the economics of new plays — who actually gets produced and why

The American theatre likes to describe itself as a home for new voices. But producing a new play is rarely a simple vote of confidence in a playwright. It is a financial decision disguised as an artistic one.

Before a theatre asks whether a play is good, it must ask whether the play is survivable.

How many actors does it require? How many locations? Does it need a staircase, a rainstorm, a live band or an automobile? Can it be rehearsed in four weeks? Will subscribers recognize the playwright’s name? Can the title be explained in a season brochure? Is there a role that might attract a star? And, most important, can the theatre persuade audiences to buy tickets before anyone knows whether the play works?

These questions do not necessarily produce bad theatre. They do, however, determine which plays have a realistic chance of being produced.

A new two-character play set in a living room is not inherently more compelling than a sprawling drama with twelve actors. It is simply cheaper. Every additional character means another salary, another costume. A play with four actors can receive productions across the country. A play with fourteen may receive a reading and several affectionate rejection letters praising its ambition.

This is why economics has become an invisible dramaturg.

It reduces casts. It eliminates intermissions. It discourages children, animals and complicated scenery. It favors plays that can share a set with the production before them. It encourages ninety-minute running times because shorter shows reduce labor costs and make audiences feel the evening is less of a commitment.

It also influences subject matter. A recognizable historical figure is easier to market than an invented one. A play adapted from a famous novel arrives with an audience already attached. A familiar film title can sell tickets before the director is hired. Even plays described as daring are often daring within a reassuring frame: a known story, a famous person, a topical issue or a playwright who has already been approved by another institution.

The result is a peculiar theatrical marketplace in which everyone claims to be searching for something new while looking for evidence that someone else has already taken the risk.

A premiere at a major theatre makes a play safer for the next theatre. An award nomination makes it safer still. A favorable review, a respected agent, a prominent development program or the attachment of a recognizable actor can all function as forms of financial insurance. None guarantees an audience, but each gives an artistic director something to show a board when the numbers are questioned.

This helps explain why the same handful of new plays can appear at regional theatres across the country during the same two or three seasons. Theatres are not always independently discovering the same work. They are responding to the same signals of legitimacy.

Once one respected institution has said yes, it becomes easier for others to say yes.

Meanwhile, thousands of playwrights are encouraged to submit work to festivals, competitions and development programs. These opportunities create the appearance of abundance, but development is not production. A reading may cost a theatre relatively little while allowing it to demonstrate its commitment to new work. The playwright receives actors, a room and perhaps a modest payment. The theatre receives goodwill, grant language and a pipeline of possibilities without assuming the expense of a full production.

The play can remain in development for years.

It may be read, revised, workshopped and discussed until everyone involved has contributed to its improvement — except an audience. At some point, development can stop being a path toward production and become a substitute for it.

Commissions present a similar contradiction. Being commissioned sounds like being chosen, but a commission is not a production agreement. A theatre may commission many more plays than it can ever stage. The fee supports the writing, which matters, but the playwright can still finish the play only to discover that the institution that requested it has no place for it in the season.

Then there is the question of who gets commissioned in the first place.

Theatres understandably want playwrights who can deliver. That usually means writers with agents, previous productions, institutional relationships or recognizable achievements. The need to minimize risk therefore directs resources toward people who have already received resources. Success becomes evidence of producibility, and producibility leads to more success.

This is not necessarily a conspiracy or even a conscious preference. It is how risk-averse systems reproduce themselves.

Subscribers add another layer. Many nonprofit theatres depend on loyal audiences who purchase an entire season in advance. Those subscribers provide stability, but they can also exert a conservative gravitational pull. Artistic directors may want to challenge them, but not so severely that they decline to renew. A new play is therefore often balanced by Shakespeare, a musical, a comedy, a holiday attraction or a title audiences already know.

The adventurous play must be subsidized by the reassuring one.

Commercial theatre operates under even greater pressure. A Broadway production can cost millions before the first public performance. Under those conditions, familiarity becomes enormously valuable. Celebrity casting, movie adaptations, jukebox musicals and established intellectual property are not simply failures of imagination. They are attempts to reduce the terrifying uncertainty of live theatre.

But the economics do more than shape individual seasons. They shape the plays writers decide to write.

Playwrights learn which scripts travel. They know a cast of three has a better chance than a cast of thirteen. They know theatres want topical urgency but may hesitate before genuine political danger. They know a play must be original enough to attract attention and familiar enough to be marketable. Eventually, economic restrictions can begin to feel like aesthetic instincts.

The playwright starts cutting the cast before anyone has complained about the cost.

There are theatres resisting this logic. Some commit to second productions, recognizing that a world premiere is only the beginning of a play’s life. Some share costs through rolling premieres and co-productions. Some build long-term relationships with writers instead of treating each script as an isolated product. Others define success not by immediate ticket sales but by the cultural value of bringing a necessary story into the world.

These models matter because new plays rarely become economically viable until someone produces them while they are still economically uncertain.

If theatres want a genuinely varied dramatic literature, they must acknowledge that artistic diversity requires financial risk. It is not enough to invite more writers into development programs if their work must eventually pass through the same narrow economic gate. Different voices may demand different forms, larger casts, stranger structures and stories that cannot be reduced to a reassuring sentence in a brochure.

The central question is not simply, “Which new plays deserve to be produced?”

It is: “Which plays has our economic system made possible — and what kinds of theatre has it quietly taught us not to imagine?”