It has NOTHING to do with charity, whether it's what you consider my assumption of entitlement to see a Broadway production, nor the producers of Inishmaan's reduction of preview prices (though I dare say what they actually did was price previews and normal rates and raise the prices for post-opening performances).
It is about a fair price for a product. If I wanted bread, and only a few stores in my area sold bread, and they all agreed to charge $10 a loaf even though it really is only worth $5, most people would figure out how to pay it if they wanted bread, or they'd do without bread. There are two points to be made here: 1) The market supporting the price does NOT make it a fair price for what you're getting. Do not mistake what a market can bear for what is right. And do not pretend to think that producers are pricing things so they can just scrape by... it is not a situation of "these are the lowest prices we can give and still turn a modest profit". Just as it is not my concern how much less profits Walmart has to take in order to pay workers fairly AND keep their prices low/fair, it is not my concern how producers figure out how to make money. If that means the starts have to agree to longer contracts, then that's what they should do. If I were a star actor I'd be embarrassed to be in Cabaret (or even maybe Inishmaan were it not at least for the cheaper preview tickets) and have them charge such astronomical rates for normal non-premium tickets.
2) Like bread (or like bread used to be consider), I think culture and theater, and the theoretically best of American theater, should be something people should have and not be completely priced out of. It shouldn't only be for the very wealthy. And don't tell me "oh there's plenty of cheaper theater around the country"... that doesn't excuse the disproportionate pricing of Broadway AND off-Broadway shows.
It seems clear we don't agree on this, so you can happily go on defending the annually shocking ticket price raises, and I will go on rallying against them. And I will hope that I can continue to get away with seeing these shows for much cheaper than the ticket prices, otherwise I simply will not be able to see most of them anymore, or I would go broke doing it. (and for the record it is very time consuming and effort-intensive to find all the cheap ways to see shows and actually get those tickets or deals, most people coming to nyc and seeing theater don't have the time or know-how, or even the knowledge that there are other ways, so using my abilities to get cheaper tickets against my argument is also not valid, far as I'm concerned, for the general public or for excusing the high ticket prices).
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