From mid-1943 until late-1950, Eric Crozier was an essential asset to Britten’s industry. His work alongside director and radio producer Tyrone Guthrie not only introduced Crozier to the Old Vic in London, but to the BBC as well, where Guthrie also worked. Joan Cross invited Crozier and Guthrie to each direct two different productions at Sadler’s Wells in 1943. Crozier directed and produced Britten’s first two operas, Peter Grimes in 1945 at Sadler’s Wells, and The Rape of Lucretia in 1946 for the short-lived Glyndebourne English Opera Company. Crozier wrote the librettos for Albert Herring and the children’s entertainment Let’s Make an Opera (with its central opera, The Little Sweep), in addition to writing the text for the cantata Saint Nicolas, and with E. M. Forster, he was co-librettist for Billy Budd. Britten, Crozier, and designer John Piper founded the English Opera Group. The endeavour was based on ‘the Britten–Crozier doctrine’ that sought the group’s own autonomy and ultimately a home to produce such works. That home was largely realised in the founding of the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts in 1948, for which Crozier was a founder and co-artistic director.

As of 2019, thirty-five of the past thirty-eight Pulitzer Prize-winning plays premiered in US regional theatres, where many artists maintain lifelong careers. Yet more than half of the nation’s regional theatres regularly borrow funds to meet daily operating expenses. This disconnect between creative success and economic viability is part of a false narrative that has led to systemic problems, leaving many regional theatres vulnerable, and also shaped the historical narrative of the regional movement. This chapter employs an economically centered, historiographical approach to disrupt the standard narrative of the rise of regional theatre, which revolves around a rejection of Broadway’s commercialism and a desire for a decentralized, avant-garde theatre. The reality was much more complex, as demonstrated by case studies of Theatre ’47, the Alley Theatre, and Arena Stage. The Guthrie Theatre serves as a model for a new generation of highly professional, nonprofit theatres that emerged as the movement gained momentum. The chapter concludes with an exploration of the social and cultural forces that inform contemporary theatre economics, and the reminder that budgets reflect values.