Paying more, just because you can

FOR $93, you can purchase a really good seat for “Salome,” a staged reading of Oscar Wilde’s play featuring the all-star cast of Al Pacino, Kevin Anderson and Jessica Chastain directed by Estelle Parsons that will play April 14 to 26 at the Wadsworth Theatre.

But if you’re a Very Important Person, you can buy a comparable seat at the same show for ... $200. (VIP seats for previews are a relative bargain at $198.)

According to people in the business, for the last five years it’s become something of a trend in Los Angeles for commercial theaters to offer higher-priced VIP tickets for popular shows, reserving choice seats for those willing to pay the price.

Of course, those seats may be right next to those of a longtime subscriber or a mere row or two ahead of some lucky schmo who snapped up tickets early for the regular price -- people who may be smart but are more than $100 less important.

Shows that have offered VIP ducats include “The Producers” at the Pantages in 2003-04, which offered a VIP ticket of $125 (versus a top regular ticket price of $95) and, more recently, Billy Crystal’s one-man show, “700 Sundays,” which charged $200 for a VIP ticket while the most expensive ticket for a non-VIP patron was priced at $95. For “Salome,” many of the VIP seats are already reserved for Visa, a corporate sponsor.

Wayne McWhorter, director of marketing for the Broadway/L.A. musicals headquartered at Hollywood’s Pantages Theatre, says that seats reserved for VIPs never account for more than 10% of the house and that no subscriber is ever bumped from his or her primo seat to accommodate a VIP.

However, McWhorter adds, a show’s producers -- the ones who determine the price of VIP tickets, as opposed to the theater -- seem to be finding plenty of willing L.A. buyers who prefer the no-hassle assurance of a good seat to playing the game of finding a similar seat by other means. “There is a group of people who just don’t care what the price is,” McWhorter says.

And, says Richard Willis, co-owner of Richmark Entertainment -- which owns and operates the Wadsworth and Brentwood theaters as well as Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theatre -- most producers throw in a few perks with the higher price, such as souvenir programs, no-waiting theater entrances or preferred parking. When the Wadsworth housed Tovah Feldshuh’s one-woman show, “Golda’s Balcony,” VIPs received a DVD signed by the actress, and VIP “Salome” patrons will have entree to a special room in which to gather at the theater.

Diane Haithman