Are audiences coming back to Long Island theaters?

It's been two years since the bright lights of local stages were turned back on following the pandemic lockdown, and attendance has literally been hit or miss.

Take Hampton Theatre Company in Quogue, for instance. Its past season started out with a hit (the generational comedy "Over the River and Through the Woods") in the fall, followed by a miss in late winter ("The Lifespan of a Fact"). The theater rebounded in the spring with the comedy "The Portuguese Kid"). a show which secretary and board member Andrew Botsford said drew an audience that wasn't quite as robust as before the pandemic but was very close.

"I think it’s a slow crawling back," Botsford said. "These days I think it’s not so much about the pandemic, although I think that’s in the back of people’s minds, but I think people just got out of the habit of going to shows all the time."

It' a sentiment shared by other theater companies.

'A lot of places are really having a hard time," said Richard T. Dolce, executive artistic director of the John W. Engeman Theater in Northport. "People got very comfortable staying at home and we need to slowly convince them to come back out and remember us. And it seems like that’s finally starting to happen. It could be quicker but at least we’re moving in a positive direction."

Show selection has certainly been a key factor in attendance. Engeman drew only modest crowds for its first two shows this year, "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and "The Scarlet Pimpernel," but since May, attendance has been on an upswing thanks to a trio of name brands — Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The Sound of Music" in May, the Jimmy Buffett tunefest "Escape to Margaritaville" over the summer and the current "Beautiful — The Carole King Musical," which runs through Nov. 5.

It's been a similar scenario at Theatre Three in Port Jefferson, which launched its new season with "The Prom," which runs through Oct. 21. "If anything you can say it’s back to normal in the sense that this show is more popular than that show," said Jeffrey Sanzel, Theatre Three's executive artistic director. "Last year’s 'A Christmas Carol' was the best we’ve ever done. It was the largest attendance ever. 'Something Rotten' did well last June, but not as well as 'Mamma Mia!' the year before, which was coming out of the pandemic. It hinges on what show is running."

Indeed, the mindset among audiences still reeling from the pandemic appears to be that they're looking for the theater equivalent of comfort food, familiar titles that go down easily but also satisfy. "It's a risk for theaters right now to try an experimental piece," said Alyse Arpino, executive director of CM Performing Arts Center in Oakdale. "We had very successful runs with known titles like 'A Bronx Tale' and 'A Chorus Line.' You really need to put on shows that people can relate to or a feel-good piece, things people know and love. It's a different time now."

It's a lesson that Hampton Theatre Company learned with "The Lifespan of a Fact." Despite the good reviews that the comedy about an overzealous fact checker received when it ran on Broadway in 2018, it was an unknown quantity to the East End, said Botsford.

"I don’t think our audience was that aware of the title. … I think people might have been afraid it was more political than it was," Botsford said.

The Argyle Theatre in Babylon is definitely going the feel-good route with its season, which includes "Mary Poppins" for the holidays, followed by "A Chorus Line," "A Bronx Tale" and "Bye Bye Birdie," in the hope of also broadening its audience.

"We're really trying to attract three generations where you can have, just as an example, a mother who can bring a parent and a child and all three generations can come and enjoy a production." said Dylan Perlman, co-owner of the Argyle with his father, Mark. "Not every single production is going to be appropriate for the little kids, but when you can attract multiple generations to a production, it greatly expands the market for potential attendees as well as helping to actually grow future audience bases."

At the very least, theaters need to fill half the seats in order to make even a marginal profit. "We seat 425, so if we’re playing to 200, 225, we’re in a good place," Sanzel said. "Overall, it always comes down to the show. And you don’t know where you are until you close the show. It’s such a gamble. Every show is a gamble. Every production, every season. We’re picking a season in February for shows that aren’t going to go up in over a year. We just don’t know."

WHERE HAVE THE SUBSCRIBERS GONE?

Are Long Island theatergoers also suffering from a fear of commitment? For many years, theaters could count on a faithful number of customers to purchase subscriptions for the entire season, which could consist of anywhere from three to even eight shows. Those days seems to be long gone.

"The subscription model is not what it was when I started here 35 years ago," Sanzel said. "People are less likely to commit, less likely to plan long term for cultural events or want to commit to a particular day and time."

It's a trend that mirrors what theater owners across the country are experiencing. Typically, a subscription guarantees that patrons will get the same assigned seat and a specific time, such as opening night or the first Friday performance, for each show of the season. 

As an alternative, theaters have begun leaning to a Flex Pass subscription. For the same price of $116, CM offers a standard package as well as a flexible option where subscribers can pick their performance dates but have to work with whatever seats are available. Another package gives patrons the option of only choosing three out of four shows of the season.

Still getting those presales is a struggle for most theaters. "You release a season and you expect a certain amount of presale, maybe 20, 30% sold months in advance, and that doesn’t happen anymore. That makes it a very scary prospect to say hey we have a budget for this show, this is what we expect to make on it but until we get to two weeks out before the first curtain rises, we don’t really know what it’s going to be," said Michael Mucciolo, board president of Smithtown Performing Arts Center.

THE COST OF SUCCESS

Even if a show does score a hit, profit margins are not going to be what they were before the pandemic. Everything from lumber to royalties has increased over the past two years, making it about "20 to 25% more expensive to put on a show," said Sanzel.

Smithtown Performing Arts Center, which recently underwent a $500,000 renovation that included new seats, wiring and carpeting, presented "Rent" in September, a show that Mucciolo estimates probably cost anywhere from $35,000 to $45,000 to put on.

For theaters like Argyle that use performers in Actors Equity, production costs are even worse. "If I look back to our financial model prior to opening in 2018 vs. now, you’re looking at often expenses that have doubled since prior to the pandemic," Perlman said.

While theaters like Smithtown Performing Arts Center did receive money during the pandemic, including $135,000 in the first round of the Payroll Protection Loan which went toward its children's programs, and funds from the Save Our Venues grant, that money only stretched so far, Mucciolo said.

As a cost-cutting measure, each board member was assigned a task to examine expenses, Mucciolo said. "We needed to see where we are spending money and that we’re spending it wisely. Is it necessary firsthand, is it worth what we’re getting, and then are we getting the best price for that." Mucciolo said. "We were able to cut our costs by a little over $300,000 from an annualized basis and that makes a huge difference as far as being able to say, OK we can make these kinds of investments and improvements."

Still, it's become a balancing act for theaters to try and keep from passing those expenses on to customers by raising prices. "We’ve really done our best to try and maintain pricing because the last thing you want to do is have a sharp increase in prices, price people out when we’re trying to bring audiences back into the theater," Perlman added.

Theatre Three was forced to raise its prices by $5, "but this was after keeping it at the same price for 10 years," Sanzel said.

If there is one bright spot for theater owners, it's that customers seem less concerned about the coronavirus than they were a year ago. "Knock on wood. It hasn’t been like it was two years ago, or even a year ago," Dolce said. "People seem to be comfortable coming back inside and sitting there for a couple of hours unlike a couple of years ago. But every time the news starts to flash stories about COVID rates going up, we’re all holding our breath."

While mask mandates are no longer in place at any local theaters, many venues still want their guests to feel safe. "Our policy is, if you’re more comfortable with a mask, by all means wear one and we have a supply at the door. But that’s low down on our policy list this year," Botsford said.

Despite the difficulties theater is facing, theater owners are still optimistic that no matter what, the shows will go on.

"This is the first year we’re finally seeing people coming back, people who had maybe been away are coming back, people who had never been season ticket holders before are looking at the shows and thinking, wow, this is a great season. I want to see at least three, four, five of those shows," Dolce said. "Fingers crossed that that continues."