“Dynamic Pricing” is Broadway’s Other Method of Getting More Money Out of Ticketbuyers

Two weeks ago I did a post on the recent “shrinking” Broadway theaters, as theater owners are trying to squeeze as many seats as possible into their already-tight aisles in order to maximize ticket sales.  But it appears that this isn’t the only method the Great White Way is using to make more money: according to the New York Post, ultra-successful shows like the Drama Desk and Tony Award winning The Book of Mormon are utilizing a “dynamic pricing” model that adds over a half-dozen price raises on tickets for a variety of reasons.

Using The Book of Mormon as an example, basic ticket prices immediately shot up in price after the show won nine Tonys, jumping to $155 from $132 for regularly seats (a 17.5% increase) and premium seats “went from a range of $192 to $277 to between $302 and an eye-popping $477.”  Yikes!  The Post offers the following explanations of some of the additional fees causing the price hike:
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“The Book of Mormon” is giving away free Comic-Con tickets!

From the Press Release:

“South Park” fans attending this week’s Comic-Con at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, CA will have three chances to win a free pair of tickets to see THE BOOK OF MORMON. Enter to win at the “Ultimate South Park Fan Experience” at Comic-Con, in addition to the chance to win other merchandise prizes.  One pair will be given out daily on Thursday, July 21, Friday, July 22 and Saturday, July 23.

Fans will be transported into the world of “South Park” as they walk into the 15,000 square foot Ultimate Fan Experience located at 450 2nd Avenue (at 1st Avenue & J Street), just outside of the San Diego Convention Center. The “South Park” Year of the Fan Experience,” a free and open to the public event, commemorates the series’ 15th season. The festivities kick off with a “South Park” themed parade starting at 12:30 PM on Thursday, July 21 at 5th Avenue and K Street with the venue officially opening at 1:00 PM and running through Saturday, July 23.
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Watch: Patrick Page and the cast of “Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark” perform on Letterman

Patrick Page (Norman Osborn/Green Goblin) and the cast of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark made an appearance on CBS’ The Late Show with David Letterman the other night to perform one of the newest songs in the show, “A Freak Like Me.”

The musical number features the Goblin and the members of the Sinister Six (Carnage, Kraven the Hunter, etc).

Check it out for Page’s performance alone. I’m not sure why they gave the Green Goblin a southern accent but that aside, he’s pretty great in the role.

 

 

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“Rent” Back Off-Broadway After 15 Years

Rent, one of the most successful musicals of all-time, has returned to its off-Broadway roots. After a 12-year Broadway run from 1996 to 2008, national tours, foreign adaptations and a feature film, the show’s revival began previews last week and will officially open at New York City’s New World Stages August 11.

“I got a call about a year ago from (co-producer Jeffrey Seller) asking if I was interested in doing the show off-Broadway,” said Rent director Michael Greif, who’s other stage successes include Angels in America and Next to Normal. “I said I would participate if we could re-examine the physical production.”

The show, which actually debuted at New York Theatre Workshop in 1994, focuses on a group of impoverished young friends eking out a living in the East Village.
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Broadway’s “Memphis” is now streaming on Netflix

If you missed Broadway’s Memphis when it played in theaters, you can now catch it while sitting on your couch!

They announced it this morning via their Twitter account that the show which was filmed earlier this year is now available on to stream on Netflix.

Starring Montego Glover and Chad Kimball, the show tells the story of the underground dance clubs of 1950s Memphis, Tennessee, where a white radio DJ who wants to change the world and a black club singer who is ready for her big break.

Nathan Lane Signs on for “The Iceman Cometh”: “It’s a good time in my life to do this — I mean, if not now, when?”

When The Iceman Cometh, so will Nathan Lane. The theater star has signed on to play salesman Theodore “Hickey” Hickman in a 2012 revival of Eugene O’Neill’s classic Iceman Cometh. The play will begin its run at Chicago’s Goodman Theater next April 22-June 10.

“It’s a good time in my life to do this — I mean, if not now, when?” Lane said, according to the New York Times. “Sometimes you have to dive into the deep end. And if the show is good, I get to defy expectations for those people who seem to think I’ve been working for Ringling Brothers all these years. It’s just, for someone who has long been overly concerned with what people think, it feels very good to take on something with complex, emotional twists and turns into a play with this much darkness.”

The play, which was written in 1939 and debuted on Broadway seven years later, focuses on a group of regulars at a run-down Greenwich Village bar and the effect that hardware hawker Hickman has on their lives.

“He’s a haunting character, and there are things there that I can relate to,” Lane noted of Hickman. “And I was looking for a play that was bleaker than Waiting for Godot, and this is the only one I could find.”

Free Will: Why New York’s Shakespeare In The Park Is Free

Summer in New York City — baseball, Coney Island, sidewalk dining, and, of course, Shakespeare in the Park, a New York institution since 1962.  Despite its fame and the number of acclaimed actors and actresses who have appeared in these free performances, including Patrick Stewart, Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman, Kevin Kline, Anne Hathaway and Al Pacino, there are many people who aren’t aware that these performances are offered free of charge — though you’ll probably have to take a day off from work in order to score tickets.

But why exactly are there free performances of Shakespeare in a city that’s otherwise known for expensive theater tickets?  We have a man named Joseph Papp to thank for that.  Papp founded The Public Theater, an organization devoted to the promotion of not just Shakespeare in the Park but dozens of others of causes to help the growth of theater, particularly in New York.  Time magazine recently did a piece on the history of Shakespeare in the Park, including archive footage of Papp and new interviews with Oskar Eustis, the current Artistic Director of The Public Theater.

Check out the video below.  This year Shakespeare in the Park presents Measure for Measure and All’s Well That Ends Well in repertory, playing on alternate nights through July 30.  For more information, visit the Shakespeare in the Park website.

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One Mother’s Sacrifice For Her Son’s Acting School Dreams

She better get a huge Mother’s Day gift for this next May.

A UK mother named Anita Burns has taken out a second mortgage on her home in order to pay for her 19 year old son’s education at the prestigious New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts.  Her son (who isn’t named in this BBC article) was one of only five people from the UK who were accepted into the school after an audition process.

In order to afford the tuition and life in New York — the article claims it will cost £60,000 over two years ($96,000!) — the teenager has been busking with his guitar, but it seems the only person in the world who could possibly make that much money busking is New York’s own Naked Cowboy.  As a result, Anita decided to take this financially drastic step to help out her son.
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Zach Braff Talks Theater-Writing Debut, “All New People”

With his new play at New York City’s Second Stage Theatre, Zach Braff‘s life in the performing arts has come full circle. After watching his father act in community theater, an eight-year-old Braff knew what he wanted to do with his life.

“I got into entertainment through theater. That’s where it all began for me,” Braff told the Associated Press in a recent interview. “My father did community theater and I was the 8-year-old in the audience watching him play Horace Vandergelder in Hello, Dolly! and thinking, ‘This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.’”

The former Scrubs star’s latest project is All New People, which he wrote but does not appear in. The off-Broadway comedy tells the story of four complete strangers who find themselves together in a beach house during winter. He original wrote the part of Charlie, a suicidal air traffic controller, with himself in mind, but was talked out of acting in All New People. That “wouldn’t have been good for the play,” he explained.
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Watch A Theater’s 25 Hour Transformation!

For a performing arts theater, a theater without a production means the venue is losing money.  That’s why production crews — including scenic, props, lighting, and sound crews — often have to work long, strange hours in between productions in order to prepare for the next show.  And when those productions are in a theater festival that only lasts for a summer, time is even more of a luxury that crews don’t have.

Thanks to YouTube, this video showcases the intense behind-the-scenes work that goes into a changeover between productions.

This time-lapsed clip shows the changeover between productions of A Street Car Named Desire and One Slight Hitch from the Williamstown Theatre Festival, which has taken place every summer for over fifty years in Williamstown, Massachusetts.  This year the festival is showcasing eight plays in ten weeks, which doesn’t give the crew much time to transition between productions.  Thank goodness the festival has such a hardworking crew!

Check out the clip below, which is a wonderful way to recognize the hard (and usually thankless) work that production crews are responsible for.  In addition, check out the website for the Williamstown Theatre Festival here! One Slight Hitch, which is written by comedian Lewis Black, ends July 17, so if you’re interested you better get your tickets fast!

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