Ticket Prices Fall as Temperature Rises

“Tamara” tickets on sale for half-price. “Forever Plaid” tickets available at $19.64. What’s up--or rather, what’s down?

A long, hot summer for producers of some long-running theatrical productions, that’s what.

“It’s been like crossing a desert,” complained “Tamara” producer Barrie Wexler. “We had an absolutely horrible June.” The month was especially tough because of the recession and lingering riot-related fears about coming to Hollywood, he said.

But that was June. In July “Tamara” instituted a half-off sale that created “a whopping response,” he added. With tickets on sale for $34-$44--which is even less than the $50 tab for the opening night of “Tamara” eight years ago--the gross is up 2 1/2 times over previous summers, reported Wexler.

“The whole notion of value is being appraised these days,” he said. “There’s a sale mentality out there.”

So must all good things come to an end? Why not make those sale prices permanent?

Because late summer is usually better for “Tamara” anyway, due to an influx of tourists, and because their expenses aren’t reduced, noted Wexler.

“If a big sale goes on and on, people feel you misled them when you said it was for a short period of time,” he added. Still, the sale will continue at least through Aug. 15.

Wexler emphasized that the sale is not a sign that “Tamara” is about to end. It’s “a response to normal business cycles,” he said. “The whole business isn’t on the line, just the profitability.”

Meanwhile, over in Beverly Hills, the producers of “Forever Plaid” responded to the summertime slump by placing a limited number of tickets for each performance on sale at $19.64.

There can be as few as 10 or as many as 100 discounted tickets (from the 382-seat house), depending on supply and demand, said co-producer Joan Stein. The amount for each performance is established at the beginning of each week.

So far, said Stein, 84% of the discounted tickets have sold. Grosses have remained “fairly constant.”

Why $19.64? Because that’s the year in which the musical fantasy is set. “I’m glad the show doesn’t take place in 1500,” quipped Stein. Or even earlier, she continued: “We’ve got to stay away from those biblical shows--they’ll kill you at the box office.”

KLINE DECLINES: Kevin Kline has withdrawn from his role “spearheading” the advertised 20th anniversary reunion of the New York-based Acting Company, which was to have resulted in next spring’s classical production on the Mark Taper Forum mainstage.

“He has other commitments,” said Kline’s agent Jeff Hunter, who declined to be more specific. The Taper’s announcement of Kline’s role was “inadvertent,” he added.

Margot Harley, the Acting Company’s executive producer, said the reunion “still may happen” minus Kline.

The Taper’s Gordon Davidson confirmed that possibility but added that the slot might also go to the the Taper’s home-grown classical workshop, the Antaeus Project, or to another in-house production.

Davidson said he had hoped for Antaeus to do two plays in repertory in the 1993-94 season. But now Antaeus may have a chance to show its stuff next spring.

IT AIN’T NECESSARILY SO: The ad for “ ‘S Wonderful” last Sunday said its program of Gershwin songs as “in the tradition of ‘The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber.’ ” Huh?

“It’s a concert as opposed to a show,” explained a spokesman for the agency that placed the ad. He said his client probably felt that the reference to last year’s Lloyd Webber revue was more recognizable than, say, a citation of “Side by Side by Sondheim.”

Too bad--we were looking forward to hearing “Evita, You Is My Woman Now.”