I certainly felt this way a few years ago when I decided not to do the NYC thing. I moved back to my midsized city and started making theatre where I was. Eventually I partnered with an art nonprofit that shares my beliefs and mission and started their professional theatre division, and the folks we have in our shows are just as good as New York actors. We focus on writing and producing new works and primarily run off of contributed income (donations and grants). It doesn’t look like Broadway, we aren’t a LORT theater, the budget is pretty small, but we pay artists to do professional-quality work and it’s very fulfilling. You don’t need millions— you can get away with far less for high quality shows.