[MovedGoalPosts]

I believe theatre owners effectively lease their theatre to a production company. Thus the theatre gets to support itself from rent, part of which should go towards upkeep of the theatre, the production company pays actors making money from a show if successful.

As to how much the rent is I dunno. If it's a proportion of ticket sales then the theatre relies on a popular production, but if it were fixed, it needs to allow for the number of shows that are a risk of failure.

To be honest, I'm surprised there aren't more incidences that theatres have to close for defective plaster, let alone actual failure. Most theatres being quite old will not be of modern plasterboard sheet but a far more brittle plaster to lath arrangement. After time the plaster starts to fail loosing it's attachment to the little nibs pushed through the lath. But you can't see that happening.