When Managing Director John Costigan says the Gaiety is Ireland s premier commercial theatre , he knows damn well there are many thespians who regard the word commercial as the antithesis of art, a concept that can only connote compromise.
It is a view, however, that is hardly supported by the fact that Martin McDonagh s Tony Award-winning The Beauty Queen Of Leenane , which opened in the Gaiety on February 21st, apparently set the highest advance booking record in the history of the theatre. Besides, with the recent appointment of John McColgan to the board of the Abbey and Moya Doherty taking over the reins at the Dublin Theatre Festival there is, Costigan suggests, a new commercial reality in Irish theatre. So new, indeed, that Costigan can countenance a subsidy-free existence.
When I came here in 96 there were huge debts in the theatre and the first thing the outgoing team said was the Gaiety is going to need a subsidy and I thought it doesn t really , he reflects. But we should get a capital grant for this building. The site is worth about #15mill and the business was bought for #4mill because as a core business the building limits its commercial potential. So my view was, leave the theatre, its operation and programming in a commercial environment and go for a capital grant for the building because the infrastructure i.e the theatre, seats, stage needs that grant. Yet I don t want an ongoing subsidy.
We also raised #120,000 sponsorship in the 98-99 period. And we are looking for a headline sponsor, a company whose name will go on everything related to the Gaiety. And we ll get it. That s another reason I say we don t need Arts Council subsidies. Give them to the theatre companies who produce the plays, the Storytellers and Garry Hynes of this world. And one more reason I don t want a subsidy is because then you ve got this umbilical cord going up to (the Arts Council in) Merrion Square.
That said, the Gaiety did get a capital grant as part of the Millennium funding and the theatre is already the beneficiary of Arts Council subsidies in the sense that companies like Storytellers are actually given annual grants to help stage productions such as Oedipus, which recently ran at the Gaiety.
We got #500,000 as part of the Millennium funding but that was one tenth of what was required, Costigan points out. And yes, Storytellers is an Arts Council subsidised company so what you say is true. But Beauty Queen of Leenane, for example, is a commercial venture. As was Juno And The Paycock, The Whiteheaded Boy, Moll, Women on The Verge of Hrt. All those shows made money for both the theatre and the producers. As did our panto ( Jack And The Beanstalk now produced by the Gaiety itself, though Costigan himself is the named producer). In fact, when I first reviewed the accounts here I discovered that the theatre received the lowest rent in the year from the pantomime production company, a situation I soon rectified. And I do cite the success of the panto as one of the key reasons for the turnaround in the finances of the success of the Gaiety.
As part of the new commercial reality , Costigan suggests that theatres such as the Abbey and Gate might increase their profitability and lessen their need for subsidisation if they charged higher prices of admission.
I think they are under-pricing their tickets, he says. We have lower-price tickets here, from #8, but the average ticket price has gone up from #16 to #20 over the past three years and there s no resistance. The Abbey and The Gate could afford to bring their ticket prices up. Given our Celtic Tiger economy our tickets are below European national standards. And another point is that if the market can sustain the ticket price increase then the Arts Council subsidy can go down and the difference go elsewhere.
John Costigan has already shown himself capable of making hard-nosed and even unpopular business decisions, as in clawing back for the Gaiety theatre profits that used to be made by Velure Productions Paul Rooney, Colin Walsh and DJ Fergus Murphy who ran Velure and Mambo, the exceedingly popular Friday night and Saturday night after-hours clubs in the Gaiety.
Now after a controversial parting of the ways, it s the Gaiety itself that runs those late-night clubs thus increasing its profitability and differentiating it further from The Abbey and Gate which have no similar forms of extra-curricular activities. As well as which, The Gaiety is now owned by Denis Desmond, meaning Costigan s access to bands for the late night clubs is assured.
Denis Desmond has already said he wants to make the Gaiety not just Ireland s premier commercial theatre but a legitimate theatre on a par with the Gate and the Abbey. And indeed John Costigan confirms that at some point in the near future productions may transfer directly from the Abbey to the stage of the Gaiety.
Yes, I have written to Ben Barnes (new artistic director of the Abbey) suggesting commercial transfers, he confirms. And we will do something along those lines in the next two years. And I can only assume Ben s thinking in this would be that a play has a commercial viability in the Abbey itself yet can continue to swell the theatre s coffers after it transfers to the Gaiety as an Abbey production. I would hope the Abbey and Gaiety can work something out along those lines!
But, in the end, might there be the perception that while John Costigan may know a lot about the business of theatre he might equally care little about it as an art form?
No, there isn t that perception! he insists. It s a combination of both, as far as I m concerned. I certainly know that when something like Girls Night Out is staged in the Gaiety it s crass and I ll only get 6,000 people in but they ll spent #19,000 in the bar. I get no sense of artistic gratification from that. And will, say, from a play likeJuno And The Paycock. But there is too much snobbery in the world of theatre when it comes to this difference between what is commercia and what is art . Surely the best of all worlds is a production that is a blend of both?