August 18, 2017
by

Even though the Theatre District is only 10 stops away on the Q Train, it might as well be in California for Ditmas Park teens.

With ticket prices reaching up to $500 for some Broadway shows, area teens find the theater financially inaccessible.

Many teens The Ditmas Examiner interviewed have never experienced a Broadway show.

“I’ve always seen commercials of Broadway performances or musicals on TV but I’ve never had the chance to see one in person,” said Jeremie Josaphat, 15.

She’d be willing to pay up to $35 for a show, but the current prices are out of her league. “I always feel a little down when I know I can’t go see a Broadway performance, but after a while I get over it because that’s just the way life works,” she said solemnly. 

Some teens feel deprived of artistic expression, by not being able to experience the theater. That’s the case for Erika Juarez, 17. “Lots of teens have a tough time expressing themselves nowadays. I feel as if theater is one way that teens can do that,” she said.

This level of connection with today’s teens has served the musical “Dear Evan Hansen” well. It won six Tony Awards and focuses on relevant topics including depression, anxiety and the effects of social media.

Juarez never seen a show but imagines “it’s a one-of-a-kind experience.”

All of the teens interviewed had the same reason for never making it to Broadway: it’s too expensive.

“It could be that the price correlates with the popularity of the play,” says Juarez, “but usually the only people who can afford them are older people. There should be a discount for teens to have an easier time acquiring them. Monetary factors should not be the reason younger people are deprived of appreciating/enjoying theater.”

Fortunately for teens, there is.

Through ArtsConnection’s High 5 Tix program middle and high school students can buy tickets to theater performances for $5.

“It’s a great way to learn about different people, and places, and times, and to engage with different cultures, as well,” said Program Manager Allison Whorton. She also said the arts help teens “get outside your comfort zone a bit and experience different art forms, too.”

Sometimes enjoying the arts means a little risk taking, said New York State Assemblymember Robert Carroll. In 2014, he wrote “The Believers,” a play about the behind-the-scenes activity of a political campaign that premiered on the Upper West Side.“Sometimes people go “oh that’s not for me, oh I don’t feel like I should go there, I don’t know if I’ll like it, I don’t know if I’ll fit in,” he said in an interview. “That’s something we need to shake up by bringing some of those arts to schools or communities and by melding different forms of the arts.”

Broadway isn’t the only way to get a taste of the city’s art and culture. Both Carroll and Whorton suggest that teens take advantage of the arts they can find in their communities. Tickets to various events are available to purchase directly from the ArtsConnection website, which is updated several times a week.

ArtsConnection runs other programs, including TRaC (Teens Reviewers and Critics), which allows teens to review various shows and exhibitions around the city. ArtsConnection also has a program titled Art2Art, which enables teen artists to create artwork based on a Broadway musical. This year, teens will draw inspiration from “Dear Evan Hansen.”
However, not all of Ditmas teens are Broadway novices. Jolie Carter,16, has been told that she went to a performance of Disney’s “The Lion King” when she was 5. Too bad, she has trouble remembering what happened.