In a benefit performance the performers (and, likely, the crew, director, holder of copyright, etc.) usually do not earn any money.
Instead, the takings will go to raise money for (to "benefit") some mutually agreed upon cause: e.g. the Actors Benevolent Fund; a hospital; a foundation. In other cases, a benefit performance is given to help the writer or a performer out of financial difficulties. In the 19th century, theatre companies routinely held benefit performances for longstanding members of the theatre's troupe. Benefits were also sometimes given for retiring actors.
Famous quotes containing the words benefit and/or performance:
“Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.”
—Joseph Heller (b. 1923)
“There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)