Isabelle McCalla Is ‘Frustrated’ With ‘How Inaccessible Broadway Is’ Regarding Ticket Prices

Broadway audiences aren’t the only ones talking about ticket prices for live theater. 

During Isabelle McCalla’s recent appearance on NBC New York’s Performance Review podcast, the Schmigadoon! actress was asked about the conversations happening amongst actors regarding accessibility. 

McCalla prefaced that actors have “zero” to do with setting ticket prices, but she said she’s “quite frustrated with the business model that is Broadway right now.” 

“I don’t like how inaccessible Broadway is,” she added. “I think that there needs to be a concerted effort to have some sort of program where we can get lower-income families in to see Broadway shows because it should not be an art form that is only reserved for the rich and predominantly white.” 

The actress — who has also been seen on Broadway in Aladdin, The Prom, Shucked and Water for Elephants — said that it’s “really frustrating to me when I look out in the house and don’t see many people of color in the audience.” 

McCalla pointed to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s recent partnership with TDF (Theatre Development Fund) on a program called Tickets for Teens, giving away 2,100 free tickets to seven Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. 

Mamdani also recently launched the “Opera for All” initiative, a partnership between the City and the Metropolitan Opera that provides 70,000 free tickets this season to New Yorkers who have never attended a performance at the Met. 

“I love the Kids’ [Night] on Broadway week,” she also added in reference to the two-for-one ticketing promotion. “But I think there needs to be more done in terms of accessibility.” 

“We need subsidization for live theater,” she said, noting that West End tickets in the U.K. are more affordable. “You can get like £15 tickets there — not great seats, but you’re still seeing theater. There should always be a reserved amount. I don’t care if it’s the two back rows of a theater.”

“Make them accessible. Have $30 tickets,” she said. “We have a lottery, which is great, but you know, it saddens me that commercial Broadway specifically has become so inaccessible. And it also saddens me that we’re not promoting original content as much. Post-pandemic, it’s the sure bets. It’s the celebrity driven vehicles. ‘Is it well-known IP or not?’ And that is leaving really great original shows out of the lineup.”

McCalla pointed out that Broadway was once filled with “culture setters and tastemakers.” 

However, she said that these days, it seems like the shelf life of a Broadway show is much shorter, adding: “Now it’s three months, if you’re lucky.”

McCalla isn’t the only theater artist saying that more needs to be done. 

As BroadwayWorld previously reported, Jeremy O. Harris said we “are in a crisis moment in the American Theater” and called on Mamdani to help the New York theater industry in a time when shows are struggling to survive.

“This is my plea,” Harris said. “Let’s talk about how to make theater more accessible in the city, how to bring the rents down on theater, how we do a theater-rent freeze somehow. Because I think that there is something really frightening about the greatest city in the world not having the greatest culture in the world.”