See an interview with RBTL board chair Arnie Rothschild and producer John Nocciolino, who books Broadway touring shows into Rochester.

All of us - the public, elected officials, business leaders, arts organizations - have some serious thinking to do. The subject: the future home of the Rochester Broadway Theatre League. If RBTL is going to build a new theater, do you care whether it's in the city or the suburbs?

In the best of all worlds, RBTL would renovate its current home, the Auditorium Theatre. But that probably won't happen. Even Mayor Bob Duffy, who for a while was pressing RBTL to do just that, has backed off. A study by the Pike Company said it would cost somewhere between $50 million and $100 million to upgrade the Aud. RBTL officials estimate that a new theater will cost $40 million to $50 million.

Yes, RBTL has been presenting big shows at the Aud for years, but the building has numerous problems. In a City interview, RBTL board chair Arnie Rothschild and producer Al Nocciolino make their case for a new theater.

I love the Aud, and I've seen a lot of musicals there. But the problems with the Aud are real, and they're significant. Tiny wings. No bathrooms on the first floor. No elevator. Embarrassingly small, dingy dressing rooms. No air conditioning. Limited parking.

Money could fix some of those things, of course. But what can't be fixed, Rothschild says, is the number of seats. The Aud has 2400. Rothschild says RBTL needs 3000 to compete with other theaters in New York State. And that brings up two questions: Could you add more seats to the Aud? And why aren't 2400 enough?

Anyone who has been inside the theater knows that you can't add another, higher balcony. The last rows of the current balcony are dizzying enough. As Nocciolino puts it, add another one, and nobody will sit up there.

Why can't you kick out the sides and add 600 seats? Sight lines. You wouldn't have a decent view of the stage.

You could, of course, gut the place, expand the building, and start all over. But that would raise the cost - and destroy almost all of the Aud's interior beauty.

In the City interview, Rothschild and Nocciolino give their reasons for wanting 3000 seats. You may disagree with them. Or you may not care whether we get the big shows later (or not at all). And if RBTL can't raise enough money to build a new home, this will all be moot. RBTL won't stop staging Broadway shows; its leaders will simply settle for what they have and do what they can to make it work.

My hunch, though, is that RBTL will build a new theater. It won't be easy to raise enough money to do that, but interest by suburban developers has cast the issue in an entirely new light. Some developers are apparently willing to help substantially with the costs - for good reason. A big theater will make projects they're already planning much more lucrative. So it's entirely possible that a couple of years from now, people from all around the region won't drive into the city to see Broadway shows at the Auditorium Theatre; they'll drive to Brighton, Webster, Greece, or Irondequoit.

If RBTL builds at Midtown, though, it will need to raise a lot of money. And we may all be asked to chip in. So back to my question: If RBTL builds a new theater, do you care whether it's in the city or the suburbs?

Frankly, I think RBTL at Midtown could spur a bit more development in that area. More important: Downtown Rochester is showing encouraging signs of growth, but that growth is fragile. The Auditorium Theater is slightly too far from downtown's core to stimulate much, but it does draw thousands of people to the city for every show. Lose RBTL to the suburbs, and we lose a lot. We've already lost too much.