Holiday Shows Give Connecticut Theaters A Perennial Source Of Income
As thousands of theatergoers take in holiday entertainment, few realize how these perennial shows have become the financial lifeblood of Hartford’s performance venues.
In the world of theater — hardly known for sure financial outcomes — plays like “A Christmas Carol” and “Christmas on the Rocks” have become a few of the predictable successes that also help underwrite other programming.
“ ‘A Christmas Carol’ has become an economic staple for us,” says Cynthia Rider, the new managing director of Hartford Stage. She compares it to how the holiday perennial “The Nutcracker,” supports ballet companies’ repertoire for the rest of the year.
Entering its 22nd holiday season, Hartford Stage’s “A Christmas Carol” has remained a cash cow for the theater, bringing in nearly 20 percent of its annual ticket revenue in a season that includes six other full productions.
“That’s a big chunk,” says Rider, referring to the roughly more than $650,000 it grosses every year at its 500-seat theater.
The play debuted at Hartford Stage in 1998 when then-incoming-artistic director Michael Wilson wrote a stage adaptation of the Charles Dickens novella. The initial investment was much larger than a typical production costs, but was amortized over several years with the hope that the show would run five, or perhaps even 10 years.
The play has far exceeded those expectations and now attracts more than 20,000 theatergoers each holiday season; nearly 410,000 visitors have seen it since its debut. It will celebrate its 1,000th performance Dec. 17, easily making it the most produced on-going theatrical show in Connecticut.
Rider says the holiday season is when people make traditions “and one of them is to come to see this show. It’s also the show that has multi-generational appeal so people come with their children, aunts, uncles and grandparents. It’s something they do as a family.”
From an economic point of view, says Rider, “we’re selling multiple numbers of tickets, even groups of tickets, year after year. That’s not true to this extent of any of our other shows.”