WHEN PRICES BECAME CHEAP, BALLET BECAME MORE POPULAR

As a teen-aged ballet lover, I once discussed the early New York City Ballet seasons with Roslyn McDonald, a family friend who went frequently in the early 1950s, when she was studying social work. An influx of men into the field after World War II was one of the ways that social work was being transformed. Innovations in her own discipline seemed to McDonald correlated to artistic innovation onstage at City Center, and to a new, more egalitarian audience for ballet attracted–at least initially–by the low prices.