Richard Rodgers Theatre

Located between the 8th Avenue and Broadway Street, The Richard Rodgers Theatre is a famous Broadway theater developed back in 1925. The structure was built by Irwin Chanin and initially was referred to as Chanin’s 46 Street Theatre. After being leased for a short time, Shuberts’ bought the theatre in 1931 and had its name changed to the 46th

Street Theatre. Between 1945 and 1960, ownership of the theater was transferred between various individuals until it was eventually purchased by the Nederlander Organizations in 1981. The Nederlander organization renovated the theatre and renamed it Richard Rodgers Theatre. The name changed in 1990 to commemorate Richard Charles Rodgers, the famous American composer, who wrote over 900 songs for almost 43 Broadway musicals. In 2006, The Richard Rodgers Theatre was refurbished to have capability of hosting 1319 people. The theatre is popular for having hosted the most number of Award winning best musicals and play. Compared to all other theaters on Broadway, it has a record of eleven Tony Award-winning Musicals and Plays.

Operations

Seating Arrangement

The Richard Rodgers Theatre has a variety of seating positions. Notably, it still maintains its traditional beautiful tiers from the many past years. One can either choose to seat at the balconies, circles or boxes, depending on preference and financial capability. Presently, the venue is divided into four major sections: Stage Area, Orchestra, front and back Mezzanine and the Balcony (Therichardrodgerstheatre.com 3). Amongst the four sections, the audience seats are located in the orchestra, mezzanine and balcony.

Figure 1: Richard Rodgers Theatre Seating Chart

Source: Therichardrodgerstheatre.com

To cater for people with special needs, the theatre has special features in the arrangement and accessibility of seats. For instance, it has reserved seating spaces for visitors on wheelchairs. The structure has special seats, located at strategic points, for guests with hearing and visual disabilities. In addition, it has a number of companion seats specially reserved for people accompanying guests on wheelchairs. Lastly, it has aisle transfer seats that have movable armrests for visitors with limited mobility or the ones that need to use the stairs (Therichardrodgerstheatre.com 3).  

Policies

Regarding the issue of exchanges or refunds, the theatre does not refund tickets or allow exchanges. While lining up, each person is allowed to buy a maximum of two tickets. Regular price cancellation tickets are issues on a first come, first serve basis, approximately 30 minutes before performance begins. When lining up one is not allowed to hold out places in line or swap positions. According to Therichardrodgerstheatre.com (3), there is no particular dress code for guests and late comers have to abide by the theatre’s procedure of each seat section.

Personnel and Audience

The convenient location of the theatre in the Broadway Theatre District, coupled with its award-winning reputation allows it to capture a huge portion of millions of guests that come to enjoy the Broadway shows every year. Majority of guest that come to see performances at the theatre are tourists. For instance, Casselman (399) noted that in 2012-21 season, over 65% of all Broadway tickets were sold to tourists and people from outside New York. Due to the huge influx of tourist, there are numerous hotels and restaurants located near the Richard Rodgers theatre. People coming to visit the Richard Rodgers theatre are usually bombarded by numerous advertisements from hotels and restaurants that provide guest services. The Richard Rodgers theatre features well-known stage and musical performers that attract a huge number of guests and motivate new audiences to visit their house. Popular television and movie actors are known to perform in the theatre. However, most performers spend majority of their time in the theatre as primary stage actors, and only appear in TV in secondary screen roles.     

Performances and Prices

The music and play performers in the Richard Rodger Theatre are paid higher wages because the theatre can host numerous guests. The unions representing music and play performers are categorized into three distinct theatre tiers: Broadway, Off-Broadway, and the Off-Off-Broadway. Off-Off-Broadway theatres host a maximum of 99 individuals. On the other hand, Off-Broadway theatres host between 99-499 individuals (Harris 18). Lastly, Broadway theatres such as The Richard Rodger and other theatres of similar status can host over 500 individuals. According to Casselman (401), being a Broadway theatre, the Richard Rodger Theatre has a big stage capable of showing extravagant shows. Numerous awards won by various plays and music performed in the theatre is enough evidence of the extravagant nature of shows hosted. The high status and perceived quality of The Richard Rodger Theatre, implies that ticket prices are generally high. For the same play, an Off-Off-Broadway theatre might charge $20 and an Off-Broadway theatre might charge $45. However, a ticket at Richard Rodger, a Broadway theatre, might go for $75 (Robert 1). The priced charged for a single performance depends on the particular section that a guest chooses to seat. For instance, in a past event, tickets for seats in the orchestra section, the most expensive spot, went for $358. Seats in the front and rear mezzanine went for $255 and $122 respectively (Angela 2).

Runs

Shows performed at the theatre and commercial productions are meant to earn profits. Therefore, they are heavily backed by investors and have open-ended runs. Open-ended runs imply that length of a performance is not specified at the beginning of a play but rather dependent on effectiveness of advertisements, response from various critics and intended ticket sales. Also, it is not mandatory for shows to start generating profits immediately. The theatre ensures that weekly operating expenses are met and that producers lose money at an acceptable rate, which is the expectation that in the end. The shows are able to pay initial expense and eventually register some profit. In some cases, a number of producers have requested that their royalties be reduced or waivered and performers asked to take pay cuts to prevent show stoppage. Even with the huge success enjoyed by The Richard Rodgers Theatre, it has its fair share of unsuccessful shows. Some productions have been halted abruptly, while others gone for limited runs due to issues such as availability of finance, unavailability of performers, and scheduled booking of the theatre (Maddison 643).        

Ownership of the theatre

Many Broadway theatres are managed and owned by three corporations: The Jujamcyn, The Nederlander Organization, and The Shubert Organization. The Nederlander Organization, which owns The Richard Rodger Theatre, has nine Broadway theatres. The Jujamcyn owns five, while the Shubert Organization has seventeen Broadway houses. The Nederlander Organization is a family-owned entertainment venture, one of the largest in the world. The theatre has heavily invested in the entertainment industry and owns other similar enterprises in major cities in the U.K and America (Theater Institute 1). 

Governance/Management

Operations of the Richard Rodger theatre are run, managed, and supervised by teams of managers from The Nederlander Organization. Rather than allow the theatre to run its operation independently, The Nederlander Organization employs a centralized management and operations system for all nine of its Broadway theatres (Casselman 401). However, each theatre, including the Richard Roger’s, has its station/theatre manager. The theatre manager at The Richard Rodger Theatre works collaboratively with the Nederlander Director of Theatre management to ensure that the weekly financial paper work of the theatre is updated and accurate (Theater Institute 3). The organization has also substantial number of employees that assist in the day-to-day activities of the theatre.

            Producers and owners of Richard Rodgers Theatre are registered members of The Broadway League. Originally, The Broadway League were developed to protect owners, patrons and operators of Broadway theatres against scalping and speculation of theatre tickets. However, the body is now responsible for various activities of Broadway theatres through other functions that include negotiation of contract with theatrical unions and administration of Awards (Rugg and Ann 49). Notably, it collaborates with American Theatre Wing in administration of the Tony Awards to the best performing plays and musical (Wright 2). The Richard Rodger Theatre is famous for having received the largest share of the highly coveted Tony Award. On eleven different occasions, the theatre has won the award on having the best musicals and plays, the most by any Broadway theatre. Broadway.org (3) adduced that the Broadway League is known to collaborate with organizations in the corporate world with some of the current corporate partners of The Broadway League including The New York Times, United Airlines, IBM and The Chase Bank.

Work Cited

Angela. Hamilton Busting Box-Office Records During Preview Week. 2015. https://seatgeek.com/tba/articles/hamilton-on-broadway-ticket-prices-schedule/.

Broadway.org. Corporate Partners of The Broadway League. 2018 . https://www.broadway.org/info/partners.

Casselman. “Staffing the 21st Century Theatre: Technological Evolution and Collective            Bargaining.” Colum. JL & Arts 25 (2001): 401.

Harris. Broadway theatre. Routledge, 2013.

Maddison. ”Increasing returns to information and the survival of Broadway theatre            productions.” Applied Economics Letters 11.10 (2004): 639-643.

Robert. How To Tell Broadway from Off-Broadway. 1998. http://www.playbill.com/article/how-to-tell-broadway-from-off-broadway-from-com-110450.

Rugg and Ann. ”What It Used to Be: Nostalgia and the State of the Broadway Musical.”Theater 32.2 (2002): 45-55.

Theater Institute. Q&A: Thom Clay – Theatre Management: Keeping Broadway’s History Alive and Taking it to New Places. 3 May 2018 . https://www.commercialtheaterinstitute.com/qa-thom-clay-theatre-management-keeping-broadways-history-alive-and-taking-it-to-new-places/.

Therichardrodgerstheatre.com. Richard Rodgers Theatre Seating Chart. 2018. http://www.therichardrodgerstheatre.com/richard-rodgers-theatre-seating-chart/.

Wright, K. C. 6 Facts About the Broadway League. 2015. https://www.backstage.com/news/6- facts-about-broadway-league/.