Money & Theater

There's alot of money in theater: development money, pr money, venue rental money and money for curtain legs and lights, money for sets and costumes, technicians and designers. But artists' salaries? In downtown New York theater there's not so much money for artist's salaries. Writers, actors, and even directors are oft asked to do the thing for love. And they do it (read: I do it), and we do it because we love it, and because we want the chance to make our artwork. You can't make theater all by yourself (okay, people try, like that guy who did a show in his kitchen for a while that I'd link to if I could remember what it was); theater is a collaborative art form, and for the most part, you need an audience. So lots of times, and I'm speaking as a playwright, we work for little or no money.

However, blue box world just did a brand new thing this fall with our Deserted Islands/Deserted Cities project. We paid people. Not all people, we just paid writers. And we didn't pay them much, just $10 each. But we are so happy we were able to do it. We embarked on the project planning to do it, and we did it. We wanted to be able to pay everyone, and someday we will do that, and we will be so happy to do it.

Blue box world does not have development money or grant money. That's now our deal. Instead we fund all of our work on ticket sales alone. And this season we were able to pay writers. Seriously, this is a thrilling thing for us.  If you came out to the show, and helped make this possible, thank you thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, from the bottom of our pockets. We hope you had a great time, we hope you come again.