This makes me SO EXCITED. I love live theater and want to support it. But like your coworker, I'm just not in a place to shell out $50 per ticket. Will I pay $20? Gladly. And the theater will be making more overall than they would leaving those seats empty. Bravo.
Certainly! I would encourage you to look into the ACT Pass option. If $20 or $25 is your price range, you just pay $25 per month (or $20 per month if you mention Yelp when you call) and you get UNLIMITED PLAYS. Rather than having to go in person day of, you can call and reserve 1 seat per production each month...in advance. Additionally, if you love a show, you get unlimited "day of" repeat tickets. Because they are host to so many different shows, there's always something going on. It's such a great deal, and has gotten me to see a lot more shows, and some stuff I might not have seen otherwise.
But yeah, this is cool cool.