Re: RAT Marx in Soho (in LA)

[Pwpny@aol.com]

Catherine of Peculiar Works here. Ah, ticket prices. Here's our experience..

The highest ticket price that PWP has ever charged (barring the occasional 
$25 opening night party thing) is $15 - and that was for our Judson House 
Project, a one-time-only site-specific performance tribute to a building 
slated for demolition. In that case, we felt that the event was unique and 
special enough to sustain that price.

For several years now, most of our shows have been free or 
suggested-donation-only. As a developmental company, many of our shows are 
workshop productions, so we want/need as many people to come as possible to 
get response and feedback - and we want them to come back when we do the 
"full production." A trend among funders is to encourage groups to raise 
their earned income level, so it's tricky what Erik says about surviving on 
grants alone - they want to know that they're not the only ones supporting 
what you do. Our earned income/box office line on the budget is usually 
pretty low, but we've been fortunate enough to find funders who will support 
our free workshops.

One interesting experience we had was with a large performance event where we 
only charged a suggested donation of $10, much to the surpise of many in 
attendance (guess they hadn't read their flyer!). Since we had also gotten 
lots of snacks and drinks donated and were giving those away, too, we made an 
enormous amount in tips/donations at the bar! It seemed that people were only 
too happy to throw in the extra $3-5 that they didn't have to spend at the 
door...

The other thing about PWP is, we occasionally co-produce or are presented by 
other organizations. In these instances, we don't get the box office (we get 
a fee) and we have no say over the ticket price. That doesn't bother me so 
much - it's usually in that $12-15 range, too - but what that does impact is 
the comp and pay-what-you-can situation - other groups can often be 
(understandably) stingy with comps and discounts. For long runs of shows that 
WE'RE producing, we always try to do at least one pay-what-you-can night, and 
we're VERY generous with comps. As a company that supports emerging artists, 
we want lots of other theatre/performance producers/directors in NYC to come 
and see our artists' work, so we have industry nights or offers to encourage 
our peers to come. We're also very committed as a company to being part of 
the Off-off community, so those industry nights help us connect in that way, 
as well. And, like Cat, we're also exploring online performance as a way to 
build an audience community, without box office or proximity being a 
consideration.

As for balancing the expense side, there are always ways to find things for 
cheap or free. PWP is slowly building our budget, but I doubt we'll ever get 
to the point where we're paying for everything. As a site-specific company, 
we often get our performance space for free, plus we borrow stuff from our 
peers (and loan to them, as well), we do trade-outs, we negotiate for volume 
discounts - all those in-kind things. We've always been Big Cheap Theatre and 
will be even as our budgets grow.

Catherine Porter
Peculiar Works Project
595 Broadway, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012-3222
212.529.3626, phone/fax
http://members.tripod.com/peculiarworks
pwpny@aol.com