The bill levels the playing field between New York-based theatrical productions and film and television shows. Current tax codes allow TV and film productions to expense up to $15 million in qualified costs, when 75 percent of compensation paid is for services performed in the United States. Broadway shows and other live theatrical productions did not previously qualify for the tax incentive.
2 comments:
I hope this change in tax law ends up effecting the success of Broadway productions in the positive way that it intends too, but it might just allow the producers to snatch up the extra cash they’re saving. There isn’t anything wrong with that, but form a designer’s standpoint, it’s much more preferable that this money gets used to making possible what was once deemed as impractical or impossible from a technical standpoint but incredibly desirable from a design standpoint. A moment in class last year comes to mind, when whoever was teaching basic PTM that semester told us about how they hate saying no to creative design ideas because that’s what they would like to do, their job becomes more fun when they have to figure out how to do something bizarre, but often times there isn’t a lot of money to do that thing, because it hasn’t been done before and the technology needs to be figured out. The figuring out part tends to take some money. I don’t have any idea if this is true in commercial theatre, because certainly most Broadway shows have a larger budget than we do here at CMU, but it boils down to whether the quality of the show is elevated due to a higher budget, or whether the show just saves money. I would hope for the former.
While the focus of this article is on the business of theater, I think that the point to focus on is Kidahy’s comment about theater as an art form thriving. If the art form thrives, the business will to. Reading this article, I can’t get the plot of “The Producers” out of my head. The article didn’t go into a lot of specifics about the tax code, but it seems to me that part of the reason these particular tax codes didn’t change until now is simple. Traditionally, theater has been thought of as cheap, or at least cheaper than TV of film. Now that shows and budgets are getting bigger, it makes more sense that the same kinds of business and tax laws apply to the creating of theater as they do to film and TV. I think that this is great for the industry. But, we don’t just need the investors looking to make money, we need the investors who are passionate about theater.
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