what exactly makes theatre so inaccessible?
I’ve written before about how theatre has made itself inaccessible over the years. I argued that the main reason for this is because tickets are too expensive, especially for mega-hits like your Hamiltons, or the Hadestowns and Dear Evan Hansens out there. And generally speaking, it’s true: with the average price of a Broadway ticket sitting at about $120, a Broadway show is an expensive night out. That said, there’s other factors at work that we can try to unpack and work towards some kind of solution.
BATTLE OF THE BOTS
It might seem obvious that one of the biggest reasons theatre tickets are so expensive is because theatre costs a lot of money to make. While that’s certainly true, there’s more at work here that makes things difficult for everyone.
Has this ever happened to you? You get in a virtual queue to get tickets to that concert as soon as they go on sale online, but they sell out almost as soon as they go on sale. Then you try and look on a StubHub, SeatGeek, or even TicketMaster’s resale page, only to find those tickets being sold at 3 times the price, sometimes more? You can (usually) blame bots for that. These bots bypass the ticket broker’s security measures to skip the virtual line and buy a bulk of the available tickets, only to re-sell them at exorbitant rates. This is at least part of the reason why tickets to Hamilton have exceeded $1,000 at various points since it opened on Broadway- other than its massive popularity, of course. Many close to the industry continue to call out this issue that goes beyond just Broadway, and in 2016 Congress actually passed the BOTS Act in an attempt to crack down on the practice. However, while the law helps in theory, in practice it’s actually harder to enforce in a macro sense than it lets on. As this 2017 article points out in reflecting on a year since the law’s passing, it’s as much the job of the law to deter people from using bots as it is the job of the venues and ticket brokers to recognize when it’s happening and report and stop it.
BUT WHAT ABOUT PRO-SHOTS?
I’ve gone on about how valuable and important pro-shots are to the theatre community. After all, how many people watched Hamilton on Disney+, knowing it’s probably the only way they’re going to get to see it? Even the modest success of live telecasts of shows like Hairspray, The Sound of Music, and Jesus Christ Superstar show that there’s at least some desire by the general public to see shows like this, even if it’s on the screen rather than the stage. That said, part of the reason telecasts like that can even exist at all is because they are produced by major networks like NBC who, frankly, tend to have a lot of money, and don’t necessarily have to worry about losing that money the way a Broadway producer might if a show ends up not doing well.
It should be no surprise that pro-shots or live telecasts can be really expensive, and that’s a big reason why many producers are wary to put their show on film. That, and the fear that if people watch their show on film, they might be less likely to see the show live, ultimately hurting ticket sales. As New York Times reporter Elisabeth Vincentelli states in a piece she wrote earlier this year, these shows finance any filming themselves, and most shows generally can’t afford a setup like that.
THE TOFT ARCHIVE IS IMPORTANT. IT DOESN’T WORK THE WAY YOU WANT/THINK
What if I told you there was a place inside the New York Public Library that has thousands of theatrical recordings, all to view for free? It’s true, it exists: but it isn’t that easy as just walking up to the circulation desk and asking to check out the DVD of that show you want to see.
The Theatre on Film and Tape (TOFT) Archive has worked to preserve thousands of theatre productions from both on and off-Broadway for the last 40 years. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know much about the Archive’s history until I ran across this Twitter thread from musical theatre historian Margaret Hall; I recommend reading the thread in full (it’s actually very fascinating), but here are the key takeaways.
Betty Corwin, the founder of the archive, had to work incredibly hard with the multiple theatre unions to negotiate contracts and make sure everyone was happy with how the process worked. Essentially, what they landed on was this: the shows could be recorded by Corwin and her team, but the recordings needed to be kept in a single location with a strict log to track who wanted to see what. They do this by requiring those who want to view anything in the Archive to have a New York Public Library Card (free to residents and visitors alike), an appointment, and a seemingly legitimate reason to want to view the recording (research, etc).
Essentially, as Hall mentions in her thread, the Archive is less about accessibility and really all about the preservation of an artform. The Archive’s founders had to fight incredibly hard to even be formed in the first place, so it isn’t as simple as just releasing the Archive to the public. Many have begged the NYPL to release the Archive’s recordings, but as much as we may want it to, it just doesn’t work that way.
With the recent news that Broadway is staying closed down until at least May 2021, many are wondering what all this means for the theatre industry, and the live entertainment industry at large. While I hope that we will make it through, we have a long way to go and need to have a lot of tough conversations if we want come out of the other side of this.