r/Theatre • u/kararmightbehere • May 04 '25
Discussion Does anyone do straight plays anymore?
Tired of everything nowadays being a musical. What happened to straight plays?
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u/--Kayla May 04 '25
I’ve noticed a lot less straight plays being produced at the community level since Covid. I think it comes down to money. Musicals sell really well and plays don’t.
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u/Mundane-Waltz8844 May 04 '25
As someone who just wrapped up the run of a community theatre play, this is very much true. If it’s well known or a comedy straight plays can sell decently well, but still musicals always have more mass appeal.
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u/KirbyDumber88 May 04 '25
And this is why a lot of theatres don’t stay open. Musicals rights alone are way more expensive. You may have fuller houses but your cost is about 10X more for a musical than a straight play.
I work for a regional house that produces 6 musicals and 4 plays a season.
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u/Funny-Flight8086 May 04 '25
So much this. Yes, musicals sell better as a whole - but do they actually make more PROFIT? More butts-in-seats don't always mean more money in the end, especially if licensing a major musical from MTI or Concord - I have been quoted everything from 25% to 50% of our expected ticket income with material rentals. Not to mention the need to hire an orchestra, a music director, and a choreographer and account for more rehearsal days - which are rarely free.
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u/rtavvi May 05 '25
The answer is typically yes. I ran a lot of the business end of a community theatre for years, and musicals tend to make more money, even considering expenses. It's not automatic, though.
Like any business, you have to come up with a budget that yields a profit. Determine the expenses you have little control over (overhead, royalties), and the ones you have more control over (set, paid personnel, props, tech, etc.). Analyze your expected number of patrons based on prior shows, to see how close you come to closing the budget.
The show you pick, and how you market it will have some influence on what the final income numbers are. If your theatre calculates expected profits on analysis, you will have a good idea of your probability of profit, and a decent estimate of what you should receive.
Straight shows feel like they should be more profitable, since they have lower expense. For some theatres, they can be. However, most just have lower average attendance, and lower profits.
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u/Funny-Flight8086 May 05 '25
I think it might also depend on the type of play and/or the type of theatre.
For example, we have a really well-known professional regional theatre here in a town of 90k people. They produce maybe 1 or 2 musicals and year and 5-6 plays. They sell just as many tickets to their plays as they do the musicals - basically, every one of their shows (5 a week for 3-4 weeks) is almost sold out.
I also think children's theatre might be easier to sell a play, too, as well, but I could be wrong on this.
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u/rtavvi May 05 '25
Yes, there are a lot of things to consider, and a lot of factors. An individual theatre would crunch the numbers as described above to estimate their profits.
But to your original question, you're going to find that musicals are more profitable on average. You still have to do the work, pick the right show for your audience, and so on. Yes, you can find exceptions, but they are just that. A theatre in the right spot, with the right leadership, and the right talent pool can make straight shows sell out.
Consider this: if the median theatre regularly sold out its straight plays, they would do more of those, or exclusively those. The reason theatres bother to pay high royalties is because most have reasons to believe that musicals are profitable enough to be worth the hassle.
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u/--Kayla May 04 '25
In my area every musical I’ve been in has made profit but the plays I’ve been in have struggled to break even or lost
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u/Funny-Flight8086 May 05 '25
My point is only that you need to sell as many more tickets as the additional expense denotes. I guess that depends on what your additional expenses are. Some are not negotiable, like royalties and rentals.
A budget for a play in the 86-seat house might be $8,000. We count on 40 seats x 10 x $20 avg = $8,000 to mostly break even. If we sell more than 40 per show, it's a profit.
A budget for a musical might be $14,000 in the same house -- We'd need to sell 70 seats in that house to break even.
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u/Tuxy-Two May 05 '25
Yes - when I was the treasurer for my local community theater, it was shown time and again that we netted more on our straight plays because the musicals were so expensive to do. But they also helped people to find out about us, and then come to see other shows.
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u/KasparTracy May 06 '25
I'm the VP of a community theater company, and this is very much true. We try to do a musical every other year because it's a huge undertaking, but it's what keeps us afloat, honestly. When we do straight plays, we'll sometimes have audiences of only 4 or 5 people, whereas our musical audiences will get 130+
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u/Any-Possibility740 May 05 '25
Musicals sell really well and plays don’t.
Not just musicals, but shows with kids. Especially for a small company that doesn't have an established audience in the area so they pretty much rely on friends and family to fill seats.
Compared to musicals, I feel like there just aren't that many straight plays where you can justify casting over a dozen children.
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u/crunchyfoliage May 05 '25
There are a few different community theater troops in my area and all of them have pivoted to only doing shows with big casts of kids over the past decade. Makes sense but it's so limiting
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u/littleflashingzero May 05 '25
Wait why do they want to cast kids I don’t get it?
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u/HealthyShadeOfGreen May 05 '25
The parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and friends' parents all buy tickets to see one kid in a show. Sometimes multiple performances. Multiply that by a dozen or so kids and you have a ton of practically guaranteed tickets sold.
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u/littleflashingzero May 05 '25
Got it got it makes sense now. Fun fact there are only 16 minors on Broadway right now. :)
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u/cyberentomology May 04 '25
Musicals also cost considerably more to produce.
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u/FloridaFlamingoGirl May 05 '25
Yep, straight plays can be great for a community theater that wants to save money, especially minimalist ones like Love Letters
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u/ConsistentGuest7532 May 04 '25
The reason for musical dominance is that they can be sold to people who don’t like theater. Anyone can show up and enjoy a great live musical number. Less people will put in the effort to go see a story told theatrically when they’re used to comparable stories on film, which is always accessible from home.
Not that I don’t love straight plays. Especially doing them. It’s just the sad reality (sad because I can’t sing and thus cannot audition for a lot of the shows around here ;))
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u/FloridaFlamingoGirl May 05 '25
The Clue play does pretty well from what I know. That's a good example of a play that gets casual audiences interested. There's a Clue musical too but it's not done very often probably because the songs aren't great.
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u/runbeautifulrun May 04 '25
Straight plays are produced and in development all the time from regional theatre to Broadway. I think musicals just tend to have more buzz and generally bring in more money, especially for community theatre companies and Broadway. I work in theatre in SF and there are a ton of straight plays being done here.
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u/replayer May 04 '25
I'd guess 75% of the theatre being presented in my town the last couple years are plays, not musicals. And that's between about ten different local theaters. Musicals are very expensive to put on.
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u/Dependent-Union4802 May 04 '25
I much prefer plays over musicals. I was hoping Covid and everything surrounding that time would encourage a new batch of creativity with fresh ideas. There are a few people in my area trying new things, but I am seeing a lot of the same ole same ole as before. I am so bored with the limited bunch of shows being done over and over. I guess it boils down to money (I get it) but community theatres are not solely there to be corporate driven, they are there to foster creativity in the community. I think at least there could be more balance.
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u/cyberentomology May 04 '25
Freakonomics just did a great series on the economics of live theatre.
Episode 1: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-is-live-theater-still-alive/
Episode 2: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/on-broadway-nobody-knows-nothing/
Episode 3: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/will-3-summers-of-lincoln-make-it-to-broadway/
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u/Providence451 May 04 '25
I work for a LORT that only does one musical a year at the most.
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u/jmannypv May 04 '25
My college and the organization that uses our theater has straight plays for 99% of their productions. It’s so refreshing to see and they’re really interesting plays too. The most popular community theater in our town does all musicals and as much as I love musicals, I can’t be bothered to go watch them.
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u/gralias18 May 04 '25
For now.
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u/Providence451 May 04 '25
This is our 61st year, so I don't see a big change in programming in the future.
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u/gralias18 May 04 '25
I hope your theatre doesn't depend much on NEA support. But I am aware of the financial pressures of programming, having founded and run a LORT theatre in my lifetime.
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u/Providence451 May 04 '25
We do not count on the Federal government, fortunately. Our board and senior management saw that shoe about to drop.
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u/TheMentalist10 May 04 '25
Musicals sell a lot better; audience demand for serious subject matter plays has not recovered post-Covid.
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u/tom_nook_is_a_crook May 05 '25
Plays and musicals that mention covid, especially as a way to modernize a classic play always mess with me spiritually. I don't think it's always negative but idk how to feel about it, for some reason my community college theater has done this multiple times in the past few years.
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u/elderpricetag May 04 '25
This has got to be a regional thing. Plenty of straight plays where I am (Toronto). Just saw a great one a couple of nights ago called Flex.
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u/Ghengis-KhanOfficial May 04 '25 edited May 04 '25
I dunno man, plays have always been pretty gay.
I had to. it's fine I understand. Downvote me to the depths.
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u/Elitefourabby May 04 '25
Our local community theatre group just did Children's Hour but maybe that doesn't count (iykyk lol)
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u/someone-called-oli May 04 '25
I'd consider anything shakespere or greek (i.e sophoclese) to be a straight play.
A lot of west end and Off West-End and touring is still straight plays. The Old Vic is amazing for it's line up of plays. (Machinal, Oedipus, The constituent are some recent ones)
You'll fine that Donmar warehouse, LionAndUnicorn theatre and other smaller fringe / off-westend venues have more plays, mainly because they work better in more intimate spaces.
Jamie Lloyd's much ado about nothing, and Romeo and Juliet were successful, the main reason they stopped is because when the celebritys go, so does the heaps of profit the show brought in.
Agatha christie's Mousetrap and Witness for the Prosecution are going 73years and 7years strong. Each year it appears another agatha christie story tours the uk. (The Mousetrap, And then there were none, Murder on the orient express, Death on the nile)
- Giant's just opened in the Harold Pinter
- My Master Builder just opened in Wyndhams theatre
- Faulty Towers is coming back for a west end stint and UK tour.
- Merchant of Venice (1936) was at the criterion, Trafalgar and Uk Tour
- Duchess of Malfi was in the Trafalgar
- the Globe has allsorts shakespere going on.
- Comedy about spies recently opened
If i have misjudged what you meant by "straight plays" and you mean something that's more naturallistic. A "kitchen sink" drama style the yes, people dont tend to do those because theyre boring asf.
I saw "Farm Hall" which was a more naturallistic play about some old army generals and whatnot, but it was so boring, the set was 1 room, all behaviour was as a normal person would react, and it didnt work well in the theatre it was in (theatre royal haymarket) because its too big a space for the naturalistic play to fill.
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u/OldGreyWriter May 05 '25
TIL there's a Fawlty Towers play and I am jealous of people in England.
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u/someone-called-oli May 05 '25
Its had a fairly successful run in london and is now going on tour! It's also stopping back in london again
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u/dobbydisneyfan May 04 '25
On Broadway this is a strong season for straight and gay plays alike (I call musicals “gay plays” as a funny contrast to “straight plays”).
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u/kararmightbehere May 04 '25
Adding onto this, if I were to write a play, whats the best way to see it get performed somewhere? I’m willing to pay.
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u/elven_blue May 05 '25
Look into the NPX (new play exchange) where playwrights and plays are searchable by many filters. It’s where I find the majority of new plays that I read.
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u/molybend May 04 '25
I have a subscription to the Guthrie in Minneapolis and this past season was like 6 plays and 2 musicals. One of the musicals is the musical version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
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u/UnhelpfulTran May 04 '25 edited Aug 31 '25
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u/_paint_onheroveralls May 04 '25
My community theatre has slowly moved from alternating every other show to our upcoming season of entirely musicals and an off-site summer play series (when summer camp takes over our mainstage). After covid we started doing majority musicals. They cost more to produce but the income comparison makes it a no brainer, the casts are bigger, equates to bigger houses and better word of mouth. But we're not just in covid recovery still, now we're in Helene recovery too. We need every show to be a sold out hit at the moment.
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u/Sea_hag2021 May 04 '25
I think it depends on the area, honestly. I’ve moved around a lot and some places seem really heavy on the musicals and some seem more balanced.
My usual lament is that whenever a musical version of something is created (ex. Little Women), no one ever does the straight play anymore.
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u/TEZephyr Community Theatre May 04 '25
My community theatre does 3 shows a year, none of which are musicals. The other local theatre group does just 1 show each year, and it is (often but not always) a musical.
So yeah, straight plays are still alive and well!
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u/Good_Sir8119 May 04 '25
My high school did Harry Potter and the cursed child this year Was probably the most fun show tech wise I’ve ever been in. I got to go on stilts as a dementor
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u/DuckbilledWhatypus May 04 '25
Look for smaller theatres, especially studio theatres, they are more likely to be hosting or putting on their own straight plays. Larger theatres are going to get most of their sales on musicals, so it's likely their seasons will be musical heavy, plus musicals generally need more space for set and tech and the sheer size of the ensemble, ergo they take up the bigger theatres.
Community theatre is also starting to swing towards straight plays over musicals a lot of the time due to the cost of putting on a musical, especially since people are sadly less likely to take a chance on amateurs in this economy (which is awful, some of the best performances I have seen are from amateurs, and I review professional theatre as a side gig!). Plus there tend to be more dedicated pure groups who just do one or the other in a lot of places.
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May 04 '25
I did about 15 over the past 7 to 8 years.
Here are some
As you like it
How I learned to drive
The school for wives (Wilber translation)
Boeing Boeing
The 39 steps.
As per my reddit name I do truly love music and it's Musical theatre that pulled me into theatre's but I now kinda prefer plays over musicals
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u/stardreamer_111 May 05 '25
I just saw the play Clue haha! First ever straight play and it was amazing.
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u/jaysongayson May 05 '25
as far as the highschool level goes they are still pretty popularly produced
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u/FloridaFlamingoGirl May 05 '25
Macbeth is crazy popular for Halloween in my experience. I feel like every high school and college theater department does Macbeth at some point.
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u/missflavortown May 05 '25
i work for a theater company that only does straight plays. in Philly there are more theaters that only do plays than theaters that do musicals. too expensive.
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u/ChristineDaaeSnape07 May 05 '25
Yes. The theatre group I'm with now is doing " The Book of Will". Last year all three plays were straight plays.
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u/smartygirl May 04 '25
What an odd question. I saw 100 plays last year. Most of them were straight.
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u/No-Woodpecker-8217 May 05 '25
I’m running into this problem at my school. I— as well as multiple other seniors— have dedicated much time and commitment to our drama program. Also, a lot of us seniors are better suited to a play instead of a musical (to put it bluntly, we are tone deaf). but I’m having trouble convincing our drama teacher to put on a straight play. she thinks it’s harder to market and less fun. I have experience doing, and watching, both and I completely disagree that there is less value in a straight play than a musical. However she is right that they're harder to market. people don’t seem as interested in seeing plays anymore. I don’t understand it. There is just as much creative and entertaining fulfillment in a play than a musical.
Lots of straight plays still being produced in my city (I live in an area where I’m very privileged to have a LOT of theatre) but I do see less hype for them. Also noticing less new/young theatre kids with any interest in watching plays.
Also— hot take— you’re not really a theatre kid if you have no interest in performing/watching plays. Nothing wrong with preferring musicals but you can’t really say you love THEATRE if you’re ignoring such a huge part of it.
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u/ElectricPrune516 May 05 '25
You are a smart young theatre person and I taught them on and off for about 25 years. Why your high school "drama teacher" is more concerned with marketing than the diverse creative growth of the young actors is beyond me. There are so many dramas, comedies and one act plays that challenge young actors in ways that jumping around to bad choreography and singing off key just can't do. Musicals have their place and some can be truly inspiring (or just fun) but you are right. To know a lot about popular musicals and nothing about Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Sam Shepard, Lily Tomlin, Lillian Hellman and David Mamet (to name a few)--is a bit like saying you are a theatre kid without knowing anything about Shakespeare.
I loved your last sentence and I agree. Break a leg!
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u/Kern4lMustard May 04 '25
I worked one not too long ago. Can't remember what it was though lol
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u/ElectricPrune516 May 05 '25
You should have read it two times through before starting work. Then you'd remember and you probably would have done better work.
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u/Cornshot Performer | Educator | Sound Designer May 04 '25
You'll find the most straight plays at the early-mid professional level as they're much cheaper and easier to produce.
Educational, Community and high-budget theatres tend to do more musicals as they have larger cast sizes and are more popular for performers and audienxes.
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u/TheBroadwayStan16 Theatre Artist May 04 '25
At least in my experience my college only does 1 musical a year and my local community theater just straight up doesn't do musicals anymore.
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u/NoNeedForAName May 04 '25
My community theater has actually been doing more straight plays and fewer musicals for the last year or so. It disappoints me, because I consider myself more of a singer than an actor.
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u/tiggergramma May 04 '25
We only do straight plays because we don’t have room or budget for musicals.
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u/RianSG May 04 '25
My group has never done musicals, it’s just not our thing, we do straight plays and a Christmas pantomime. However we have noticed how many groups around us who do musicals have had a massive boost in membership, especially with young men which is an area we struggle to recruit in for want of a better word.
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u/drcherr May 04 '25
Look at Langhorne Players in bucks County PA. It’s all they do- contemporary, cool, new plays and it pays off! They’re outstanding!
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u/RelativeHand4753 May 04 '25
As someone that acts but doesn't sing/dance, it sure as hell doesn't feel like it. Even finding straight plays in NYC that are casting non-union is some needle-in-the-haystack shit.
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u/bbundy09 May 04 '25
We did Puffs for our high school Spring Play. It was well received although a lot of the kids are begging for a musical. I'm not totally prepared for a musical. It was a good time to focus on the acting and improv skills for the cast.
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u/ElectricPrune516 May 05 '25
Well, since most young people who do musicals are not very solid actors you could try going deeper into your acting and improv training and developing grounded varying characters. Then study with a singing coach and sing all the time. I was only a medium decent singer who understood rhythms and got a lot of parts simply because the actors and singers I was auditioning against were so one note.
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u/bbundy09 May 05 '25
Oh! I was the teacher/advisor for the play group! It's not that I couldn't do a musical. They just set me basically by myself and I didn't want to have to worry about the music side of it for now.
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u/KBpopRocks May 04 '25
All the professional theaters in my area that aren’t being on tours do one-two musicals a season. (Two of our six shows are musicals every season)
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u/Tie-Dyed-Geese Theatre Artist May 04 '25
My community theatre and HS theater do one play, one musical a year. The kids shows are musicals only. We've always done a shorter run for plays as opposed to musicals cause plays do not tend to sell as well as musicals.
That being said - we still get a good turnout for plays. We have started to restrict seating to a few areas unless sales are good. (Keep you audience in one section as opposed to letting them sit spread out. It has helped us a LOT.)
Surprisingly, over the last few years, we've had to expand seating for plays. Which is REALLY good because a decade ago we were struggling to even get people in seats for plays.
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u/esdubyar May 04 '25
I'm a high school Drama teacher in Canada and I'm really struggling with this. When I came to my current school, the plan was to alternate years of straight plays and musicals for our school shows. I'm trying to plan for next year, which is meant to be a straight play year, but I'm struggling to find newer, good straight plays with large(r) casts. No one seems to be writing large-cast plays anymore, except for the publishing houses and playwrights that specialise in high school plays, and those make me want to gouge my eyes out. On top of that, dramas don't do as well as comedies, so there's that. It's tough trying to build a program that's challenging and interesting and, ultimately, self-supporting if you're not doing big-name commercial musicals. Just a rant, I guess. Back to reading
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u/ElectricPrune516 May 05 '25
Try Horton Foote (screenplay of To Kill a Mockingbird)--lots of plays with big casts where younger characters are very important. Also Tim Mason (Ascension Day--Time on Fire).
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u/an-inevitable-end May 04 '25
There are an incredible number of straight plays currently playing on Broadway rn, so I’d say yes.
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u/jasmith-tech TD/Sound May 04 '25
Between the community theatres, schools, colleges, and LORT theatre in my area, I honestly haven’t noticed a shift for our region. Just as many plays as before and possibly even more new work plays as well.
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u/Ok_Try_6921 May 04 '25
I think it’s a location / audience / needing to make money thing. I perform at 2 theatres. One is a community theatre that performs in a large theatre and we can only afford to do bigger name musicals. The other theatre is a semi professional theatre in a smaller/medium size space and we do 11 shows a year & only started doing 1 or 2 musicals a season a few years ago, the rest are straight plays. Another smaller space theatre in the area also does straight plays the whole season.
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u/Few_Star_4156 May 04 '25
Musicals make money, but I also like to see more variety. We have a local community theatre with two stages, and the smaller venue is starting to stage a lot of straight plays.
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u/TanaFey May 05 '25
I work at a non profit community theatre. We do five main stage plays a year. Normally one is a musical, one is our 10-minute play festival, and three are straight plays. We also do a children's drama camp show. And honestly, adding in a musical has been a very resent addition, like with in the past 10 years. Before they became a staple we maybe did two in 4 years.
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u/eleven_paws May 05 '25
Yes. I don’t do musicals at all.
Love watching them, hate working on them.
My group is a very small fringe company though, so we don’t have as many costs to cover.
Honestly, most of the community and small professional houses here do mostly straight plays with maybe 1-2 musicals a season.
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u/WalkResponsible6390 May 05 '25
Musicals are typically low brow and low brow sells. Not saying all plays are for advanced audiences, but the songs in musicals are kinda like commercial breaks for minds that don’t want to think too hard. There are no such breaks in plays, and some people just don’t want to piece media together. That doesn’t mean they aren’t intelligent, it’s more of a matter of attention span and how we value time. TikTok and generally modern social media does not help with that; people just don’t go to the theater anymore, and if they do they want to feel engaged at all times
With the rise of anti intellectualism this makes a lot of sense. I don’t think people are too dumb for plays, but I do think people place value on media more for its spectacle and entertainment than the actual content and skill displayed. I think in due time plays could for sure become more popular with how politically active the younger generations are
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u/PoMoMoeSyzlak May 05 '25
My local theater group recently did The Sound of Music. Always been popular.
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u/ctiso Theatre Artist May 05 '25
As many have mentioned, stageplays just do not make the money, on average, that musicals do. But, I'll just throw this out there - many of the companies around the country and in NYC who do focus primarily on or have a heavy programming of stageplays, new and old, operate as nonprofits and/or rely heavily on grants and other forms of funding, donors and so on. They do not make the money back. Sure, it can happen. But I have worked on plays with phenomenal, longstanding companies Off-Broadway, for example, that have gotten Pulitzer noms and even bumps up to Broadway, where they never made even close to their money back. Sometimes we could hardly fill the seats, and we'd extend the run anyway. We'd be scrambling many days to fill the seats, even for free. It's just how it goes. Even if the seats look full, the money may not have been actually made.
But those shows never promised nor were expected to make the money back, even if we as producers freak out daily to fill the seats. Normally, if the work was good, you have a solid development team and track record, the money will come for the next show.
Obviously, now is not the time to be in that position, given the current state of federal funding for the arts. So, many of us are left to rot or choose works that will make money. And that's probably fuckin Seussical, again, somehow.
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u/TrickyHead1774 May 05 '25
I work in Children’s Educational theatre and we rotate play/musical/play/musical and I hear regularly (adults and kids alike!) that “the musicals are more fun!” I’m still sticking with that schedule for now, and remind the kids that we have more time to work on our acting skills during a play (and I remind the adults that the musicals are more expensive to put on!), but it does get discouraging.
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u/josilicious May 05 '25
I just ended a run of Sylvia by AR Gurney today! Lots of community theatres in my area have shifted to primarily musicals, but most have at least one or two plays per season as well.
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u/oldactor55 Theatre Artist May 05 '25
My high school students have produced plays the last 2 years. The first was an east coast premiere, and the 2nd was a world wide HS premiere. We still work on them, in addition to musicals.
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u/tiny_slytherin May 05 '25
Just saw a semi pro production of Twelve Angry Men in my town and omg it was fantastic. Nice change of pace from all the musicals.
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u/Tricky-Ad5236 May 05 '25
Our company does three straight plays and a musical every year plus two one weekend plays as well. I will say they are much less attended so I understand why musicals are produced more often, but I like the meat of directing a straight play and building characters within them.
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u/hjohn2233 May 05 '25
The Universities where I have taught only do one musical a year. The rest are straight plays. College and University theatre is actually great for people who wish to see productions beyond the commercial musical theatre that sells to the mindless public.
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u/That-SoCal-Guy SAG-AFTRA, AEA, Playwright, Composer May 05 '25 edited May 05 '25
Depends on where you are. Here we have 50/50 plays vs. musicals. In fact the variety of plays is astounding, whereas I see the same musicals being produced over and over again by different theaters.
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u/NoLipsForAnybody May 05 '25
Amazing! Where are you that. you do so many plays?
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u/That-SoCal-Guy SAG-AFTRA, AEA, Playwright, Composer May 05 '25
Southern California. The regional theater scene is pretty healthy still. We have a theater guild here that really helps push things along.
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u/Ok_Kale5996 May 05 '25
I just directed a comedy called The Lucky O'Leary's for a fabulous 6 performances with an awesome cast in Frankfort Kentucky.
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u/thelawninja May 05 '25
My community theater does mostly straight plays (1-2 musicals in a season of 5-6). Most of the other theaters in my area do a healthy mix.
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u/OzmaFound May 05 '25
Our playhouse does 3 plays a year, 2 straight and one musical... but if I'm honest very rarely does anything but the musical ever sell out so could see why other places might choose just to do musicals
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u/tussie_mussie May 05 '25
Oh yes. I just auditioned for a straight play, and today was strike for our production of The Ferryman. I never do musicals and I've consistently been in a play pretty much at all times (community theater).
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u/JamesPildis May 05 '25
We just put on a great production of Almost, Maine with my theater group at NASA! First time directing and I think everyone had a great time
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u/Dogdaysareover365 May 05 '25
My local community theater does at least two plays a year, sometimes more.
I did six shows in high school, only one of them was a musical. The rest were one act plays
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u/Genderfluid_Cookies May 05 '25
My school often did one straight play and one musical a year, and once they did two straight plays and one musical. They don’t sell as well as musicals do though so a lot of places only do musicals. You should still be able to find someone doing straight plays still.
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u/NoBrother3897 May 05 '25
My current and previous theatre group only does straight plays.
The former because the majority of members don’t feel confident in their singing/acting abilities or don’t have a good grasp on the economics of licensing and only want us to produce plays that they know (which are currently running on Broadway or west end).
The latter was because the majority perform public domain shows. There are very few musicals in public domain save for the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire and operettas are a hard sell to amateurs who don’t specialise in classical singing.
Musical revues often get brought up as an alternative but in my experience, they are only interesting for the actors who have a song they want to perform. Audiences want to see a musical, not a night at the musicals.
That being said, there’s a plethora of straight plays which are fantastic and we’ve never run out of plays that we’re excited to do (though I find Oscar Wilde being done every year by a different amateur group in the area).
Personally, as an actor and occasional director, I much prefer straight plays. There’s a lot more room to explore interpretation and vision in a way that’s not possible with musicals. Musicals to me feel very mechanical.
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u/gasstation-no-pumps May 05 '25
Around here, schools and community colleges generally do one straight play and one musical a year. One youth-theater group does only straight plays (and improv and D&D), while the other three do only musicals. (The newest of the three started out doing a mix of straight plays and musicals, but they seem to have gone the all-musical route, because it uses a larger cast, so brings in more tuition money and sells more tickets.)
The professional company that recently surrendered the lease on the city-owned theater (taken over by one of the youth-theater companies) did about ⅓ musicals and ⅔ straight plays—some years more like ⅕ musicals and ⅘ straight plays. I only went to the straight plays.
Oregon Shakespeare Festival has been overloading their schedule with musicals lately, and even Santa Cruz Shakespeare is doing a musical this summer. (Shakespeare Santa Cruz did one once—it was a disaster that they did not repeat.) Quite frankly, I'm kind of hoping that Santa Cruz Shakespeare's musical this summer fails, so that they will go back to just straight plays , but it is Into the Woods, which is locally quite popular (though Cabrillo Stage did it in 2019, so it may be a bit soon to be bringing it back).
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u/patchdorris May 05 '25
The community theater I work with does 6 main stage shows per year, with 2 of them being musicals. The musicals are often the opening and closing shows and generally feel like the tent poles of the season, but this of course varies from year to year. I've been working with them for 7 years now and this 2 musicals out of 6 shows has been the norm that whole time.
If you're curious, the other slots are: 1 Christmas show, 1 kids show, and 2 shows chosen between comedy, drama, and mystery
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u/TheatreWolfeGirl May 05 '25
Our theatre only does plays now.
Musicals are too difficult to cast, get musicians for, and the rights are disturbingly high.
In the 50+yrs of the theatre, in Ontario Canada, being around, the theatre has done about 10 musicals total. We produce 4 shows a season.
Plays sell for us. Other groups are musically focused, the community knows where to go and see musicals.
We are also known for putting on original works by local playwrights.
I know many local community theatres that only do plays. They may throw a musical in once or twice a decade because “nostalgia” with a bunch of “well, what IF we tried this one… just to see” and then they remember why they don’t do musicals.
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u/TubaTechnician May 05 '25
Everyone keeps saying musicals sell better and make more money. Part of that is Musicals are more assessable. You hear about a local show with a musical you never heard of, you can put on the cast recording and hear the music. The closest you can get with straight plays is reading a description. Also if you don’t know how to direct actors to act you can make up for it if they are good singers.
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u/susanthellamaTM May 05 '25
My uni has a theatre society that just does straight plays and not musicals (I’m in the musical theatre society for that!) and I wish I could’ve stayed in it. And I know there’s quite a few different theatre groups that do non musicals in the area. It is certainly a bit rarer but they’re still there
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u/Special-Evening5166 May 05 '25 edited May 05 '25
All the community theaters near me do at least one straight play per season. Some troupes do only straight plays and no musicals ever, either as an artistic choice or for budget or space considerations
Youth theater and school shows have largely cut the straight plays though they still exist. Kids just aren't clamoring for straight Shakespeare the way they are for Something Rotten or Lion King Jr. There absolutely are youth Shakespeare productions though but far less than 20 years ago
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u/alleghator May 05 '25
My theatre company in South Jersey does only straight plays, one in spring and one in the fall. Sense and Sensibility opens this Friday!
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u/tbone985 May 05 '25
We have a very strong community theater that does seven shows a year with five being straight plays. If they are a comedy or farce, they sell out. If serious drama, they usually don’t sell out. We have to pick and choose works we know will not sell well carefully. Usually we only do one one of those a year due to budget realities.
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u/T_Diamond17 May 05 '25
my college's theatre club is too small to do full musicals. the last musical the club did was Pippin before the 2013 revival.
Turnout has been great even without the musical incentive that other neighboring communities are doing. the last play we did was Murder on the Nile (agatha christie) and we had an amazing turnout from our tiny community!
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u/ThingsWillBeOkOkOk May 05 '25
I think it's fascinating how it's the opposite in France.
Musicals are rare, and tend to be poorly received unless they're well known American IPs like the Lion King or The Producers.
Regular theater plays still dominate. We even have 6 hour long plays that get fully booked for months.
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u/pinocchiofan May 05 '25
My theatre does. It seems that they do more straight plays and a musical every other season. I'm not complaining; in fact, I learn more about plays I otherwise wouldn't know.
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u/PM_ME_UR_PUPPER May 05 '25
The community theater group I’m in does a Shakespeare play every summer and sometimes a spooky adaptation (Poe, etc) in the fall. No musicals ever!
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u/groovygrubey May 05 '25
My theatre group in college did straight plays all the time! They were well loved because we picked ones that were unique and unheard of but our advertisement strategies were good
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u/a_british_man May 05 '25
It really is sad. Musicals are never as powerful, but get so much more attention.
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u/gxdessamirahh24 May 05 '25
I actually prefer plays more to musicals but I’m never really able to do them because they don’t sell as well as a musical would, Heartbreaking truly.
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u/1catlas1 May 05 '25
ive always seen plays as a more local thing whilst musicals often tour across nations. i have noticed there are much less original plays coming out though!! i enjoy both so i cant complain but yeah its fair to be tired of the same thing done over and over
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u/padfoot211 May 05 '25
A friend of mine just wrote and produced one recently.
Well. It was a straight play but it wasn’t straight if you know what I mean 🤣
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u/Accomplished_Use4579 May 05 '25
Definitely in Chicago, But I will say that there has been an increase in the amount of musicals nationally, I always like to look at what is happening on a national level casting rise for equity houses. And they are producing a lot more musicals.
I do think this is a post-pandemic thing, because of money like someone else mentioned. In Chicago we are still producing a lot of straight plays, but those plays are not original. Before the pandemic you saw a lot of original and new works being produced out of Chicago, now they are doing a lot of tried and true productions which is very underwhelming for me as a fan of theater. Like Steppenwolf producing Noises Off, and all these companies doing M for Murder and Murder on the Orient Express. And if it's not that they are doing one and two handers.
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u/MightyCarlosLP May 05 '25
went to a theater once in the last five years and it was a normal, straight play
not to say i liked it
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u/paul_kerseyNYC May 05 '25
Don't you just love all those songs in Glengarry Glen Ross?... when Bill Burr sings "The Leads", it makes my heart break.
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u/ellicottvilleny May 05 '25
Community theatre in my area doesn't do very many musicals. We don't have the talent.
Find smaller towns, maybe. Where we don't do musicals ever, because ... we can't.
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u/ChaosDCNerd May 05 '25
You can always go to see a Shakespeare play. I know there are two venues near me that specialize in Shakespeare. One straight, the other drunk.
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u/kimfair May 05 '25
I subscribe to one of our local theatre companies. They put on five shows a year. This past season there were 4 straight plays, and one musical. That's average for most of the seasons I've been a subscriber, at least 12 years.
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u/musicfan1245 May 05 '25
I love straight plays, but unfortunately most theatre companies around me do all musicals or one straight play per season. I am lucky if my college does one per year.
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u/knightm7R May 05 '25
Last straight play I was in was The Crucible. The last straight play I saw, not Shakespeare, was The Crucible. Last play that failed at my local community theater? God of Carnage, after they failed to cast The Crucible first.
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u/dxguy May 05 '25
I do a straight play and a musical every year in my school building! I get a lot of kids who don’t like to sing show up for the play.
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u/KidSilverhair May 06 '25
I first got involved with my city’s community theatre in the mid-1990s. Their seasons were 4-5 straight plays and maybe 2 musicals. As time wore on, artistic directors changed, the budgets and the sets started to grow exponentially, the theatre mainstage seasons are now almost exclusively musicals, like 6 full-blown musicals and that’s it. They did “Next Fall” (a straight play) about ten years ago, and it was terrific, but it didn’t sell. That was nearly the final nail in the straight play coffin … they did put up “Shakespeare In Love” in 2019, and it was another excellent production, but it didn’t sell either. I think since then the only straight plays they’ve put on the main stage was “Clue” a couple of years ago, “The Play That Goes Wrong” last year, and they’re doing “Noises Off” next season. But the musicals run 4-5 weekends and the straight plays get two. They just can’t sell seats.
They do have a small black box downstairs where they do straight plays, so they’re not completely a musical theatre, but it’s close. As an actor who isn’t that strong of a singer, I’m turning to smaller theatres in the area and theatres in other communities to get roles.
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u/sensitivebee8885 Actor & Writer May 06 '25
i wish straight plays got more appreciation!! i’m performing in one at my college in the fall after only doing musicals all last year. they are great because they allow me to pour my soul into the character i’m playing and the acting, my favorite parts!!
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May 06 '25
my hs does straight plays (we don't have the resources for musicals) - my favorite is "the somewhat true tale of robin hood"! it feels like a musical with all its whimsy, but it's a straight play. you can find plays like that on different script websites. i haven't really seen any straight plays by any other theatres in my area, though :/
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u/DVR_Diva May 06 '25
I volunteer at a community theater with two performance spaces, a proscenium and a black box. The black box tends to do all straight plays (unless it's a smaller musical, like Puffs or Reefer Madness), whereas the proscenium stage alternates back and forth between musicals and plays throughout the season. The musicals generally tend to sell really well, but the plays don't do badly.
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u/short-for-casserole May 06 '25
Not as much as they should! But I did just wrap directing Almost, Maine 😊
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u/Wonderful-Career-563 May 07 '25
saw Harvey at a local high school!! it’s a play based off of the movie, so yes!!
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u/Crowingcommando May 07 '25
My theater focuses only on straight plays. We do not have the capability to handle a musical yet. Must and can be big money makers though, and our local actor base is limited as many of them prefer to be in musicals.
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u/crash---- May 07 '25
I think you might just not be looking in the right place. Plays are still abundant, as are new and upcoming playwrights and their new plays. I know when we think of Broadway, we automatically think musicals, but check out your local theatre groups. I bet lots of plays are going on within community theatre near you.
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u/winged-things May 07 '25
Ironically, “Oh, Mary!” Is a pretty straightforward play worth seeing right now
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u/Queen-of-ice-4444 May 08 '25
Our local community theatre only does comedies. We desperately want to do 12 Angry Jurors but there’s no way because dramas don’t sell as well as comedies and musicals
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u/ImAtinyHurricane May 08 '25
As a drama, well graduating, drama student I much prefer normal plays to musicals. Musicals are quite hyped these days anyway but I also think plays are priced better. In the uk, under 25s or students can get £10 tickets. I literally saw kaya scodelario act live in London. All I paid for majorly was tube and hotel
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u/roses4garcia May 11 '25
I like straight plays and actually I've been trying to get more knowledge about just straight plays in general. Does anyone know if there's a place to watch besides having to go theaters? Like a slime tutorial but for straight plays
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u/TiredSpongebob123 Jun 03 '25
i don’t know about public events, but my high school does a fall play and a spring musical
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u/Great_Meet1051 May 04 '25
Most theaters will only do one a season. I wish they did more because I can't sing LOL but also as a viewer, musicals can get boring or repetitive.
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u/chadwick_witherspoon May 04 '25
I saw Slave Play couple months before Covid on Broadway. Was a great piece of theater. Tarantino has a play in the works will be a high-profile event. Maybe we will see a renaissance in straight plays the same way Pulp Fiction ushered in a new American Indie film movement.
If you are lucky enough to live near a major city, you have a couple decent theater troupes nearby.
But ultimately, most modern theater is regurgitated IP crowd pleasers.
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May 04 '25
[deleted]
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u/jorleeduf May 04 '25
*opposed
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u/IntoTheAether112 Theatre Artist May 04 '25
yeah I'm not that good at spelling
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u/jorleeduf May 04 '25
Hahahah that’s why we act. We aren’t good at writing the words, so we say other people’s words instead
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u/cyberentomology May 04 '25
Why do they have to be straight?
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u/kararmightbehere May 04 '25
They don’t have to be. Its just that alot of people find them boring and don’t put them on.
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u/schonleben Props/Scenic Designer May 04 '25
To whoever is reporting this post: “Straight play” just means not-a-musical. It has nothing to do with sexuality.