What's our theater saturation point?

Earlier this week, New York theater writer Garrett Eisler, who blogs at The Playgoer (and is an occasional contributor to Time Out New York), asked if NYC has too many subscription-reliant theater companies. What’s the number that Eisler thought might be beyond the pale? 20.

Cue nervous laughter in Chicago? The Chicago Theater Database, while still in beta, lists nearly 150 non-profit companies around town. The theater cultures of our two cities are very different, of course. Here, the nonprofit is standard fare. And I’d guess fewer than half of the nonprofit companies in Chicago offer season subscriptions; a lot of scrappy groups are so seat-of-their-pants, it seems, they can’t announce a next show until they’ve run the books from their current one.

But it's still worth asking: Um, how many theaters can we support, really?

In New York, with its long domination by commercial productions and single-ticket sales, it’s the subscription model that’s the interloper. Eisler’s point, and it’s a worthwhile one, is that many theatergoers aren’t necessarily interested in seeing every show on a company’s season slate, nor are they willing to throw down bucks for one play they're into and three unknown quantities.

But the large and midsize theaters that do depend on subscribers for operating capital might be terrified by Garrett’s point of view. Corporate and institutional giving is starting to shrink—some local companies have already let slip rumblings of financial fear, while just up the road some have already folded. In this economy (TOC Web editor Scott Smith points out that “in this economy” is the new “in a post 9/11 world,” but still), it’s probably time to be thinking about alternative models.

Chicago has a couple of promising choose-your-own-subscription experiments: the Greenhouse Sampler, Rogers Park Flex Pass and Looks Like Chicago are all fairly successful, from what I’ve heard. And those companies not participating should probably be thinking about forming alliances, considering that major foundation runners are starting to say, “Justify your existence.”