NYC's Lincoln Center Aims To Bring World Class Art To Everyone

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Alexis Christoforous (0:15)

We are so blessed here in New York City to have Lincoln Center for the performing arts.

Jessica Mention (0:20)

It's really fantastic. And we were just talking about how, especially in the summertime, they have those silent discos. You can see everyone with their headphones and they're dancing around. It looks pretty incredible.

Alexis Christoforous (0:29)

And the disco ball, the whole vibe, I know. Well, you know what? Summer is almost... I know we're technically still in summer, but we're already talking about our fall programming for Lincoln Center. And here to walk us through it is Shanta Thake. She is Lincoln Center's Chief Artistic Officer, joining us here in studio. Great to see you, Shanta. So tell us what sort of the highlights are for fall programming at Lincoln Center.

Shanta Thake (0:54)

Yeah, we are off and running. We just finished the summer, but you know, Lincoln Center is a huge campus, 16 acres in the middle of Manhattan. And we really have the best from around the world. We're kicking it off with Shuffle Along, which is this incredible capture of this beautiful musical that was first launched in 1921 with Broadway's first all-black cast. We are bringing back this re-imagining of it for two nights only at the Rose Theater, and it's going to be an incredible night.

Jessica Mention (1:22)

Oh, so this is a reunion, Audra McDonald, right?

Shanta Thake (1:24)

Yeah, Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Savion Glover, so many amazing faces and names.

Jessica Mention (1:31)

What are some of the bigger seasonal highlights as far as those milestones that y'all have accomplished recently?

Shanta Thake (1:37)

Well, I've been at Lincoln Center now for five years. We welcomed over 600,000 new people to Lincoln Center.

Jessica Mention (1:43)

That was a tough five-year stretch coming out of COVID. It probably feels like a lifetime ago.

Shanta Thake (1:48)

Yes, it really was a time where we had to think about what does New York need right now? What should a Performing Arts Center be right now? We made a lot of big shifts and welcomed a whole new group of people into Lincoln Center, some of them for the first time. It's been really amazing. We changed our entire ticket model to be free and choose what you pay.

All these barriers to entry for a lot of folks have really come down. We've just said, New York, this is your place to come see the best in live performance.

Alexis Christoforous (2:15)

I just love that because we talk all the time about... We were talking a few minutes ago about the US. Open, the Tennis Open and how it's really tough to bring a family to these sporting events and to Broadway as well. Ticket prices are really out of hand for so many folks. You are able to do... Is it all of your programming is what you pay?

Shanta Thake (2:35)

All of our programming is free and choose what you pay. A family of four can come for free to many of our events, including we have an amazing open house on October 25th. I'll plug that.

But also you can come see incredible new operas. You can see Shuffle Along for $5 a ticket.

Alexis Christoforous (2:52)

But you register for the tickets, correct?

Shanta Thake (2:53)

You register for the tickets. You have to sign up and actually purchase the tickets and you can pick whatever level feels right for you. So it's this exercise and generosity.

Any ticket level actually does come back to support the rest of us seeing this work and being able to bring work of scale.

Jessica Mention (3:07)

And how does the business aspect of that work in the sense if it's pay what you want, how do you kind of cover other costs there?

Shanta Thake (3:14)

Yeah, I mean, a lot of non-profit performance really relies on the generosity of donors and individuals, foundations, our city government. We're so lucky to be in a city like New York that's so philanthropic and really knows that the live performing arts are critical to how we thrive and why we want to be in this city. And so everybody really pitches in and says, this matters to us and it should be for everyone.

Alexis Christoforous (3:39)

I don't know how granular you can get with the demographics, but I'm just curious, are the folks who are coming to see these performances, mostly New Yorkers? Are they tourists but within the US? What kind of an international base do you have? Can you break, give us a feel for that or break that down for us?