"Restoration" Comedy

“If there is going to be a restoration fee, there should also be a Renaissance fee, a Middle Ages fee and a Dark Ages fee. Someone must have men in the back room making up names, euphemisms for profit."

-Veteran B'way producer Manny Azenburg, on the fraud of the "Ticket Restoration Fee"--quite openly exposed in an interesting NY Times article yesterday.

Runner-up quote, from same article:

Philip J. Smith, the president of the Shubert Organization, which owns Telecharge, said that the company would offer no comment on the charges. “We will not talk about this,” Mr. Smith said. “We do not ask you to comment on how much you charge for the newspaper.”

Second runner-up?

Many theater owners contend that ticket buyers do not care about this added expense. “That is not what people complain about anymore,” said Daryl Roth, who is both a producer and the owner of an Off Broadway theater. “People are understanding of it.”

Oh really??? And who are these "people" Ms. Roth?

And they wonder why the audience is dying...