Why Theater is Dead

Vanity | 11/11/09

[pabianice]

Short and sweet. Fidler on the Roof is playing at a small Boston theater. My wife called about tickets. Price for two midday, weekday tickets in the nose-bleed seats: $332. Plus parking ($35). No, thanks. And Broadway is crying glycerin tears over the "poor box office."

[stefanbatory]

i watched that on the Ondemand cable last night...If I were a rich man...I’d go see it live

[SJSAMPLE]

$332 per seat doesn’t sound like the theater’s dead.

[luckystarmom]

Theater is not dead; it’s alive and well in high schools around the country.

My kids are all into theater. We can’t afford to go to the professional shows, but we have a lot of fun going to the different schools around.

(However, I would love to take them to see Wicked, but we can’t afford 5 tickets to see it.)

[GeronL]

They have started putting first run movies on PPV for like $11 when released at the cinema. If that happened to all movies it could kill the movie theater. Forget the crowd.

[rabscuttle385]

American Shakespeare Center, Staunton, VA
http://www.americanshakespearecenter.com/v.php?pg=364

Romeo and Juliet, next week, no tickets priced higher than $35/seat. Oh, and the parking’s free, too.

Theater isn’t dead...at least, not in Virginia. ;)

[Dr. Sivana]

Theater is also dead because anything that isn’t recycled (e.g. Fiddler on the Roof) is mostly built around ONE song (the “Evita” model).

I blame Andrew Lloyd Webber for the death of theater.

[Puppage]

(However, I would love to take them to see Wicked, but we can’t afford 5 tickets to see it.)

And, what a great show it is. Really neat. I took my 10yo nephew over the summer. When the monkeys flew out over the audience, he freaked. You couldn't see the cables so it looked quite real.

[Dr. Sivana]

The stuff that isn’t a musical is dead because it is all existentialist post-structural gobbledy-gook. I guess I can blame Edward Albee and Tom Stoppard for that.

[FormerACLUmember]

Price for two midday, weekday tickets in the nose-bleed seats: $332. Plus parking ($35).

Toss in dinner, bottle of wine, tips, tolls, etc and you up to $600.

You can get a discount trip to Florida for the weekend for two, for that same price.

[surrey]

Orchestra seats to see “The Jersey Boys” ,on Broadway ,are nearly $400 and it’s always sold out.

[max americana]

Wicked’ was...wicked. Saw it with my Gf here in Hollywood at the Pantages. That’s as far as the theatahhh I could manage (it was a TY to my Gf who accompanied me to see Transformers LOL).

[Second Amendment First]

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The Most Powerful Union in the World

When a piano is called for,Dennis O’Connell pushes the piano on stage at Carnegie Hall. That's his job.

For Carnegie's fiscal year ended in June, for this work he was paid $530,044.

The four other members of the full-time stage crew — two carpenters and two electricians — had an average income of $430,543 during the same period, according to Carnegie Hall’s tax return.

They are all members of Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Union. In Novemebr 2007, during a strike, they shut down 26 Broadway shows for nearly three weeks. You really have to wonder how many Broadway shows were shut down early because of absurd payments made to IATSE members and how many others never got off the ground.

And you really have to wonder about the laws that exist which force theatre operators to use these shakedown artists versus grabbing some guy off the street to push the damn piano.

(ViaMarkPerry)

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2009/11/most-powerful-union-in-world.html

[MNDude]

Ouch! If I were a rich man...

[The Comedian]

That's insane.

I could hire an entire family of actual Jews to perform Fiddler in my house live for $200. $240 tops.

Or I could teach Mexicans to say "Oy vey" and have them perform it for $12.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[freedomlover]

Shameless Self Promotion (hey this is a Vanity thread)

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See http://www.myspace.com/ashleyharrismusic

CD RELEASE CONCERT at The Ragamuffin Music Hall

I am NOT the artist, just a sideman band member. Send me a Freepmail if you have questions.

[bgill]

A couple years ago, we got tickets to a concert at a theater a couple thousand miles from Broadway and it’ll be a long, long time before I shell out $$$$ for that again. I’m short but even so, my legs wouldn’t fit in the nosebleed section. But that was nothing compared to the anger I had over having to pay for an aisle usage fee. What, we were supposed to fly up there instead of walking up their precious aisle?

[fatnotlazy]

Where I live, we have a lot of local companies and we get a lot of tours. Much less money than seeing the originals in New York and some of the other major cities. And occasionally, the local performances are better too.

[ctdonath2]

Demand for Carnegie Hall is enormous. A lot of people are willing to spend extremely large amounts to use it. Dang straight someone’s going to finagle a half-million for the piano pusher; you should see the finagler’s salary...

[Walkingfeather]

Wicked was crap! As a matter of fact it, that was the show that made me decide never to see another theater production in my life. Would rather drink paint.