Passage I

Bartering for Entertainment

[1]

During the Great Depression, Robert Porterfield, a young actor from southwestern Virginia, was among the series of actors in New York City who were unemployed. Porterfield was also familiar with the plight of farmers back home and many farmers had livestock and produce in abundance but couldn’t find buyers because money was scarce. [A] Porterfield reasoned that if he opened a theater in Virginia that accepted food for tickets, so his actors could eat regularly. At the same time, farmers would be able to enjoy quality entertainment they normally couldn’t afford. [B] He convinced twenty-two of his colleagues to move from New York to Virginia to participate in this experiment in bartering.

[2]

[C] Barter Theater opened in June 1933 in a vacant church in Abingdon, Virginia. The price of admission to a Barter production was “40 cents or the equivalent in produce.” Tickets for the first performance sold out, along with four out of five patrons paying for their tickets with vegetables, livestock, or dairy products. [D]

[3]

Porterfield also convinced playwrights to take food in lieu of their usual cash royalties. For example, renowned writers such as Tennessee Williams, Rachel Crothers, and Clare Boothe Luce received payment in Virginia hams. George Bernard Shaw, a vegetarian, accepted his royalties in spinach. By the end of their first season, Porterfield’s actors had managed to earn a profit of only $4.35. The actors will, however, have two barrels of jelly and a collective weight gain of three hundred pounds to show for their efforts. (9)

[4]

The Virginia General Assembly honored Barter Theater in 1946 by designating it the State Theater of Virginia. Many successful actors have gotten their start at the Barter (11). Today, the theater acknowledges its bartering tradition by collecting nonperishable food items in exchange for tickets for at least one performance per year. Many new plays are debuted at Barter Theater.