Out-of-touch Broadway shows are too expensive for everyday Americans, reserved for elite: expert

Experts say the nearly $1,000 price tag for Denzel Washington's "Othello" appearances are a bad sign for Broadway's long-term prospects for the average American.

"It's pricing everybody out of the Broadway experience, which is sad. We're losing something of our American culture when we do that." "It’s become cost-prohibitive for one person to go to a show, let alone a family of four." 

"This is a process that's been happening for a long time," Raymond Arroyo, Fox News contributor and host of the "Arroyo Grande" podcast, told Fox News Digital. "In the 2000s, Broadway adopted the dynamic pricing that we've seen from the airlines, that you saw in the arena shows, where if there's demand, they jacked the prices up. So, this has been an escalation." 

Arroyo compared pricing to the ‘80s and ’90s, when Broadway had major "zeitgeisty" shows like "Cats," "Les Misérables" and "Phantom of the Opera" dominating the box office but also premiering for $45 a seat in some cases (approximately $123 with inflation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calculator).