It’s Magic: Prices Rise at Steppenwolf Studio
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Steppenwolf artistic director Randall Arney anticipates that studio prices will go back down to their previous level for future productions. Last season, the first for Steppenwolf’s studio, the highest priced tickets for Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Slavs! were $19.50, while Lookingglass’s The Master and Margarita, presented in association with Steppenwolf, topped out at a mere $14. The more than 100 percent jump for Ricky Jay & His 52 Assistants may have something to do with the absence of philanthropic funding. Last year the Sara Lee Foundation kicked in $100,000 toward the studio’s debut season. Yet another factor may be the cost of the talent involved. Ricky Jay received a ringing endorsement from critics in New York, where the show debuted last season, and his magic apparently doesn’t come cheap. Steppenwolf managing director Stephen Eich would not discuss the costs of presenting Ricky Jay & His 52 Assistants at Steppenwolf, but a local theater source familiar with Ricky Jay’s fees says the magician could be commanding $18,000 to $22,500 per week for his services.
Fallen Angels?
Despite all these efforts, the show was playing to only about 20 people a night–until last week. On Wednesday, December 28, and Thursday, December 29, the play drew as many as 130 people, nearly filling the 140-seat theater. However, the crowds didn’t last through the holiday weekend. “If I were going to the theater on New Year’s Eve,” Hartzell says, “I’d go see Joseph before I saw something heavy.”
