An audience at Denver Center Theatre Company. (Josh Gold Photography)
It’s no secret that the nation’s resident theatres didn’t exactly come out of the pandemic lockdown like a lion, roaring at full volume. More like an injured cat with a muted meow. With Covid-related closures and cancellations hardly in the rearview mirror, several theatres have been forced to pause or shutter. Multiple articles have since been written (including by this magazine) that seem to portend the imminent demise of regional theatre.
But precarity and contraction aren’t the whole story. All over the country, there are signs of life. In Theatre Communication Group’s 2023 Compounding Crises survey, 7.6 percent of the 171 respondents said they were “thriving,” while another 54 percent said they were “holding steady” or “improving.”
“Our programming is very diverse—we attract a lot of different communities,” said José Luis Valenzuela, artistic director for Los Angeles’s Latino Theater Company, which has seen attendance tick up since reopening last season. “For some reason I feel like, after the reboot, these particular groups feel like they need to go out and be in community. They want to sit with people.”
No theatre leader will tell you it has been an easy road. Nonprofit companies are rarely if ever able to support the costs of production solely with box office receipts. They must attract both audiences and contributions while limiting costs. All of these were difficult after reopening, as theatres faced audience decline, increased labor and material costs, and a shift in major funders’ priorities away from theatre. Government relief was helpful, but often not enough to completely fill the budgetary gaps—and it dried up with the end of lockdown. New strategies were going to be necessary to weather the challenges.
“The one thing I think we learned at the start of the reboot was that, at least for us, what historically worked before wasn’t going to work going forward,” said Mike Schleifer, managing director of Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre. “What was much less clear was what the heck was gonna work.”
Indeed, there has been no single path forward. Theatre executives stress that regional theatres are by definition hyperlocal, and that their fortunes don’t correlate only with the particular city or town or region where they’re located, but to each theatre’s place within the arts ecosystem of a given city, town, or region. On balance, theatres that were able to return to live programming earlier than others tend to be doing better now. Likewise, those that have resident theatre companies seem to have stronger audience support. These trends, though, are of little help to other struggling theatres.
Giving the Audience What It Wants
Unquestionably, a key part of the regional theatre recipe for success has to be getting people to attend. That involves both trying to entice former theatregoers to return and attracting newbies. Theatre is made for an audience.
“I went to theatre when I was young and I know how much it impacted how I thought of things,” said 62-year-old Marisa Dohring, a frequent attendee at Denver Center for the Performing Arts, which has remained in the black. “My husband and I go to the Broadway tours, but we also go to the new plays, because I want to support the work done by people here in the place where our kids grew up.”
In addition to nonprofit theatres’ stated missions, which involve the public good and often hard-to-measure social impact, there is a practical reason for packing houses. Even those that draw a negligible percentage of their overall revenue from ticket sales know that audiences help fuel the donations that keep them afloat. What all theatres have been struggling with in the past few years is how to attract and maintain those audiences. The strategies they’re employing are as different as the companies themselves.
Some companies believe they need to lean into traditional, well-known titles. That has indeed been one overwhelming national narrative. Many theatres have reported that their annual production of A Christmas Carol has been selling better than ever, even pre-pandemic. Some companies cite internal surveys indicating that their audience wants familiar, feel-good fare. With multiple executives noting the widening gap between box-office hits and misses, there is a reluctance to go out on a limb.
Jobsite Theater, the company in residence at Tampa, Fla.’s Straz Center for the Performing Arts, had a tough 2021-22 season, with some lesser-known work struggling tremendously at the box office. Even with an operating budget well under $1 million, the theatre was in trouble. But rather than contract, as many others have done, Jobsite leaned into popular fare in 2022-23, including productions of Dracula, Hamlet, and LIZZIE: The Musical (a previous Jobsite hit).
“During the pandemic, we started polling people,” Jobsite producing artistic director David M. Jenkins explained. “The feedback was really overwhelming, and not surprising. I’m not surprised that people are turned off by material that they can write off as identity politics-driven, ripped from the headlines, heavy, overly political, depressing. As a human being and as an artistic leader, of course I can wag a finger—I can say a lot of things. But we’re not gonna necessarily change people’s minds on things like that overnight. As an artistic leader, I can’t take my mission out on the back of my artists.”
Jenkins said he did not consider this path “selling out,” because the titles selected were “aesthetically in the vein of” the theatre. And he wants Jobsite to survive to program another day. Still, the choices that are right for Jobsite, given its place in the larger Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg cultural scene, are not necessarily right for another place.
Rio Alberto, director of marketing and engagement at the Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, Alaska, said his team believed the way forward was through “finding ways to connect with the stewards of your land” and presenting more work by diverse artists. In Alberto’s opinion, doing anything else is “lazy.” This year’s season at Perseverance has included the local premiere of Paula Vogel’s Indecent, as well as Madhuri Shekar’s A Nice Indian Boy and a hit staging of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
While many theatres are not about to abandon well-known titles by established authors, even at larger ones there is discussion about a more expansive definition of form. Susan V. Booth, who took over as artistic director of Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in 2022 after leading the Alliance out of pandemic lockdown, said she believes that part of what is keeping the Goodman financially sustainable is not having “a definition of theatre that is ossified. We have a deliberately all-over-the-map aesthetic of titles. It helps to be elastic with your definition of what constitutes theatre.”
So, yes, the Goodman has done classics such as The Cherry Orchard and well-known musicals like Tommy since reopening. But it has also opened a magic parlor and presented Jeff Colangelo and Christopher Llewyn Ramirez’s Lucha Teotl, which turned the Goodman into a professional wrestling arena. According to Booth, 60 percent of the people who bought single tickets to Lucha Teotl had never been to the Goodman before.
But attendance is about more than just show selection. As audience members have gotten out of the habit of theatregoing and at-home streaming options have increased, connections with local communities have become even more important.
Increasing Engagement
Artistic directors told me they are leaning into their mission by listening to their community more than ever. Instead of picking shows and trying to find the audience, many say they are letting their community effectively lead their choices. But these days engagement can mean something more specific: an increased reliance on community partnerships and word of mouth.
Los Angeles’s Latino Theater Company has partnered with local community colleges and is teaching in association with them. Students who enroll in their Latino Theater classes are given free tickets to shows, and Valenzuela is finding that some of those students are also buying tickets as a show of support.
“We do plays for our community,” Valenzuela said. “We offer very low-price tickets—we understand this is for very specific communities, and they would just not pay $100 a ticket. We use artists in our community, in terms of writers, actors, designers, anyone, and in any way we can. That doesn’t mean you need to always get a play from where you are—you may get a play from anywhere. But when we produce it, we produce it with the artistic community that exists where we are. Then it grows.”
Using local artists has the additional benefit of cost savings, but for Valenzuela, it’s not about that—it’s about engagement in the diverse city that is Los Angeles. Last fall Latino Theater Co. and East West Players did a new play, Joel Ulloa’s Tacos La Brooklyn, which had English, Spanish, and Japanese dialogue and was a huge hit for the company, building increased ticket sales with diverse audiences based on word of mouth.
Administrators spoke of partnerships with local civic groups, teachers’ associations, and public defenders. They spoke of free preview tickets to members of certain groups and pay-what-you-can preview nights. The idea is that if you establish that your theatre is there for the community, members of that community will show up, and tell others to come too.
Detroit Public Theatre, which used to reside in a rented space at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra but opened its own venue in 2022, has grown, both in terms of attendance and revenue, since the pandemic. A fairly young company (now in its ninth season) that doesn’t do a season of big-name titles, it could not rely on a brand or a large endowment but had to trust in its community to carry it through.
“We have a very personal connection with our audience,” said Sarah Clare Corporandy, one of Detroit Public’s three producing artistic directors, along with Courtney Burkett and Sarah Winkler (playwright Dominique Morisseau serves as executive artistic producer). “The founders are there at every show. We really know our audience; a lot of team members mingle and really make the space feel like a community space.”
That connection is not lip service; it really does drive attendance. Christopher Wirth, a 45-year-old Detroit Public subscriber, said that after the post-lockdown reopening there was “definitely a ‘support them’ vibe that would force us to go versus not go.” Wirth brings his 70-year-old mother, who lives just outside the city, and considers it an event for the two of them.
When asked why Santa Cruz Shakespeare, which produces in an outdoor space, is reporting record-breaking attendance, artistic director Charles Pasternak first lists the community’s “deep ownership over the theatre” before pivoting to how his organization strives to make theatregoing feel like an event. The company encourages audience members to have picnics with neighbors before a show, so the theatre feels integral to city life, Pasternak believes. With an operating budget in the $2.5 million range, they have a projected deficit of $30,000-50,000 this year, but Pasternak trusts in the people of Santa Cruz to lead the company to sustainability.
For organizations that do not already play that role in their community, there’s no magic bullet for how to get there, other than through intensified outreach. One theatre leader spoke of giving out tickets to hospitality workers in hopes that they would recommend shows to patrons they work with. Another spoke of holding a listening day where people received a free drink in return for a show suggestion.
Some of these initiatives are working. Around the country—not just on Broadway—people are going to the theatre. Audiences old and new are connecting with programming both familiar and strange. It’s true that a number of theatres are indeed struggling with attendance levels. But in fact that part of the equation isn’t as dire as the think pieces would lead one to believe. The issues theatres face now are more fundamental than simply flagging or fluctuating attendance—which is why there’s still a push to change the business model that many organizations have operated under for decades.
New Paths Forward
Some theatres are increasing venue rental and concession sales. Some are using dynamic pricing more than ever: For example, Jenkins said Jobsite’s top ticket prices can jump from $45 to $74.50 for the most popular productions. Some theatres are being more flexible with their marketing and advertising; instead of trying to prop up shows that are not doing well, they’re pushing their more popular shows with greater intensity, hoping these productions catch fire (and presumably subsidize future risk taking). Across the board, there is a desire to change things up.
One particular trend stands out: an increased focus on education. The Alliance is one of the theatres that has seen an influx in cash from camps, classes, and Theatre for Young Audiences shows. Indeed the theatre is building a new space just for TYA programming, which will enable it to either do additional programming or rent its other spaces while TYA programming is ongoing.
“Working in the education space is such a bullseye on the mission,” Schleifer said. “It is such a path to our sustainability. When I find that people are cutting their education programs to try to save money, I don’t think they’re trying hard enough to figure out how to monetize working the education space.”
The Alliance has an operating budget of around $25 million and is still operating at a slight deficit, though it is presenting fewer shows post-reopening than it used to and hopes to be in the black soon.
Educational programming has an added benefit beyond direct revenue: It opens up new funding channels. There are government grants for education programs, and private foundations have designated funds that become available. Additionally, some donors who might not be inclined to directly sponsor shows might be more than happy to fund a scholarship for a child to attend a theatre class.
The scramble for sources of funding post-reopening has become particularly acute. Outside funding has always been, and will continue to be, a necessary part of the nonprofit landscape. Some major foundations are no longer funding the arts, so many organizations can’t go back to the same wells. Administrators have cut back on production budgets, reduced programming, slashed staffing, and taken other cost-saving measures short of closure. No line-item cuts will make up the difference.
“There are a number of theatres that are in serious debt, and you can’t earn your way out of those situations,” said Dean R. Gladden, managing director of Houston’s Alley Theatre. “You have to do a campaign to raise funds to get you out of whatever situation, but what I would say to people is: Build a campaign that doesn’t just fix your immediate problems. You need to do a campaign that’s large enough to address future problems; you need to build up reserves.”
The Alley has seen sky-high attendance for its A Christmas Carol and its Summer Chills productions, suspenseful entries it offers each season. But the resident ensemble theatre company, with an operating budget of $23 million, still struggled to get audiences back for most of its regular season offerings. It is in the black solely because its fundraising has been so effective: The Alley has raised $67 million (bolstered by a $25 million anonymous matching donation) of an $80 million capital campaign it launched shortly after it was severely damaged as a result of Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
Gladden pointed out that it isn’t corporations that have seen them through—corporate gifts never recovered from the huge drop in the oil market that began in 2014. The theatre’s relative health has been down to two key factors: It has been fortunate not to have lost much foundation support, and, more significantly, it has seen great fundraising gains among board members and individuals close to the institution. These are a part of the Alley’s community, and turning to them in a time of need has been a success.
Other nonprofits are looking to corporations, where they’re seeking not donations but sponsorships, and they say they’ve had better luck reaching out to the marketing arm of corporations, as opposed to the philanthropic arm. While the people involved in charitable giving may believe other causes are more important than theatre, marketing folks see it as a branding opportunity—a way to use charitable giving for advertising.
Many development professionals are hitting up government agencies. They aren’t so much looking for additional direct funding for the arts, as that issue may be politicized, as they are taking other approaches. Sometimes this involves education-related programs; other times there might be a criminal justice angle, or a pitch related to downtown revitalization. Theatres are getting creative with more than their work onstage. They’ve always existed to serve their community; now they are getting better at explaining their initiatives to a wider array of people.
Bottom line: There is no one-size-fits-all solution. It’s not all bad news out there for theatre in the U.S. It just may take a lot of effort, and some serious rethinking, to figure out what will work for each organization. Theatre executives know the importance of their work to communities and to the culture, and they are fighting for it—not only to save their jobs, but to preserve and increase their theatres’ impact on their cities, towns, and regions, and for all the people on all sides of the aisle who need the arts to grow and flourish.
“I think there was a tendency for us all to be a bit template-driven with the work that we do,” said Booth. “In the same way that if an artist in the middle of rehearsal makes a realization about the work that they’re doing and suddenly something needs to shift, we need to figure out how to shift. We need to be nimble.”
Cara Joy David (she/her) is a freelance entertainment journalist who has written for major newspapers and magazines throughout the world. She is also the industry editor of BroadwayWorld, where she writes Industry Trends Weekly and special features.
