The Atlantic’s staff follow backstage workers at the Public Theater – a significantly larger company financially – who unionised last June.

The Atlantic’s simultaneous shuttering of two shows that had both begun previews is a huge step, since the expenses of the production are mostly incurred while ticket revenue must be returned to customers. A statement about the shutdown from the Atlantic raised the spectre of Off-Broadway companies, including themselves, needing to shut down because of increased expenses. As always in such cases, public statements are in part negotiating positions, but the economics of Off-Broadway have long been challenging.

This seems to indicate an era in which commercial Off-Broadway, for many years in the shadow of enterprising not-for-profits, is once again on the rise amid a changing environment for the institutional companies. Yet if the not-for-profits face unionisation, what does that mean for these other venues owned or operated by corporate entities with deeper pockets? Will they end up setting the terms for Off-Broadway employment at a higher level than the not-for-profits can sustain? 

And will those commercial entities hasten greater colonisation of Off-Broadway by stars, even at the institutional companies? Signature’s next show was to have featured recent Oscar-winner Brendan Fraser in his return to the New York stage after 15 years, only to see him withdraw from Samuel D Hunter’s Grangeville days ago. But that was quickly followed by the news that Maya Hawke of TV’s Stranger Things would make her Off-Broadway debut at Signature later this season in a revival of Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice. Meanwhile, back at the Lortel, another commercial production – the transfer of Andrew Scott in Simon Stephens’ adaptation of Vanya – is the most recent Off-Broadway show to wield Broadway prices. Where Off-Broadway was once seen as the lower-priced alternative to Broadway, Scott’s solo turn is asking more than $400 a seat at some performances, a startling figure – and that’s before the secondary market gets involved.

The sped-up change Off-Broadway raises concerns about the welfare of the institutional companies in a landscape where commercial Off-Broadway is starting to look very much like Broadway itself. It’s possible that more institutional companies may have to band together in varying permutations along the Signature-New Group-Second Stage lines to shore up their stability. But it also may mean that for the kind of inventiveness and creativity that has characterised Off-Broadway for so long, intrepid artists, theatres and theatregoers may have to look increasingly to Brooklyn and Queens, and perhaps even the Bronx and Staten Island, too, for places where new artists and new works can emerge affordably and equitably for all concerned.

Continues...

This week in US theatre

Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning English opens January 23 on Broadway via Roundabout Theatre, with Knud Adams’ original production, first seen Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company, intact. The entire acting company company, led by Marjan Neshat as a teacher of English in Iran, are making their Broadway debut.