Theater3232 said: "Wow, they received $4,300,000? Just wow. Perhaps they should pare back their productions like most other nonprofits, to those that are more likely to turn a profit, so they can pay a living wage."
$4.3 mil isn’t a huge chunk of change for the Save Our Stages funding. The max was $10 mil (which some Broadway productions received). It was a one time thing four years ago and was intended to prevent companies like the Atlantic from closing. It’s not relevant to this convo.
Atlantic has already scaled back its operation because of financial challenges, as most nonprofits have. It also relies more heavily on commercial enhancement money (especially for musicals). From an audience standpoint, Atlantic productions are not overblown or irresponsibly-produced.
Nonprofit productions don’t have the binary of profit and loss that a commercial production has, and ticket revenue isn’t meant to cover all costs. For some companies, producing shows is a loss-leader for private donations, grants, commercial enhancement money, etc.
I also can’t stress enough that every nonprofit functions differently and their annual budgets vary significantly. Last year Atlantic’s season cost $15 mil. The Public’s cost $60 mil. Second Stage cost $28 mil. NYTW and MCC cost about $10 mil. Playwrights Horizons cost $13 mil. Not all companies are created equal.
Updated On: 1/15/25 at 04:58 PM
