At the end of last year, in the frescoed Clementine Hall of the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV welcomed an extraordinary gathering of filmmakers and actors. Spike Lee, Cate Blanchett, Greta Gerwig and Viggo Mortensen listened as the first American pope praised cinema as "a popular art in the noblest sense, intended for and accessible to all." He urged artists to illuminate the world's wounds, include voices pushed to the margins, and preserve the capacity for amazement in an anxious age.
His message was clear: The world needs artists. Art can protect those whom society often overlooks. It can soften division rather than deepen it. As community organizer and political activist LaTosha Brown often says, we cannot move toward a more healed future unless we can imagine it first. Art remains one of the few places where that imagining still occurs together.
As board president of Molière in the Park, Brooklyn's free theater in Prospect Park, I hear another truth inside the Pope's call. Artists cannot do this work alone. They need audiences that reflect the full scope of human experience. A performance is only half a conversation. The other half is the people invited to witness it.
That brings us to an uncomfortable reality. In America, the velvet rope around the arts is still real, and it is often defined by income.
Pope Leo expressed concern about the “troubling decline” of cinemas across cities and neighborhoods. He is right to worry. Yet I venture to argue that the gravity of the situation is larger than he stated. Long before cinemas were in decline, live theaters were struggling. Cinema brings stories to the masses. Theater brings people into the same room. Both are necessary. Both are endangered. In a world where it is easy to classify someone as “other,” we need spaces where we can all breathe the same air and share space with strangers.
The average Broadway ticket now costs about $126 one hundred and twenty-six dollars. Off Broadway hovers around $70 seventy. For a family of four, a night out can cost around $500. The typical Broadway theatergoing household earns more than $200,000 two hundred and seventy thousand dollars a year. Near the LeFrak Center in Prospect Park, where Molière in the Park performs, the median household income is closer to $40,000 forty thousand dollars.
For many families, live theater is not a luxury. It is out of reach.
Representation on stage matters, but its impact shrinks when audiences are divided by wealth and neighborhood. Art can be a window into other lives, but only if people with different experiences share the same space. When ticket prices exclude large portions of the public, art becomes a mirror for the few rather than a civic experience that fosters understanding.
At Molière in the Park, we have chosen a different path. Last season, more than 7,400 people made reservations for our free productions, with nearly half coming from communities with incomes below the city's median. When the price barrier disappears, the audience begins to resemble the city itself. Multi-generational families come together, neighbors reconnect, and young people encounter live theater for the first time. They return. They bring others. They recognize that this art belongs to them.
Free does not mean charity. It means access as a civic right. When a family earning $40,000 and a family earning $270,000 sit side by side, responding to the same story, they are participating in a shared culture rather than living as isolated consumers.
This matters now more than ever. Our digital lives have pushed us into silos where algorithms reflect our biases to us. Live theater interrupts that pattern. It asks for presence rather than passive scrolling. It gathers strangers who did not choose one another. It creates proximity that cannot be curated away. It reminds us that democracy is not limited to voting. It also lives in public spaces where people recognize one another's dignity.
We see this every season. During our 2020 production of The Misanthrope, an unhoused man attended nearly every performance and learned the text by heart. He was a patron, not a guest to be tolerated. His presence reminded audiences that human worth is not measured by income or status.
The next step belongs to all of us. Whether you live in Brooklyn, Boise, or anywhere in between, pause the next time you sit in a theater and look around. Does the audience resemble the community outside? Does it include a range of ages, incomes, and lived experiences? If not, ask why the velvet rope is still in place and what is lost by leaving it there.
The world needs artists. But for them to do their work with honesty and depth, they need audiences that reflect the full human story.
Kaliswa Brewster is board president of Molière in the Park. She is an actress, producer, and lecturer at Brooklyn College.
