Theatre fans send MTC into box-office orbit

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/10/2002 (8550 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE Manitoba Theatre Centre has smashed its all-time subscription record on the box-office muscle of a trio of powerful historic names: Dracula, Evita and Richard III.

Theatre-lovers have snapped up 17,100 subscriptions to the 2002-2003 MTC season, easily breaking the previous high set in 1994-95 when Keanu Reeves mania swept the city.

“We blew right by that record,” crowed MTC general manager Zaz Bajon yesterday. “This is what it’s all about for a non-profit, exposing more people to the art form. This could only happen here. It verifies that the arts are important in this city.”

With about 2,500 subscribers signed up for the Warehouse, MTC will surely crack the 20,000 (mainstage and Warehouse) mark for the first time. The theatre’s penetration in Winnipeg is higher per capita than any other non-profit theatre in Canada. Almost three per cent of Winnipeg’s population are MTC subscribers.

“I don’t think anybody else comes close,” Bajon says.

This season’s 29 per cent jump in mainstage subscribers speaks to the public’s interest in seeing the notorious Count Dracula, William Hurt as the Machiavellian Richard III or a musical about one of the most notorious woman of the 20th century.

Bajon cautioned that no one should see this as Hurt’s Richard bettering Reeves’ Hamlet. Keanu single-handedly sold the 1994-95 season, while the current playbill as a whole is the main attraction.

Evita is budgeted to be queen of the MTC box office this year, not Richard. And don’t be surprised if Dracula surpasses Shakespeare, too. MTC cash registers rang up $20,000 in single Dracula tickets Saturday, the first day they went on sale. That’s five to six times more than the average Saturday take and the buyers are those who didn’t buy subscriptions.

“There’s a real buzz out there for those three shows,” Bajon says. “Dracula is selling more casual tickets than Proof which has been playing for almost two weeks.”

So what’s to complain about?

“The bad news is that we have sold more subscriptions at a discount (packages range from $45 for students to $232 for Friday or Saturday seats),” says the longtime MTC official. “I was expecting to have more tickets to sell at full price. I’m not going to hit individual ticket revenue targets because I don’t have the same inventory of seats any more.”

It’s a hardship he feels guilty about even raising.

“My colleagues across this country would die to have this problem,” he says. “At 20,000, we’re in uncharted territory. Who knows where we are going to end up?”

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca