York, as well as in Dallas, Texas, and Washington, D.C., where there were resident-player companies, even though the playbills were by and large classics and revivals of Broadway shows. But attempts to establish similar companies in Philadelphia and Chicago in the 1950s did not succeed. Meanwhile, the motion-picture alternative to legitimate theatre, where production and marketing costs of mounting an elaborately costumed play had increased from a high of $250,000 in 1951 (Hughes 484) to an average of $2 million for a flop ("Boffo" 80) and $4 million for a hit (Jacobs 5) some 30 years later, further encroached on the practical appeal of live performance. In sum, the theatre and the arts were by and large considered an expensive extravagance.
By the 1980s and 1990s, however, there had emerged compelling evidence of a broad-based shift in attitude toward performing-arts venues, if not toward the costs of staging performances in such venues. The inspiration for this shift seems to have been the evidence and example of long-term success associated with the
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