And there are often discounts if you’re a student or educator.
My dad works for our local university’s theatre department in the scenery shop. They make a quality of sets that’s comparable to what you’d find on a broadway stage. I work in the costume shop and our costumes are tailored and fitted and designed with the same care as a professional theatre. Here’s a guy in a costume that I helped sew the buttons on and make the vest for standing on a set that so many people I know worked for weeks to make:
And this guy was good at acting like the uncoordinated fool that his character was. A student assistant sewed those curtains. She’s really talented. And here’s the main cast from when we did Streetcar Named Desire last year, some of the best stage actors I have ever seen:
And sometimes theatre is meant to be minimal! And minimal is still great! Here’s a still from when we did Hands Up, a play about police brutality and the Black Lives Matter Movement done in the round:
That was an incredibly minimalistic play and it was done with such powerful acting by student actors. But do you want something big? Like when we did Heathers?
THAT was huge. And tickets are ten bucks if you’re a student, fifteen if you’re not.
Or maybe you don’t want to go to the university theatre and you have 30 bucks to blow, 50 if you also want dinner. Then the local community also has a dinner theatre that does musicals constantly. Things like Mama Mia, Hairspray, Kinky Boots, The Little Mermaid. And sure, their stage is a little smaller, but it’s still good and the actors and scenery people and costumers put in just as much work.
Theatre communities are all over the world, in big cities, small cities, towns, and rural communities. In liberal and conservative areas. My area is mainly Republican but people around here still very much care about the arts and want to fund it. It’s so easy to find good theatre for under 100 bucks. You don’t need a star studded show and pyrotechnics to have a good time. A lot of people wonder how I’ve seen so many shows. It’s because I grew up in a local theatre community. There are good actors and designers and directors right in your hometown or at least very close to it. There’s a lot of people I know that have made their careers in community theatre because that’s what they love. Not everyone wants to make it to New York or London. Not everyone aims to be part of a national tour. There’s professionals and career theatre people working everywhere.
And if you’re willing to sit in the nosebleed seats? Enter a raffle when a broadway tour comes to town and you can get 20 dollar tickets. If you have 50 or 60 bucks you can get a seat in maybe not the best place but hey, you saw a famous broadway show for under 100 bucks.
There’s so many options. Theatre, really good theatre, exists outside of broadway. Theatre is diverse and it’s everywhere. And if you know someone in the cast or crew? Ask them if they have comp tickets. There’s a non-zero chance that they’ll get you one.