As the National Theatre’s now annual Travelex £10 season has proved, the most effective way of getting people back into the theatregoing habit is to make it more financially accessible. With tickets available at the equivalent of a West End movie price, people are more willing to take a chance; when you’re spending £50 or the new £55 that musicals are now charging, by contrast, you want the risk removed, and a guarantee that your money will be well spent.
New York – which has long overpriced its product, but had lead to a bargain-basement mentality instead being paradoxically developed, with all but the biggest hits piling their unsold tickets up high and selling them cheap in a mind-boggling array of offers that are put out – is now catching on.
Signature Theatre Company – whose signature is that they devote entire seasons to the work of a single playwright – will next year offer a three-play repertoire of plays of the late August Wilson, to mark the company’s own 15th anniversary. Thanks to a sponsorship deal it has struck with Time Warner, Inc, it is going to offer every seat at every show for just $15. Now there’s a cause for celebration!
Each of the plays being done was previously seen on Broadway, but had disconcertingly short runs: Two Trains Running (160 performances in 1992), Seven Guitars (188 performances in 1996) and King Hedley II (72 performances in 2001). Price resistance certainly played a large part in those short runs; but now the plays are being brought back at prices that anyone can afford.
