I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was THIS bad. A friend forwarded an email to me at the end of last week, announcing the closing of an Off-Off Broadway theatre space, the Manhattan Theatre Source. I have a soft spot in my heart for the Source because I’ve worked there in a variety of capacities (producer, writer, director, educator), consulted with the board, had a couple of small pieces produced there, know a lot of the people involved in its formation and growth and have watched it struggle year after year to stay afloat. So it wasn’t a huge surprise that the Board finally had to say, in essence, we just can’t make it happy any longer. We’re beat. We’re done. We’ve fought the good fight for twelve years.
I was curious why this is happening now; why, after its twelfth year? So I called someone I know on the Board and asked. The answer was simple, he said: rent.
I gulped. Let’s do the simple math. $10,000 a month x 12 months = $120,000 a year. If I think about a ten-year projection, we’re looking at $1,200,000. All that to run an Off-Off Broadway theatre company, with sixty seats, staffed by artists that are barely scraping together a living to begin with. Really? What Off –Off Broadway theatre company, small regional theatre company or group of aspiring artists can look up the road and face well over a million dollars just to have a space and turn the lights on? How does that possibly make sense? Is it any wonder all the small, upstart theatre companies are disappearing off the landscape? And beyond that, what philanthropic funding source (individuals or corporate) would think it fiscally wise to support such realities?
Granted, New York is New York. I get it. Go 50 miles in any direction from here and you’ll be paying at least . . . $1000 less (I’m guessing.) Go another fifty miles and I’m sure rent prices drop considerably. But this is my town. This is where so much is supposedly born in all areas of pop culture. And what as a city are we doing about it?
Arts tax, anyone? How about creating a small arts tax (like Houston does with sports) at our city hotels? How about a surcharge at TKTS? How about a small tax on all Broadway shows? How about it indeed?
