{"id":373734,"date":"2026-10-15T09:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T09:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/373734\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T09:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T09:48:09","slug":"get-young-people-into-cultural-seats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/373734\/","title":{"rendered":"Get young people into cultural seats"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recent news of free tickets to the opera and, for students, to Broadway shows demonstrate that culture is still important in our city.<\/p>\n

Mayor Mamdani\u2019s support of opera<\/a>, an art form that many consider elite, is a welcome surprise, especially since support for the arts had not been front and center in his campaign.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s also fascinating is that the concept of free or heavily discounted admission to our performing cultural institutions is not new to New York City \u2014 far from it.<\/p>\n

Over the decades, government and private-run programs have enabled thousands to take theater seats. You can call them \u201cpopulist,\u201d but these programs have resulted in undeniable financial benefits that even the purest, \u201cgovernment-shouldn\u2019t-give-anything-away-for-free!\u201d capitalist would appreciate.<\/p>\n

I know because I was part of it.<\/p>\n

In 1984 I was given a remarkable assignment by Bernie Jacobs, the president of The Shubert Organization<\/a>, then and now the biggest owner and manager of Broadway theaters. He wanted to give 50 public school kids free tickets each week to the hottest show on Broadway, \u201cCats,\u201d and needed me to arrange it.<\/p>\n

Why did he do this? I can\u2019t honestly answer. But I think Jacobs simply wanted to do something good for the city, and its young people.<\/p>\n

This assignment led me to create Inside Broadway<\/a>, an arts and education nonprofit that for 45 years has introduced three million public school students to Broadway, and has brought Broadway to them.<\/p>\n

But I wasn\u2019t the first to help make culture accessible to all New Yorkers, just like Mamdani is not.<\/p>\n

Back in the 1940s, Jean Dalrymple was a press agent and Broadway producer, a tough lady in a field of men. She had been a friend of Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia.<\/p>\n

LaGuardia wanted to open a People\u2019s Theater \u2014 the Germans call it a Volks Theatre \u2014 a place where folks could enjoy music, dance, theater and opera at low prices.<\/p>\n

With Dalrymple\u2019s help and connections, the vacant Masonic Temple building on W. 55th St. was converted into the New York City Center<\/a>. It eventually became the home of the New York City Ballet and New York City Opera, among others.<\/p>\n

As I compose this, I\u2019m in Brussels. In the last two weeks I\u2019ve visited major cultural institutions here and in Paris and Amsterdam. Do you know what I saw that you don\u2019t see enough in New York? Young people in the audience.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because culture here is seen as not elitist but for the public, and because of that it\u2019s financially supported by the government, bringing down ticket prices.<\/p>\n

The highest-tier ticket for a modem dance performance at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre des Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es in Paris was $90. The highest price at the Brussels Opera was $95 \u2014 and that was an opening night performance for a new premier.<\/p>\n

A Concertgebouw Orchestra concert in Amsterdam was $150 tops. The Bastille Opera in Paris ranged from $150 for a revival to $175 for a new production.<\/p>\n

By comparison, a ticket at the Metropolitan Opera in New York can cost more than $400. And while the average ticket for a Broadway show is $131, the most expensive seats can reach $600.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the financial payoff for the city? When folks in the arts world talk about audience development, they often miss the most important word \u2014 development. By investing in young people we develop educated and sophisticated cultural consumers.<\/p>\n

And one day they will have jobs, perhaps big jobs, and they will spend money on the arts.<\/p>\n

Presser is the founder and executive director of\u00a0Inside Broadway, an arts education organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The recent news of free tickets to the opera and, for students, to Broadway shows demonstrate that culture…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56,299],"class_list":["post-373734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}