORT theater into a com-mercial house, and not just when the nonprof-it resident theater is in New York. More fre-quently, shows are coming in from regionalhouses in Chicago, San Diego and Houston.Recent transfers from LORT theaters toBroadway include “The Full Monty” (SanDiego’s Old Globe Theatre) and “One FlewOver the Cuckoo’s Nest” (Chicago’sSteppenwolf ). Generally speaking, actors get araise when a show makes such a move, butEisenberg would like to see actors getting agreater share in the profits at a commercialhouse for their cheaper work early on.

“Is the artist entitled to anything when yougo from LORT to Broadway?” Eisenberg askedrhetorically. “Now, there’s a $1,000 bonus [for

INSIGHTS FROM THE CONFERENCE

“All small cultural organizations are extremely vulnerable. Income in the late 1990s rose 24 per-

cent for the largest groups, but fell 12 percent for the smallest.” - Randall Bourscheidt, president,

Alliance for the Arts

INSIGHTS FROM THE CONFERENCE

choreographers are contractors, employees androyalty participants. Our members own theproperty rights to the material.”

Stickier still is the union’s claim that adirector’s staging is protected in the samemanner as are a writer’s words. The mostfamous case involves a 1996 production of“Love! Valour! Compassion!” in Boca Raton,Fla. A non-union director essentially replicat-ed SSDC member Joe Mantello’s originalBroadway stage directions. The non-uniondirector went so far as to come to New Yorkand measure the Broadway stage and settings.The union sued. “This whole thing has causeda huge controversy between us and theDramatists Guild,” Hauptman said.

The question is this: Do the stage direc-tions, which traditionally are written down bythe stage manager and often published in thescript used by regional and amateur theaters,belong to the director or the playwright? “Theguild believes that anything done in a produc-tion ultimately belongs to the playwright,”Hauptman said. “The director may add to orfacilitate, but that work only enriches the play,and that belongs to the playwright. We havenever said we want to copyright, ‘Enter stageright,’ or ‘Exit stage left.’ But we do want toprotect the rights of our members.”

Stephen Sultan is president of DramatistsPlay Service, whose profits are equally sharedby the Dramatists Guild and agents represent-ing writers. He disagrees with Hauptman. “Ithink it is fair to say the playwrights are thecopyright holders,” Sultan said. “Directorshold no copyright on stage direction.Sometimes, but by no means always, a direc-tor will get a financial end for stage directions,but that is really up to the writer to decide.That’s why writers still come to work in thetheater. In the theater, writers control thebusiness. They sell the rights.”

Hauptman is forced to agree, to a point.“This is still a playwright’s business and not adirector’s. ‘Death of a Salesman’ is billed as an

Arthur Miller play, not a Robert Falls play.And that is the way it should be. But we arestarting to see changes.” In one such example,playwright Paula Vogel liked Mantello’s direc-tion of “The Mineola Twins” so much that shegave him 5 percent of all royalties to put hisstage directions in the published script.

Might we see directors and choreogra-phers demanding rights for their work?Intellectual property law is a mushroomingarea of litigation, in the arts and elsewhere. Asjudicial precedents are set, directors and cho-reographers may begin to press their casesmore vigorously.

LOOMING TENSIONSThese are three of labor’s more contentiousissues, but others emerge from time to time.Two reforms Equity has pushed for recentlyare increased health insurance for union mem-bers (coordinated through the Actors’ Fund,but with insufficient support from producers,according to Eisenberg of Equity) and theexpansion of Internal Revenue Service taxdeductions for actors. On the other hand,some playwrights would like to see a relax-ation of Equity’s Showcase Code restrictionsthat enable union actors to work non-unionproductions for free but restrict the length ofthe production’s run.

Clearly, as costs and profit pressuresincrease, and as technological innovationsbecome a more prominent part of the theatri-cal experience, some of the theater unions—particularly Actors’ Equity—will be forced tomake an unpleasant choice: make concessions,or cease to exist in their current form.Meanwhile, if producers continue to rely moreand more heavily on cost-cutting technologi-cal enhancements, they may have a difficulttime justifying the adjective in the League’s“Live Broadway” advertising slogan. Withoutsome compromises, live theater could becomea threatened commodity instead of one ofNew York’s biggest bragging points. ■

Do

llars

an

d C

ents

Wonderful Town

54

Some of the

theater unions

will be forced

to make an

unpleasant

choice: make

concessions,

or cease to

exist in their

current form.

ADVERTISING: A MUST, BUT A COSTLY ONE

Advertising expenses usually constituteabout one-fourth of a production’s weekly oper-ating costs, and a slightly lower percentage ofpre-opening expenses. For a major Broadwayshow, that one-fourth can equal a million-dollarmultimedia campaign. For an off-off-Broadwayproduction, it often buys little more than a fewhundred flyers, postcards and stamps.

The link between advertising and atten-dance is not iron-clad. Broadway musicalaudiences are more likely to be influenced byword of mouth than by advertisements, whilestraight-play audiences are more swayed byreviews. But one-third of musical attendeescite advertisements as the decisive factor intheir attendance. So do one-fifth of straight-play attendees.1

Ever since the landmark television pitchfor Bob Fosse’s “Pippin” in the mid-1970s,advertising on the small screen has trans-formed the profile of Broadway. On TV, audi-ences—especially suburbanites whom theindustry had trouble reaching by more tradi-tional means—could get an advance taste ofwhat their ticket money would buy. But theconsiderable financial costs of TV advertisinghave helped push Broadway budgets skyward.

These days, television is by far the mostinfluential advertising medium for musicals.(Straight plays, with their lower budgets andvisuals that play more poorly on screen, relyfar less on it.) Television has been especiallyuseful in luring occasional theatergoers, as dis-tinct from cognoscenti. As a result of thatbroader geographic and demographic reach,the biggest hits have been able to extend theirruns almost indefinitely. “A 17-year run for‘Cats’ would have been unthinkable in the1950s,” said Nancy Coyne, head of the theateradvertising firm Serino/Coyne.

Broadway’s audience within the past gener-ation has increasingly come from beyond theNew York metropolitan area. Since Sept. 11,though, the balance has shifted back toward

Do

llars and

Cen

ts

National Arts Journalism Program

55

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Playbill (3.6%)

Travel agents/brokers (4.1%)

Internet (4.7%)

To see a star (6.7%)

Articles/stories (8.1%)

Author/composer (8.3%)

Saw show before (13.2%)

Tony Awards (13.6%)

Reviews (15.8%)

Discounts/deals (18.5%)

ADVERTISEMENTS (32.6%)

Personal recommendation (33.8%)

Audience for Broadway Musicals

Playbill (2.7%)

Television interview (3.6%)

Internet (4.1%)

Saw show before (9%)

Articles/stories (13%)

Author/composer (18.8%)

Tony Awards (19.1%)

ADVERTISEMENTS (19.8%)

Personal recommendation (23.6%)

Discounts/deals (23.9%)

To see a star (27.9%)

Reviews (34.3%)

Audience for Broadway Plays

(percent) (multiple responses)

2000 data. Source: League of American Theatres and Producers

WHY DO THEY BUY?FACTORS INFLUENCING THE DECISION TO SEE A SHOW

local audiences, prompting an increase in local-ly oriented advertising media such as billboards.

But even before the attack, television wasno longer seen as a cure-all. Along with out-door advertising such as “billboard buses,”radio advertising has reasserted its importance.“Theater and radio have much more in com-mon as art forms than theater and television,”Coyne explained. “Radio forces you to imag-ine. You supply the sets and the costumes.When you do that with a good radio spot,you’re somewhat hooked.”

Advertising’s influence wanes as the size ofa production declines. Off-Broadway audiencesare nearly one-third less influenced by advertis-ing than Broadway audiences.2 The reasons forthis are numerous. A large percentage of off-Broadway audiences are subscribers, whose tick-ets are bought months in advance. And themat-ically, off-Broadway shows often resist the easycategorization necessary in a 30-second spot.

While Broadway shows can reap discountsby buying display advertising in bulk, smallshows are effectively locked out of televisionbecause of the prohibitive costs of productionand airtime (though local cable outlets such asNY1 are an option for larger off-Broadwaycompanies). Small theater companies that relyon contributed income may find advertisingand promotion a hard sell to funders whowould prefer that their money go directlytoward “the art.” And the success of theater adsdepends not only on their reach, but on theirfrequency. Sustained exposure—what GeorgeWachtel, president of Audience Research &Analysis, calls “maintenance advertising”—canbe prohibitively expensive.

These economy-of-scale issues tend tosqueeze mid-sized theater companies most.While smaller companies can effectively usegrassroots strategies to build audiences, com-mercial off-Broadway productions often chasethe same audiences as Broadway shows. “Wehave to do advertising—whether it’s print, ortelevision to the extent that we can do that—at the same level as, and competing with, theBroadway shows,” off-Broadway producer

Tony Converse pointed out. “The show that’sin a 299-seat house, and that’s grossing$50,000 to $70,000 a week, costs just asmuch to get its message out as a show in aBroadway house grossing $300,000 to$400,000 a week.”

Off-Broadway and straight-playBroadway’s biggest advertising medium, by far,is print. Not surprisingly, The New York Timesdominates that segment. Most non-Times printspending goes not to other dailies, but to TimeOut New York or the Village Voice. OneBroadway straight play we surveyed3 spent wellover half its $400,000 advertising budget onThe Times. Another surveyed show, producedby an off-Broadway nonprofit, spent morethan $22,000 of its $32,000 ad budget on TheTimes, with most of that $22,000 paying forinclusion in the thumbnail Theater Directoryads known as the ABCs.

Although many readers mistakenlyassume that the ABCs are free listings, theycost a minimum of $2,000 a week for a dailypresence. And off-Broadway productions paythe same per-line rates for them as Broadwayshows. (Productions in theaters 199 seats orsmaller receive discounts of 4 to 15 percent,but few companies advertising shows of thatsize can afford the ABCs.) The Times doespublish editorial listings on Fridays andSundays, but these are extremely selective andcan seem arbitrary; small companies cannotcount on them.

The most important advertising-relateddecision for small to mid-sized companies iswhether to buy a presence in the ABCs.Patricia Taylor, managing director of the off-Broadway Women’s Project & Productionscompany, has mixed feelings on the subject,but said she finally decided that her audiencedoes look in The Times for information on thecompany’s productions. The off-off-BroadwayArtistic New Directions theater company, onthe other hand, has generally decided againstpaying for a listing. The company bought anABC for its recent one-woman show, “BuonNatale, Bruno,” but only because the lead

Do

llars

an

d C

ents

Wonderful Town

56

Commercial

off-Broadway

productions

often chase

the same

audiences as

Broadway

shows.

actress paid for it out of her own pocket. “Ididn’t feel that it was a good idea,” saidKristine Niven, the company’s artistic produc-ing director. “I don’t think it’s our audience.”

Off-Broadway’s marketing difficultieshave been exacerbated since the Sept. 11attack. Companies producing shows last fallhad to get the word out not only that theirproductions were worth seeing, but that theirtheaters were safe. “When we reopened afterSept. 11, we were at 5 percent [of full capaci-ty],” said Erik Sniedze, associate producer forthe Flea Theater seven blocks north ofGround Zero. “We would have decent reserva-tions, and then all of a sudden the front pageof the Post would call this area a toxic zone.”

A big blow to the exposure of small the-ater companies has been the recent tighteningof magazine and newspaper entertainment-listings sections. New York magazine, theVillage Voice and others have reduced theamount of space designated to listings as aresult of belt-tightening in the newspaperbusiness, which was well underway beforeSept. 11. “We tend to lose column space regu-larly every week,” Village Voice listings editorJose Germosen said, adding that recently thepaper’s listings have seen a 10 to 15 percentcut. And the situation is likely to get worse.

Small theater companies, especially, lookfor exposure from theater Web sites such asNytheatre, Offoffoff and CurtainUp, which

run free listings and reviews by readers as wellas by critics. “We did have incredible success[online] when we did ‘Gum’ with DaphneRubin-Vega,” said Taylor of the Women’sProject. “So much discussion was happeningonline because of our play. It was the begin-ning of seeing how it could be done on agrassroots level.”

For smaller companies, maintaining acompany Web site can be invaluable. SteveKeim of the Perkasie Theatre Company said30 percent of his audience can be attributed toonline traffic. And there are practical benefits.“You can be selling tickets or advertising yourshow when you don’t have staff on,” said BethEmelson, producing director of the AtlanticTheater Company.

But marketers of large productions areless interested in plunging tremendousresources into the Internet. They’d ratherdirect buyers to a Web site operated by a tick-et seller. “Everybody says, ‘We need a Website!’” Coyne of Serino/Coyne said. “I say tothem, ‘No, you don’t. You need Ticketmaster’sWeb site.’ You don’t want to educate the audi-ence [online]. You want to sell them tickets.” ■

1 “Who Goes to Broadway 1999-2000,” League of AmericanTheatres and Producers, 2001.2 “The Audience for New York Theatre,” Audience Research& Analysis, commissioned by the Theatre Development Fundand the League of American Theatres and Producers, 1998.3 The productions are cited anonymously.

Do

llars and

Cen

ts

National Arts Journalism Program

57

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Off-Broadway

Broadway

Flyer/handbillsSubway/railroad posters

Bus postersRadio commercialsOutdoor signs/posters

TV commercialsMagazinesNewspapers

(28%)

(19.6%)

(23.8%)

(15.5%)(16.7%)

(4%)

(13.4%)

(3.3%)

(8%)

(2.6%)

(6%)

(1.2%)

(3.7%)

(.7%)

(2.9%) (3%)

WHAT DRAWS THE CROWDS?HOW AUDIENCES LEARN ABOUT SHOWS, BROADWAY VS. OFF-BROADWAY

Source: Theatre Development Fund

Do

llars

an

d C

ents

Wonderful Town

58

COMMERCIAL

OFF-BROADWAY

NON-PROFIT

OFF-BROADWAY

BROADWAY

Do

llars and

Cen

ts

National Arts Journalism Program

59

LEARNING TO READ THE ABCs

THE NEW YORK TIMES’ “Theater Directory” is a daily institution, theplace where a casual theatergoer is most likely to take account of thecity’s theatrical offerings. The Theater Directory at left, from theSunday, Nov. 18, 2001 Arts & Leisure section, lists 32 Broadwayshows, 46 off-Broadway shows and five Limited Engagements.

But while this Directory may appear to be a comprehensive repre-sentation of the theater slate, it’s actually an advertisement, a detail thatcan be inferred but is never explicitly mentioned (its ad status is indicat-ed typographically with a double black line above the copy, as on otherTimes ads). The paid listings cost each production a minimum of $360on a Sunday and $1,950 for a full week, and do not include one-thirdof the 65 off-Broadway productions up at that time (according to theNov. 15 issue of Time Out New York, whose listings aim toward com-prehensiveness) or any of the 57 off-off-Broadway productions.

COMMERCIAL PRODUCTIONS DOMINATE OFF-BROADWAYWhen considering the various niches of the theater industry, it is easy toadopt a “big-guy/little-guy” dichotomy, with the commercial jugger-nauts of Broadway on one side and the nonprofits of off- and off-offBroadway on the other. This neglects an important niche: that of com-mercial off-Broadway productions. On the week in question, listings forcommercial off-Broadway productions (28) outnumbered nonprofits(15) by a margin of nearly two to one.

Our sample directory suggests that today’s off-Broadway is less ahaven for “straight plays” that used to be standard Broadway fare than amottled mix of traditional productions and offbeat crowd-pleasers.These include cabarets (“Our Sinatra”), drag shows (“Dragapella”), illu-sionists (“Criss Angel Mindfreak”), multi-genre performance forms(“Blue Man Group,” “De La Guarda”) and humorous bodily manipula-tion (“Puppetry of the Penis”). ■