Bob Goodrich, the president of Goodrich Quality Theaters, a Midwest chain with 35 buildings and 293 movie screens, said he was relying on posted signs and public shame to keep those rings from breaking out in his cinemas.
Since New Yorkers have great radar for quality, theaters have been at capacity; you practically need to turn tricks outside Alice Tully to score a ticket.
People from the surrounding community praise the convenience of being able to see high-quality theater without having to go to New York.
She said ticket sales are strong, a trend other area theaters are also experiencing as people choose an evening of high-quality theater near home instead of in more expensive Manhattan.
The experience of the Phoenix was to give strength to other Off Broadway theaters, proving Mr. Houghton's point that audiences were eager for professional high-quality theater that did not have to be a Broadway extravaganza.
Governor Whitman could have cut the item from the budget, he said, "but she saw the same thing we did, that the Surflight provided high-quality theater in an area that doesn't have a lot of the performing arts".
With movie tickets costing as much as 120 renminbi ($19) for 3-D and 180 renminbi ($28) for Imax, these American technologies are delivering content to Chinese consumers who are increasingly focused on authenticity and a high-quality theater experience that cannot be pirated.
Given his demonstrated commitment to high-quality theater over many years, it is dismaying that he has allowed personal pique to override his more far-reaching interest in keeping serious theater available in a Broadway environment increasingly hostile to such work that doesn't come sprinkled with stardust.
For the Bridgeport-based band Caravan of Thieves, together less than a year, having a local high-quality theater where they have played more than a half-dozen times helped put them on the map, said James (Fuzz) Sangiovanni, the band leader.
In a theater-going era when anything with assumed marquee value is trussed up for consumer consumption, it's a treat to recall something that -- for the abundance of high-quality theater craft it contains -- truly deserves enthusiastic applause.
