Boston Built the Business of Entertainment
It’s Time to Build it Again
If you work in Boston’s entertainment world, you already feel it. The shows that fill our stages were built somewhere else and vanish in two weeks. And the work that does stay here too often can’t pay a living wage or offer benefits you can build a life on. Boston celebrates a booming creative economy — while the people inside it leave, one by one, for cities that let them stay. You’re not imagining it. There’s a reason, and it has a name.
(Im)Possible Shows is a Boston creative production company with a simple, stubborn mission: to make original commercial entertainment here — and in doing so, to help rebuild the commercial entertainment economy this city let slip away.
We’re a hybrid model, built to prove that artistic ambition and commercial sustainability aren’t opposites. We are committed to:
• Quality entertainment for Boston that draws local audiences and the tourism market alike.
• Living wages for local artists, designers, performers, and entertainment professionals.
• Real inclusion — onstage, backstage, front of house, and front office — including meaningful employment for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Our first production, The Conjurors’ Club, is a permanent immersive theatrical experience in development for downtown Boston — and a working proof of everything we argue for here.
We’re not writing about this from the sidelines…
We’re building it.
Backed by Boston. (Im)Possible Shows is a recipient of a $100,000 SPACE Grant from the City of Boston — selected from hundreds of applicants and personally approved by Mayor Michelle Wu through a program built to revitalize downtown and grow the creative economy. We’re not asking Boston to imagine this. We’re already building it.
So Why Is It This Hard?
Because Boston has quietly defined its creative economy in a way that leaves out the one thing that would make it sustainable: locally owned, permanent, commercial entertainment. Not a touring stop that leaves. Not a non-profit that, by design, can never turn the profit that funds real wages. A business that’s built here, stays here, and pays people a living to do the work — year-round.
That missing piece isn’t an accident. It’s a blind spot so old the city no longer sees it. And it’s costing all of us — the artists who leave, the downtown that empties after dark, and a city paying to fix problems this could help solve.
Start Here: The Case for Local Commercial Entertainment
Boston Has the Talent. So Why Are We Losing It?
(article 1 of 7)
The case for building — and keeping — creative careers in Boston.
Commercial Success Without Commercial Infrastructure (article 2 of 7)
Why great shows pass through Boston instead of taking root.
The Future of Theatre Isn’t Just Onstage (article 3 of 7)
What sustains a creative workforce — and what Boston is missing.
The City of Magic (article 4 of 7)
Boston’s forgotten history as a home for commercial entertainment.
What Makes Something Worth Coming Back To?
(article 5 of 7)
Why repeatable, immersive experience is the future of live entertainment.
The Conjurors’ Club (article 6 of 7)
The proof of concept — what we’re building, and why here.
Boston’s Moment (article 7 of 7)
Why now is the time to build the commercial leg this city is missing.
This is a Movement.
Be Part of it.
If any of this rings true — if you’ve felt it yourself, working in this city — you’re already part of the reason it needs to change.
Here’s how to help:
Add your voice. Sign up to follow the work, get new essays as they’re published, and be the first to know when it’s time to show up and be counted.
Spread the word. Share these essays with someone else who’s felt it — a fellow artist, a technician, a producer, anyone who’s watched Boston lose people it should have kept. Movements grow one conversation at a time.