What a roller-coaster 2024 was! Some of our highest highs clashed with terrible lows, but we are holding our head high as we wait to reset the calendar and see what 2025 holds. Here’s a quick and dirty look at the numbers in 2024, which bridges the last half of our 2023-24 season and the first part of 2024-25. Those shows include TWELFTH NIGHT, THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE (2024 TTB Award Winner: Outstanding Ensemble of a Play), THE SMUGGLER (which earned Giles Davies the Jeff Norton Award – Outstanding Acting in a Play), the juggernaut that was THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW, Roxanne Fay’s gripping THRICE TO MINE, the rollicking POTUS, and a third serving of GOREY STORIES as well as a special fundraiser performance of THE GUYS.
2024 HIGHLIGHTS
- We broke our all-time sales record for dollars earned and total tickets sold to both a single show and for the calendar year. THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW proved to be an absolute (pleasure of a) BEAST this summer, earning over $265,000 (not inclusive of fees) at the box office and welcoming over 6,100 attendees through our doors.
Combined, mainstage shows in 2024 earned over $520,000 at the box office (before fees, which we do not include in our counts since the Straz Center collects those for providing us ticketing and marketing services). You can see ROCKY was responsible for basically half of the earnings, which we won’t complain about in a year that saw total number of season passes sold and show-by-show attendance lighter than anticipated if you take ROCKY out of the mix. Was it the economy? The election? The hurricanes? Us? Some combination? We’re not sure, but we’re taking the W.- According to the most recent calculations from an Americans for the Arts Economic and Prosperity study, our work had a direct economic impact of $1,056,520 on this community.
- Even in a down year, Shakespeare field trips matinees for TWELFTH NIGHT were a huge hit with almost all at capacity. All told, our program reached over 4,000 regional middle and high school students. 2025 already looks stronger, we only have a handful of field trip matinee tickets left for MACBETH and are seating high school groups by the hundreds into our regular public performances.
- Our digital library of full-length, professional Shakespeare productions for classroom study has grown to five titles: A Midsummer Nights Dream, Romeo & Juliet, Henry V, Hamlet, and Twelfth Night. We’ll add MACBETH to that list in the coming months.
- Between attendance in the theater, in-school programs, and our growing digital show archive we’re happy to have brought engaging, exciting professional theater to over 18,000 people in 2024.
- Another first: this year we surpassed our public fundraising goal of $100,000 — more important than ever after losing state funding originally recommended for over $70,000 via a line-item veto by the Governor, while also operating under constant threat of the same happening to county funding from the BOCC.
- Speaking of fundraising, we donated $3,600 to the Tampa Firefighters Museum — all of the proceeds from our special performance of THE GUYS in their honor on 9/11. We are thankful to Paul and Roz Potenza and director Christopher Marshall for donating 100% of their time to memorize, rehearse, and perform this show to a full house for a good cause.
- While we won’t know the winners of the 2024 BroadwayWorld Tampa Regional Awards for a few more weeks, we earned dozens of nominations and held the lead for the most nominations overall in the Theatre Tampa Bay Awards held this fall. THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW alone racked up 13 BWW and 13 TTB nominations! We won a total of seven TTB Awards while six of our core artists earned Distinguished Season Honors.
- We’re proud to have offered 129 artist contracts in 2024, which only accounts for the folks we personally hire for on stage and behind-the-scenes purposes and does not include the numerous Straz Center front of house and operational workers employed throughout our engagements! 64% of our budget for the year went directly into the pockets of artists who call this region home.
- Numbers don’t lie, we’re very #TeamMath over here. We make a significant contribution to our regional and state economy, we create jobs, we not only entertain but educate our community while offering a place to gather and participate in a meaningful pro-social activity. The arts are are good business and make this region better — quantitatively and qualitatively.
Combined, mainstage shows in 2024 earned over $520,000 at the box office (before fees, which we do not include in our counts since the Straz Center collects those for providing us ticketing and marketing services). You can see ROCKY was responsible for basically half of the earnings, which we won’t complain about in a year that saw total number of season passes sold and show-by-show attendance lighter than anticipated if you take ROCKY out of the mix. Was it the economy? The election? The hurricanes? Us? Some combination? We’re not sure, but we’re taking the W.
Our digital library of full-length, professional Shakespeare productions for classroom study has grown to five titles: A Midsummer Nights Dream, Romeo & Juliet, Henry V, Hamlet, and Twelfth Night. We’ll add 
Speaking of fundraising, we donated $3,600 to the Tampa Firefighters Museum — all of the proceeds from our special performance of THE GUYS in their honor on 9/11. We are thankful to Paul and Roz Potenza and director Christopher Marshall for donating 100% of their time to memorize, rehearse, and perform this show to a full house for a good cause.
We’re proud to have offered 129 artist contracts in 2024, which only accounts for the folks we personally hire for on stage and behind-the-scenes purposes and does not include the numerous Straz Center front of house and operational workers employed throughout our engagements! 64% of our budget for the year went directly into the pockets of artists who call this region home.Do you have a favorite Jobsite moment from 2024? We sure do want to hear about it, drop us a comment! <3
THANK YOU ALL for the memories and the honor to be able to serve you in 2024. We wish you all the best in 2025 and beyond, and look forward to seeing you soon at the theater!
