An ambitious proposal for a new performing arts district on Nashville’s East Bank—and a different economic model for American theatre.
File this under: Does it have to be this way?
I've spent years thinking about how we might fix the Broadway business model.
In those years, the model hasn't gotten better. It's gotten worse.
The cost of producing commercial theatre has climbed to extraordinary heights. Capitalization budgets that would once have seemed unimaginable have become commonplace. Shows that sell millions of dollars in tickets can still struggle to recoup their investments. Producers are raising more money, assuming greater risks, and working within increasingly narrow margins.
Some of the reasons are familiar across industries. Materials, labor, insurance, transportation, and housing all cost more than they did before the pandemic. Some costs reflect changes in how we make theatre: more understudies, swings, and standbys; new safety and accessibility practices; intimacy direction; increasingly sophisticated technical demands; and the staffing required to market productions in a fragmented media environment.
Many of these expenses represent real work, necessary protections, or meaningful improvements. The problem isn't that we're paying people to do valuable things. It's that we're trying to accommodate the demands of contemporary theatre within an economic and physical infrastructure built for another century.
And then there are the theatre landlords.
I recently read Jared Harbour's examination of Broadway theatre economics, The Residual, which brought my attention back to a part of the business that deserves considerably more scrutiny: the costs associated with occupying a Broadway theatre, including expenses that theatre owners pass along to producers.
We talk endlessly about the cost of producing a show. We talk less about the structure of the marketplace in which producers must operate.
A commercial producer raises the capital, develops the work, assembles the company, employs the artists and technicians, markets the production, and assumes enormous financial risk. Yet access to the essential physical infrastructure is controlled by a relatively small group of theatre owners.
That arrangement is not necessarily evidence of wrongdoing. Theatre ownership involves real costs and risks. But it raises a fundamental question about how financial risk, bargaining power, and the benefits of success are distributed.
What if we designed an entirely different system?
Not another nonprofit theatre. Not another performing arts center. Not a regional imitation of Broadway.
What if we built an entire theatre district from scratch, with the infrastructure, economics, technology, housing, and visitor experience designed around how live performance could work today?
And what if we built it in Nashville?
The opportunity sitting on the Cumberland River
Nashville's East Bank represents something extraordinarily rare: an opportunity to shape a substantial new piece of urban fabric adjacent to the center of a major American city.
Most established theatre districts grew organically. Buildings were constructed at different times for different purposes. Production businesses gathered nearby. Restaurants, hotels, transportation systems, and housing evolved around them.
That history gave us remarkable cultural centers. It also left us with inherited inefficiencies that are difficult and expensive to correct.
Nashville could approach the problem differently.
Imagine a district with 35 to 50 performance venues, ranging from intimate 150-seat houses to 2,000-seat theatres, developed over several decades rather than constructed all at once.
Imagine rehearsal studios, scene shops, costume shops, prop houses, recording studios, classrooms, artist housing, hotels, restaurants, public plazas, and a riverfront park.
Imagine a place where a new musical can be developed, rehearsed, built, performed, recorded, distributed, and licensed without its creators having to assemble an entirely new physical and administrative infrastructure at every stage.
Imagine a district where residents can participate in the arts without buying a $150 ticket, and visitors can spend several days exploring experiences they cannot find anywhere else.
And imagine that the most important assets—the theatres themselves—are publicly owned and operated for public benefit.
This isn't a proposal to move Broadway from New York to Tennessee. New York's theatre ecosystem is the product of generations of accumulated talent, institutions, capital, and cultural influence.
It's a proposal to build something that doesn't yet exist.
1. Treat theatres as civic infrastructure
Here's the central economic idea.
Theatres should function more like public infrastructure than scarce private real estate.
Cities already invest in infrastructure intended to support entire sectors of economic activity. We build convention centers, airports, public markets, sports facilities, transit systems, and industrial infrastructure because their value extends beyond the revenue collected at the door.
A theatre district could operate on a similar principle.
The municipality, or a publicly accountable development authority, would own the performance venues and lease them to both nonprofit and for-profit producers on a cost-recovery basis.
The objective would not be to maximize the landlord's return. It would be to maintain high-quality facilities, preserve their long-term financial health, and make professional production economically viable.
That doesn't mean free theatres.
Buildings require maintenance, insurance, utilities, capital repairs, staff, and eventual replacement of major systems. A responsible authority would need to recover those costs and maintain substantial reserves.
But it could do so transparently.
Imagine an occupancy agreement built around a published schedule of actual operating expenses, with clear distinctions between direct production costs, shared building expenses, and contributions to capital reserves.
No opaque collection of charges whose relationship to the services provided is difficult for producers to evaluate.
No incentive to extract the maximum possible amount from a show simply because its producers have few alternative venues.
And no requirement that a public cultural asset generate the same return expected of a private real estate investment.
There could be multiple occupancy structures: short-term developmental rentals, weekly commercial leases, seasonal nonprofit residencies, and longer repertory agreements.
A successful commercial production could pay a modest additional participation fee above an agreed revenue threshold, with that income reinvested in maintenance, new work, and affordable access.
That participation would need to be carefully structured. If the authority simply replaces expensive rent with an expensive royalty, we haven't solved anything.
The goal is to reduce the fixed financial burden of opening a production and create an environment in which more shows have a realistic opportunity to succeed.
Consider a hypothetical production that could reduce its combined occupancy and associated facility expenses by $30,000 per week.
Over a 40-week run, that's $1.2 million.
That money could reduce capitalization, improve operating margins, support additional employment, or accelerate investor recoupment.
It's an illustration, not a forecast. Actual savings would depend on the terms being replaced and the costs of the new facilities.
But it demonstrates why the structure of theatre occupancy matters so much.
And it raises another possibility: if a production can operate with a lower weekly break-even, it may not need to sell out a large theatre at premium ticket prices to survive.
Lower fixed costs can make room for different artistic and commercial choices.
2. Build the production infrastructure once—and share it
A theatre is only one component of a production.
Shows also require rehearsal rooms, scenery construction, costume fabrication, props, storage, loading facilities, equipment, and specialized technical services.
Today, producers often rent, contract, or coordinate these resources across multiple locations and vendors. Many of those vendors are excellent businesses employing highly skilled people. They are also operating in a system where logistics, storage, duplication, and geographic fragmentation can add significant expense.
What if the district contained publicly owned production facilities available to all qualifying tenants?
A central scenic fabrication complex could offer carpentry, metalworking, paint, automation, and assembly space.
A costume complex could include construction workrooms, fitting rooms, dye facilities, laundry, wig facilities, and climate-controlled storage.
A shared prop library could make thousands of items available for rental and reuse.
There could be rehearsal studios, dance floors, music rooms, instrument storage, loading docks, technical equipment pools, and warehouses.
The public authority wouldn't necessarily have to employ every carpenter, stitcher, scenic artist, or technician. Independent shops, union contractors, freelancers, and production companies could work within or alongside these facilities.
The distinction matters.
I wouldn't want a public monopoly on theatrical production services. I would want a shared physical platform that makes it easier for skilled professionals and independent businesses to operate.
The authority could lease workshop space to established vendors, offer short-term access to smaller producers, and create apprenticeship opportunities in partnership with unions and educational institutions.
The savings would come from economies of scale, efficient logistics, shared equipment, reduced duplication, and the ability to reuse assets.
Imagine a producer finishing a run and transferring scenery, costumes, and props into an organized district inventory rather than immediately paying to ship or dispose of everything.
Imagine another production finding that much of what it needs already exists.
That isn't just a financial opportunity.
It's an environmental one.
Theatre creates extraordinary things, many of which are used for remarkably short periods. A district designed for material recovery, refurbishment, reuse, and responsible disposal could reduce both production costs and waste.
3. Build every theatre for a worldwide audience
This is where I think the opportunity becomes especially exciting.
For generations, the economics of theatre have been constrained by one unavoidable fact: the audience must be physically present.
A theatre has a fixed number of seats. A performance happens at a fixed time. Once the curtain comes down, that particular event is over.
But what if the physical performance were only one part of the product?
Imagine every theatre in the district being designed from the beginning for professional livestreaming and filmed capture.
Not retrofitted years later with awkward camera positions and temporary cabling.
Designed for it.
That means appropriate camera locations, lighting flexibility, acoustics, broadcast connectivity, isolated control rooms, fiber infrastructure, recording facilities, and production workflows that accommodate both the live audience and the cameras.
A district-wide media operation could provide capture and postproduction services to producers who want them.
A producer could stage a traditional eight-show week and, when the appropriate rights have been secured, offer selected performances to digital audiences around the world.
Now imagine a musical develops a following similar to the fan communities surrounding touring bands.
Think about Phish.
Fans don't simply want to see the band once. They follow tours, compare performances, collect recordings, discuss variations, and build relationships around the experience.
What if a theatrical production cultivated that kind of audience?
A fan in London might watch opening night live. A fan in Chicago might collect recordings of performances featuring different casts. Someone in Australia might attend a digital watch party. A devoted audience member might travel to Nashville twice a year because the live experience remains irreplaceable.
And when a production closes, its economic life need not end.
Professionally captured performances could support streaming releases, educational licensing, international distribution, archival collections, and other products.
There are important complications.
Theatre rights are complex. Actors, musicians, directors, designers, writers, choreographers, and other contributors have contractual and intellectual property interests. Existing union agreements and licensing arrangements cannot simply be ignored.
Nor should they be.
But what if the district brought producers, unions, guilds, rights holders, and distributors together to negotiate standardized, optional frameworks for capture and distribution?
The question wouldn't be how to circumvent the existing agreements.
It would be how to create agreements that allow artists to share fairly in new revenue.
Not every production will benefit from livestreaming. Some work depends on intimacy, surprise, or forms of audience participation that don't translate to a screen. Some producers may choose not to film at all.
That's fine.
The important thing is that the infrastructure would make digital distribution a choice rather than an expensive exception.
A 1,000-seat theatre would still have 1,000 physical seats.
But its potential audience would no longer be limited to those seats.
4. House the people who make the work
We cannot seriously discuss the cost of producing theatre without discussing the cost of living for the people who produce it.
Actors, musicians, stage managers, technicians, designers, craftspeople, and other theatre workers need somewhere to live.
Traveling productions need temporary housing. Resident companies need long-term housing. Artists with children need family-sized housing, not simply a collection of small furnished apartments.
If we build an entire cultural district without addressing this, we'll have recreated one of the most punishing features of established arts economies.
Imagine mixed-income housing integrated throughout the district, with a portion permanently reserved for qualifying arts workers.
Some units would be affordable long-term rentals. Others would serve touring companies, visiting artists, apprentices, and short-term creative residencies.
There would be family apartments, childcare, playgrounds, shared outdoor spaces, and everyday services.
Housing shouldn't be contingent on remaining employed by a particular production. That would create unacceptable insecurity and give employers too much control over workers' lives.
Instead, housing would be managed independently, with clear eligibility and tenant protections.
The district would also need housing for the people who make the surrounding economy function: hospitality workers, educators, maintenance employees, and other residents.
This cannot become an exclusive enclave where artists are housed affordably but everyone who serves them is priced out.
A functioning cultural district is a neighborhood, not a backstage compound.
And for Nashville, where rising housing costs have already placed pressure on working musicians and artists, this could be a meaningful piece of a much larger workforce strategy.
5. Make the whole district an experience
Nashville already knows how to build an economy around people traveling to experience music.
But a theatre district offers something different from a collection of venues.
It can become a place where the making of art is part of the attraction.
Imagine arriving on a Friday afternoon.
You check into a hotel overlooking the Cumberland River. You spend an hour watching scenic artists work through a public viewing gallery. You walk through an exhibition of costumes from productions that premiered in the district.
That evening, you see a new musical.
Afterward, you visit a late-night cabaret where performers from several productions gather to sing, experiment, and collaborate.
On Saturday morning, you take a workshop with a professional stage combat instructor. Your children participate in a puppetry class while you tour a recording studio.
In the afternoon, you attend a reading of a musical still in development, followed by a conversation with its writers.
That evening, you see a play in a 250-seat theatre.
On Sunday, there's a free outdoor performance in the riverfront park.
This is not simply a weekend with two theatre tickets.
It's a cultural destination.
There could be public rehearsals, costume exhibitions, theatre history installations, participatory experiences, master classes, open studios, street performances, festivals, and behind-the-scenes tours.
Some would generate revenue. Others would be free public programming.
Restaurants and bars would serve audiences before and after performances. Hotels would offer theatre packages. Local businesses could create complementary experiences.
The district could support school trips, professional conferences, industry gatherings, international festivals, and educational tourism.
And because Nashville already has a deep music industry, the possibilities for collaboration would be unusually rich.
Musicians, songwriters, orchestrators, recording engineers, producers, and music publishers could work alongside playwrights, composers, directors, designers, and performers.
New musical theatre could be developed within an ecosystem already exceptionally good at making, recording, and distributing music.
That's an advantage worth building around.
6. Create a development pipeline, not just a collection of stages
One of the weaknesses of the commercial theatre model is that new work often has to move through an expensive and uncertain development process before it has any meaningful opportunity to earn revenue.
Readings, workshops, labs, developmental productions, out-of-town tryouts, and commercial transfers can involve multiple rounds of fundraising and substantial duplication of effort.
Not every show needs the same development process, but many could benefit from access to an integrated set of facilities and services.
Imagine a district where a writer can begin in a 40-seat studio, develop the work through readings and workshops, move into a 250-seat theatre for a limited run, and eventually open a larger production without leaving the ecosystem.
That progression would not be automatic. Artistic merit, audience response, producer judgment, financing, and market demand would still matter.
But the infrastructure would exist to support each stage.
There could be residencies for writers, directors, composers, designers, and creative teams.
A nonprofit development institution could commission and incubate work that commercial producers aren't ready to finance.
Universities, independent producers, community organizations, and professional companies could participate.
Importantly, the nonprofit and commercial sectors would not be treated as competing systems.
They could be complementary.
A nonprofit might develop an ambitious new work, retain its own artistic mission, and negotiate a commercial transfer on terms that compensate the institution and its artists.
A commercial producer might rent a smaller theatre to test a production before committing to a larger capitalization.
A community theatre might access professional fabrication facilities that would otherwise be financially out of reach.
An established company might maintain a repertory season.
The district would support different kinds of theatre rather than forcing all of them toward one commercial definition of success.
7. Make room for a genuinely different repertoire
Broadway's economics strongly favor productions that can attract large audiences at relatively high ticket prices.
That doesn't mean Broadway lacks artistic ambition. Extraordinary work happens there.
But the financial pressure is real.
When capitalization runs into the tens of millions and weekly operating costs are enormous, producers have powerful incentives to favor recognizable intellectual property, stars, large-scale spectacle, and marketing concepts that can reach broad tourist audiences.
What becomes possible when the cost structure changes?
Perhaps a 300-seat musical can sustain a longer run.
Perhaps a small-cast play can build an audience over months rather than needing to establish itself almost immediately.
Perhaps a repertory company can rotate several productions through the same venue, keeping artists employed and encouraging audiences to return.
Perhaps a new musical can have a successful life without becoming a Broadway blockbuster.
And perhaps the district can support work that doesn't fit conventional commercial categories at all.
Experimental theatre. Immersive performance. Opera. Dance. Puppetry. Theatre for young audiences. Multilingual productions. Site-specific work. Participatory storytelling.
The point isn't to replace commercial success with subsidy.
It's to make the financial threshold for sustainability more reasonable and create room for a wider range of business models.
A healthier theatre economy would have more definitions of success than a hit or a flop.
8. Build a district-wide business model
Here's where the proposal becomes more than a real estate development.
The district could create shared economic infrastructure that individual productions could choose to use.
A common ticketing platform, for example, could provide transparent pricing, audience data access, customer relationship management, and cross-promotion among venues.
A patron purchasing tickets to a musical might discover a play, a concert, or a workshop taking place the following afternoon.
A visitor could purchase a multi-show pass or an annual district membership.
A local resident could subscribe to a flexible package that includes commercial productions, experimental performances, and educational events.
Individual producers would retain control over their pricing, marketing, customer relationships, and intellectual property, subject to agreed terms.
But the district could reduce the cost of reaching audiences.
It could also offer optional shared services in payroll administration, accounting, insurance procurement, accessibility support, audience research, marketing technology, and production management.
Not every service would be cheaper when centralized. Not every producer would want to use them. And competition among vendors should remain possible.
The objective would be to make common services more affordable and efficient without taking away the independence that makes producing entrepreneurial.
This brings us back to Jared Harbour's analysis.
In The Residual, Harbour estimates that Broadway's three dominant commercial theatre-owning companies collectively generated approximately $177 million in profit in the season he examined.
His analysis looks beyond rent to the various revenue streams associated with theatre ownership: percentage rent, weekly house charges, concessions, facility fees, ticketing, and other financial interests.
That $177 million is a model-derived estimate, not a verified aggregate profit figure. Harbour is explicit about the limitations of the available data.
But the larger question remains important.
When a producer occupies a theatre, how many different revenue streams are controlled by the owner of the building?
And what would happen if some of those revenue streams instead supported a shared cultural infrastructure?
A publicly owned theatre district could retain ticketing and concession revenues, for example, and direct the resulting operating surpluses toward facility maintenance, lower occupancy costs, affordable tickets, or artistic development.
The money wouldn't disappear. The cost of operating the services wouldn't disappear either.
But the financial benefit could circulate through the district rather than being extracted as private profit.
That's a fundamentally different proposition.
9. Make it an economic development strategy
The strongest argument for public investment in a theatre district isn't simply that theatre is valuable, although I believe it is.
It's that a functioning production ecosystem can generate economic activity far beyond the stage.
A professional theatre district employs actors, musicians, stage managers, directors, designers, technicians, craftspeople, producers, marketers, administrators, and educators.
It purchases goods and services from construction firms, printers, transportation companies, restaurants, hotels, caterers, equipment suppliers, accountants, attorneys, and countless other businesses.
It can attract visitors who stay overnight, dine in restaurants, and spend money throughout the city.
It can help attract and retain creative talent.
And unlike a single attraction, a district with a continuously changing repertoire gives people reasons to return.
But this economic argument needs discipline.
Visitor spending is not the same as net economic benefit. Some spending would simply move from one Nashville entertainment venue to another. Public construction carries opportunity costs. Tax revenues don't automatically return to the agency paying for the infrastructure.
A serious proposal would need independent analysis of capital costs, operating expenses, likely utilization, visitor demand, employment, tax impacts, and the displacement of other economic activity.
It would need to examine how much new demand the district could generate rather than simply redistributing existing demand.
It would also need to evaluate whether public ownership offers better long-term value than alternative ownership and financing arrangements.
I would expect some facilities to require ongoing subsidy, particularly those serving educational, experimental, or community purposes.
That isn't automatically a failure.
We don't demand that every public park, library, or recreation center generate a commercial profit.
We ask whether its public benefits justify its cost.
Commercial theatres, however, should be evaluated against credible operating plans and demand projections. Public ownership should not become an excuse for perpetual inefficiency or politically favored programming.
The proposition is that a thoughtfully structured combination of commercial activity, shared infrastructure, public programming, and tourism could produce substantial economic and cultural returns.
We would need to prove it.
10. Govern it independently—and transparently
I would not want the mayor's office deciding which musical gets a theatre.
I wouldn't want a city council committee choosing a season.
And I wouldn't want public ownership to become a system of political patronage.
The district needs professional governance.
One possible structure would be a publicly accountable theatre and cultural infrastructure authority, with long-term control of designated public assets and an independent governing board.
Its leadership would need experience in commercial theatre, nonprofit performing arts, real estate, finance, facilities management, labor relations, and economic development.
There should be meaningful representation from working artists, production professionals, neighborhood residents, and the public.
The authority would establish transparent policies for occupancy, rental pricing, capital maintenance, access, and procurement.
Theatres would be allocated according to published criteria and commercially credible agreements, not personal relationships or political influence.
An independent appeals process could help ensure fair access.
Financial reporting would be public. Major contracts would be subject to appropriate oversight. Conflicts of interest would be disclosed and managed.
And the authority should be judged against measurable outcomes.
Are the theatres being used?
Are productions financially sustainable?
Are artists and technicians finding steady work?
Are new productions being developed?
Are facilities being maintained?
Are local residents attending and participating?
Are commercial tenants receiving the value promised by the district?
Is the public investment producing meaningful returns?
A district like this would need to earn trust over decades.
Transparency isn't an administrative detail. It's part of the model.
11. Build it in phases, not all at once
A 35-to-50-theatre district would be an enormous undertaking.
I don't think the city should begin by building 35 theatres and hoping producers arrive.
The more credible approach would be to establish the economic and operational model first, then expand as demand demonstrates the need.
Phase One: Prove the ecosystem.
Begin with a compact cluster of three to five performance spaces of different sizes, perhaps a 200-seat studio, a 400-seat flexible theatre, a 700-seat house, and a 1,200-seat commercial theatre.
Pair those venues with rehearsal rooms, an initial shared fabrication facility, digital capture infrastructure, and a modest amount of dedicated artist housing.
Recruit a mix of anchor tenants: a resident professional company, a new-work development organization, a commercial producing partner, and an educational institution.
The objective would be to test demand, occupancy, production savings, and audience behavior.
Phase Two: Build the destination.
As utilization increases, add theatres, expanded production facilities, housing, hospitality, and experiential attractions.
Develop festivals, residencies, district-wide ticketing, and coordinated visitor programming.
Establish relationships with commercial producers interested in originating work in Nashville rather than using the city only as a touring stop.
Phase Three: Become a national production center.
Expand the range of venues, production capacity, educational partnerships, and digital distribution operations.
At this stage, Nashville could compete to originate productions destined for Broadway, national tours, regional theatres, international markets, and filmed distribution.
Phase Four: Create a mature theatre district.
Over decades, the district could grow toward 35 to 50 venues if demand, financing, and urban planning support that scale.
Some theatres might host long-running commercial productions. Others could rotate repertory. Some could specialize in experimental work, children's theatre, concerts, or immersive performance.
The district's growth should follow the success of its ecosystem, not the ambition of an architectural rendering.
12. Why Nashville—and why now?
The East Bank is already being planned as a new mixed-use part of Nashville.
The city's Imagine East Bank vision calls for equitable and affordable development, multimodal connections, respect for the Cumberland River, and neighborhoods that serve Nashvillians.
A new Tennessee Performing Arts Center is also planned for the East Bank, with a development agreement and long-term ground lease approved in January 2026.
Those facts make this idea both more plausible and more complicated.
We would not be beginning with a blank slate. Land has been designated for other uses. Major infrastructure commitments are underway. The stadium, TPAC, housing, transportation, and other developments have their own financial and spatial requirements.
Any theatre district proposal would need to work within that larger framework and respect the commitments already made.
But TPAC's planned move also presents an opportunity.
Nashville is already making a major investment in performing arts infrastructure on the East Bank.
What if we thought beyond one performing arts center?
What if the surrounding development included the facilities needed to create and produce work, not just present it?
What if commercial and nonprofit theatre were intentionally integrated into the district's long-term economic plan?
What if housing for performing artists and production workers were incorporated into development agreements from the beginning?
What if Nashville's music industry became a foundational partner in creating a new center for musical theatre?
We have a music industry, a tourism economy, a growing creative workforce, and a rare urban redevelopment opportunity.
We also have substantial challenges: housing affordability, transportation, public finance, and competition for limited resources.
A theatre district should help solve some of those problems, not make them worse.
That means designing a genuinely walkable neighborhood, connecting it to transit, protecting public riverfront access, and ensuring that local residents benefit from the investment.
It also means being realistic about land requirements.
A mature district with dozens of venues, workshops, housing, public space, and hospitality would need a substantial footprint. Not every facility would need to sit on the same block. Some fabrication and storage functions could be located nearby, connected through efficient logistics.
And not every parcel would need to be municipally owned.
The essential principle is public control of the core cultural infrastructure, not public ownership of every hotel, restaurant, or apartment building.
A combination of public assets, long-term ground leases, private development, philanthropic investment, and institutional partnerships could create a much more financially flexible district.
13. How would we pay for it?
This is the question that should come before anyone commissions a beautiful rendering.
There is no responsible way to assign a credible total price tag to this vision without defining the site, construction program, phasing, financing, and operating assumptions.
But there are identifiable sources of potential capital.
Public infrastructure investment could support streets, utilities, public spaces, and certain cultural facilities.
Municipal revenue bonds or other financing structures might be available for facilities with sufficiently reliable revenue streams, subject to legal authority and financial feasibility.
Philanthropy could support educational spaces, new-work development, public programming, and capital campaigns.
Private developers could build hotels, restaurants, retail, and mixed-income housing under agreements that protect the district's public objectives.
Federal, state, and local economic development programs might support eligible workforce, infrastructure, housing, or cultural components.
Commercial producers and institutional tenants could enter into advance occupancy agreements, creating more predictable demand.
Naming rights, sponsorships, concessions, parking, and other ancillary revenues could contribute to operating and capital costs.
But I would be very careful about using projected future revenue to justify excessive debt.
A public theatre authority should have conservative borrowing limits, dedicated capital reserves, independent financial oversight, and a credible plan for periods of lower utilization.
We would also need to separate the costs of constructing the district from the costs of operating it.
Those are different financial questions.
A theatre that can cover its annual operating expenses may still be unable to finance its original construction cost through rental revenue alone.
If the city chooses to subsidize the capital cost because of the broader public benefits, that subsidy should be explicit and defensible.
The objective isn't to pretend that public infrastructure is free.
It's to decide which costs society should share because the benefits are shared, and which costs producers and audiences should bear directly.
14. The real challenge: building an ecosystem
There is one problem that concerns me more than the buildings.
We can construct theatres.
We cannot simply construct a theatre industry.
Broadway works because of an extraordinarily dense network of talent, businesses, relationships, audiences, and institutional knowledge.
There are producers who know how to raise money, general managers who know how to operate commercial productions, unions and craftspeople who know how to deliver technically complex shows, and audiences who arrive expecting to see theatre.
That ecosystem took generations to develop.
Nashville would have to cultivate its own.
This means that before the first theatre opens, the city would need to build relationships with commercial producers, nonprofit artistic leaders, unions, training institutions, investors, distributors, and production vendors.
We would need to understand what would actually motivate a producer to originate a show in Nashville.
Lower occupancy costs alone might not be enough.
A producer may need access to specialized labor, reliable vendors, investors, press coverage, casting resources, and distribution opportunities.
Some Broadway productions depend on the New York market itself. They need Tony eligibility, access to Broadway's established audience, and the commercial opportunities associated with a Broadway run.
A Nashville district cannot simply offer cheaper space and assume those productions will relocate.
Instead, it should develop advantages that are distinct from Broadway's.
Lower fixed costs.
Purpose-built production facilities.
Access to Nashville's music industry.
Integrated digital capture.
A range of developmental and commercial venues.
Affordable housing.
A strong resident audience.
A tourism economy capable of supporting year-round programming.
And a business environment in which a production can succeed without necessarily becoming a blockbuster.
That is how an alternative becomes compelling.
15. What success could look like
Twenty years from now, imagine Nashville has a thriving theatre district with 20 performance venues.
A new musical opens in a 700-seat theatre after two years of development in the district. Its producers have access to shared fabrication facilities, professional capture equipment, and a transparent occupancy agreement.
The show earns strong reviews, develops a loyal audience, and runs for 18 months.
Its producers recoup their investment.
The production releases a filmed version internationally and licenses the work to other theatres.
Meanwhile, a nonprofit company is presenting a season of contemporary plays in a 300-seat house.
A children's theatre is performing every weekend.
A repertory company rotates three productions in a larger venue.
A university conservatory shares facilities with professional companies, allowing students to apprentice with working artists.
A festival brings new musicals from around the world to Nashville each spring.
Families visit for weekends. School groups arrive during the week. Local residents attend performances, classes, and free events throughout the year.
Actors and technicians can build careers in Nashville without constantly relocating.
Independent production businesses have enough consistent work to employ skilled craftspeople year-round.
And the district's operating surpluses help maintain the facilities and support the development of new work.
This would not eliminate the risk of producing theatre.
Shows would still fail. Audiences would still be unpredictable. Artistic disagreements would still happen. Investors would still lose money.
But perhaps the underlying economic structure would no longer make failure so financially devastating or success so difficult to achieve.
Perhaps producers could spend more of their capital on the work itself.
Perhaps ticket prices could become more accessible.
Perhaps more artists could earn a sustainable living.
Perhaps the theatre industry could become less dependent on a small number of extraordinary commercial hits.
And perhaps a city could benefit from treating the arts as productive civic infrastructure rather than an amenity to be funded only when budgets allow.
Does it have to be this way?
I love Broadway.
I've worked in its theatres. I know the talent, skill, labor, and extraordinary collaboration required to bring a production to life.
I also know how much ingenuity goes into making the economics work, and how many promising productions never reach an audience because the financial barriers are simply too high.
I don't think the answer is to abandon Broadway.
I think the answer is to stop assuming that Broadway's inherited business model is the only viable model for professional commercial theatre.
We have spent generations perfecting the art of making theatre within extraordinary constraints.
What might we create if we redesigned the constraints themselves?
Nashville has an opportunity to do something few major American cities can: plan an entirely new cultural production ecosystem at a meaningful scale.
We could build a district that serves commercial producers and nonprofit institutions, residents and visitors, artists and audiences.
A district where the infrastructure is shared, the costs are transparent, the technology is contemporary, and the economic benefits are distributed more broadly.
A district that doesn't simply present art, but makes it possible to create more of it.
And if we get it right, we might not just create a new destination for theatre.
We might demonstrate a better way to make theatre itself.
This is a conceptual proposal, not an adopted development plan or financial feasibility study. It is an invitation to producers, artists, civic leaders, developers, economists, and Nashville residents to consider what a different model could make possible.