How expensive is a theater outing in Kyiv?
With television, and now the Internet, gaining in popularity, the demise of the theater has been predicted with increasing persistence. However, television programs will probably never replace the living canvas of a theatrical performance. Sitting in front of a television screen, you cannot experience the emotions and sense the special magical aura that comes from direct contact with actors. Television has penetrated our lives to the point where it has become mundane and routine. But a theater outing can be a real feast. But like anything else, it costs money. So how much does the pleasure of spending an evening at the theater cost today?
TICKETS
Tickets to the Russian Drama Theater start at seven hryvnias. But unless you want a balcony seat with a perfect view of the theater’s chandelier and a limited view of the stage, you should dig deeper in your pockets and be prepared to pay several times more, with the priciest tickets selling for 75 hryvnias. The Ivan Franko Theater is less expensive. Here tickets range from 5 to 50 hryvnias. A night at the National Opera will cost you between 5 and 70.
If you prefer chamber theaters, tickets there sell for at least 20 hryvnias, because it is unprofitable for smaller theaters to sell tickets any cheaper than that. But viewers don’t mind, since a chamber setting affords a splendid view of the stage from any seat.
Children’s plays are much cheaper in Kyiv. A children’s ticket for this season’s New Year’s performance at the Ivan Franko Theater cost two hryvnias, while tickets to the Kyiv Theater of Young Viewers in Kyiv’s Lypky district range between 5 and 25 hryvnias.
These are prices for repertoire plays. Meanwhile, tickets to guest performances are in a different price range. Of course, guest performances by Ukrainian companies are less expensive than foreign ones. For example, tickets to the plays Of Mice and Men and White Crow by the Beniuk and Khostikoyev Theater Company sell for 25-200 hryvnias. Meanwhile, theatergoers should be generally prepared to pay between 200 and 1,000 for a play staged by a foreign company. Clearly, not all theater lovers can afford such a luxury. But surprisingly enough, theatergoers are often prepared to pay a lot of money for a ticket only because the name of a popular visiting celebrity is on the theater bill. However, very often guest performances by various Moscow companies do not meet the expectations of Kyiv audiences.
HOT TICKETS
Where to go and what to see? If you have decided what you want to see, you should buy your ticket in advance. “We sell about 50 percent of all tickets right before the play. However, for individual performances tickets are sold out a month in advance,” says the administrator of the Russian Drama Theater, Vyacheslav Zhyla. “In our theater tickets are hard to get for such multi-genre plays as No. 13, Crazy Night, or Pigden’s Wedding, Trees Die Standing, Mrs. Minister, Napoleon and the Corsican Woman.” At the Ivan Franko Theater the following plays draw a full house: Tevie- Tevel, The Brothers Karamazov, Kin, Natalka Poltavka, etc. During the winter holidays the booking offices of the National Opera were full of sold-out notices. For example, parents bought up all the tickets in November to take their children to The Nutcracker. Meanwhile, parents had to buy tickets from scalpers so that their children could attend holiday season plays at the Kyiv Academic Toy Theater, which children have dubbed “a palace of fables” since it opened last December. According to the managers of the National Opera, the following classical plays are especially popular with the audiences: the operas Aida, Traviata, and Nabucco, and the ballets Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker. (A play is certain to draw a full house if these leading Kyiv actors are starring: Maria Stefiuk, Volodymyr Hryshko, Taras Shtonda, Olena Filipyeva, Denys Matviyenko, and others.) Many visitors from abroad and genuine music lovers frequent the Opera House and the National Philharmonic. The managers have observed that light, modern comedies mostly attract young and middle-aged people. Older theatergoers prefer classical, time-honored works. But this is not a hard and fast rule. Young people also attend plays based on classical works by Shakespeare, Ostrovsky, Chekhov, and Kotliarevsky, especially school children and students who have fallen behind in their required readings and thus combine pleasure with study at the theater. This season’s hot ticket is the play Romeo and Juliet at the Drama and Comedy Theater on the left bank, which is drawing viewers of various generations.
YOUR PLACE IS IN THE BUFFET
Theatergoers must remember that their expenses will not be limited to the ticket price. There are additional charges for handbills, booklets, or binoculars. For a snack, visit the theater’s buffet or snack bar. Although theatrical lore says that the “actors’ place is in the buffet,” you are also very welcome there. For example, the Ivan Franko Theater has a backstage buffet, where a shot of cognac, a sandwich, and a glass of juice will cost you 10 hryvnias. In general, the same selection will cost you several hryvnias more at an average theater snack bar.
While you are at the theater, you should be prepared for some unpleasant surprises. For example, if you lose a cloakroom tag, you will have to pay a fine. A lost cloakroom tag nets you a fine at the Young Viewers’ Theater in Lypky district and 40 hryvnias at the Russian Drama Theater. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. The Ivan Franko Theater administration is not that strict about missing tags and has no official fine. Local cloakroom attendants say that they normally ask the patron to stay calm and carefully examine the contents of their bag, or suggest that they return to the hall and look for it. They say that lost tags rarely go missing and their patrons almost never lose them. Above all, a theater outing is a feast of lasting impressions. After all, the positive emotions from seeing a play are impossible to acquire anywhere else.
