Available Light is opening Sheila Callaghan's Dead City here in Columbus in about 2 weeks. This show is a really big deal for us. Aside from being a beautiful play that we're all really excited about, it's also our first show to receive significant public funding, it has the largest cast we've put on stage, and it's in a space that's costing us about 3 times what we usually pay. (Frequent readers of this blog will remember that I am very ambivalent about that particular fact.)

However, instead responding by playing it safe on other fronts to compensate for the big risks we're taking, we've decided to try another big experiment. We're making all tickets to all shows for everyone all the time "Pay What You Want". That's right, just like Radiohead,Trent Reznor, Saul Williams, Paste Magazine, and a small crop of restaurants.

Of course, I know lots of theatres have done this for a couple of nights in each run, and our local Shakespeare in the Park is free, meaning "donate what you want." And I have heard gossip that a few theatres on the west coast have gone completely PWYW.

For us, it's really about two things. First, it's about serving the community. We figure it's a better world if good theatre is really, truly affordable to everyone, so we're putting our money where our mouths are, so to speak. The second is marketing. The space we're in has many more seats than we're used to, so we might as well make them available for next to nothing, otherwise, they'll just sit empty.

Has anyone out there tried this? What success have you had? What made it work or not work? What are your thoughts?