Victoria Bailey wants the audience to get bigger and broader

When Victoria Bailey assumed leadership of the non-profit Theater Development Fund in 2001, she was told that the organization’s major program, the TKTS Discount Card, had not missed a day in nearly three decades of operation.

So much for that. A few months after she took the job, the cubicle was closed due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and in the time since, it has been shut down by a blackout, a hurricane, a strike, and a pandemic.

It’s been an eventful 22 years for Bailey, and on Friday, the day she turns 67, she’s stepping down as executive director of the organization, which sold 615,000 tickets this fiscal year and is committed to making theater accessible – to those who find the cost of tickets is prohibitive, as well as for students, veterans and people with disabilities.

Bailey, who received a Tony Honor for Excellence in Theater earlier this month in recognition of her services to the industry, will be succeeded on August 7 by Deeksha Gaur, a co-founder of the theater review platform Show-Score.

In an interview at her office, Bailey, known as Tory, reflected on the state of the theater industry. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

How’s Broadway?

Broadway is back. There is an audience. I don’t think they are as reliably rugged as we’d like them to be. The pieces we miss are the suburban crowd and Chinese tourists. There is a lot of diverse work, there are many different voices on stage now. How do we bring in the audience for that, and how do we grow the audience for that? It’s a very conscious time. I don’t think we can sit back and say, “Everything is fine.”

Your latest major event is a 50th anniversary celebration of the TKTS booth in Times Square. What is its meaning?

There really are a lot of people who can’t afford full price tickets. If you’re a New Yorker and an avid theater-goer, there are many ways you can get discounted tickets; the box is just one of many, and you either use it or you don’t. But for tourists who are rarely theater goers, or anyone who isn’t inside, that’s the only way they know.

One of the most visible changes in your time was the construction of the red stairs above the stand, where many people now gather.

It’s this very theatrical meeting place in the middle of Times Square. I love standing there and seeing people sitting on the steps. It just makes me happy.

How do you think Times Square is doing?

Times Square itself feels pretty good. Eighth Avenue is still a little rougher than it was before the pandemic. The challenge for Times Square is the entire office staff. People sit at their desks two or three days a week, which is a huge challenge for all the businesses in Times Square that rely on office workers.

How does that affect the theater world?

One of the things that drives ticket purchases is word of mouth. If you’re on Zoom, you have a meeting and then you’re done. When you’re at the office, you get a cup of coffee and someone says to you, “I saw this great show last night. I think you might like it. I don’t think it’s happening the same way now. There is a decrease in informal exchange of information between people.

TDF has programs to make theater more accessible to people with hearing, visual, and mobility disabilities, and during your tenure you introduced autism-friendly performances.

There was an unfortunate incident in the West End where a mother came on spectrum with a child and was asked to leave, and it got a lot of attention. We talked about it. Disney was way ahead in understanding the needs of that population because of the theme parks, which is why we partnered with Disney on “The Lion King.” We buy out the entire house at a heavily discounted price so that we can sell the tickets at a discounted price. Everyone there understands that there will be noise and people moving up and down and we are creating a safe space for the families. We did it once and we all just cried. And now we do five a year. We did “Wicked”, we did “Harry Potter”, and we did “Six” a few weeks ago. And last year we did ‘The Nutcracker’ for the first time with the New York City Ballet.

You have also started making tickets available to veterans.

The thought was and is that this is a population that could benefit from going to the theater together. It is presumptuous to say that theater is healing, because I dare not say who needs healing, but going to theater together is an enriching activity.