Young Audiences

Ahh the age old question of "How to attract young audiences". Here is a post on Parabasis called No Brainer. He lays out very clearly 3 key points that everyone ignores:
1) Do work that younger audiences want to see.

2) Do it well.

3) Price it in a way that they find it affordable.

...ok, yes easier said then done. There are theatres doing these steps and doing them well. Look at Berkeley Rep's American Idiot for instance, or American Rep's Donkey Show and adaption of the scottish play. Affordable, interesting, youthful entertaining theatre, does not mean we have to give up any artistry or intelligence. God, Spring Awakening the great teeny-pop hit that it was, is an adaptation of a play written in the 1890's.

However I have just listed off two rock-musicals. I do not want to be miss-leading. Though I do think the future of theatre and live performance lies somewhere inbetween Musical Theatre and "straight" Theatre (what a terrible description "straight" theatre is...), plays can be just as powerful but we can not ignore the times. We live in an age when the sound is never off. From ipods, to car stereos, to muzak, to Ally McBeal style montages in every form of media we watch, the still silence of a Pinter play or even Rapp's Red Light can be unsettling. That's a good thing, if used properly, and death if not.

It sometimes feels as though young writers are writing for older audiences, or maybe writing for older producers, with whom they would like to see thier work produced. Either that or they are writing for the screen, which is a completely different beast, and a completely different blog-post all together. The trick is, as I have been thinking about this alot lately, as it seems alot of people have been, but the trick is to be brave. We must remember what brought us to this artform in the first place and seek to re-discover performance.

What are we?

More later...
but here is a fascinating post about the nature of nonprofitable theatre.
Arts Journal

"I don't want to be a charity, in large part because I don't think our social cause has enough merit to compete with other charities who actually change lives on a grand scale. So, the only round hole we can force our square peg of a "business model" into is as community resource.


In this interconnected, digital age, if our art can serve as a meeting place for communities of like-minded individuals to connect, celebrate, and be challenged, then we might find a way of restoring theatre's primacy in people's lives and creating sustainable theatre-making organisms (not organizations). "

hilarious

I found this on my friends blog...

http://wickedstageact2.typepad.com/

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

What does our future hold?

Here are two articles that i found to be great companion pieces. One from the other day in the NY Times, which called to mind a Dec-2008 article in the Times.

A Few Star-Studded Hits Obscure Broadway’s Challenges

Audience for Straight Plays Is Declining, N.E.A. Finds

You can read the whole NEA study, which is actually fascinating leading to the conclusion above. The interesting thing about that article is that it does not resurface in our collective conversation. The NEA finds that ticket sales for straight theatre has dropped by 20% in the past 15 years, while the number of regional theatres has doubled. This is cause for concern.

However, lets face facts, it is not just the straight theatres in NY falling victim to the Star-syndrome. Musical theatre has over the passed decade started to push "star-quality" performers who have no buisness playing leads in live theatre. The question remains to be asked, are audiences really coming to see theatre or to star-gaze. If these plays, and some of them are iconic pieces of english drama, if they are notable to keep us invested, then what is. What is next?

4 things that the arts need to do to avoid the "tsunami" ahead

FROM TC: The director and producer Gregory Mosher, who runs The Arts Initiative at Columbia University, recently spoke before a group of students about why he thinks America's major performing arts institutions are headed for deep trouble - and what they can do about it. No online transcript is available yet, but I have done a quick recap (heavily condensed for space reasons) of his major themes:



"Tonight I want to talk about what I consider to be the extraordinarily perilous future of the major not-for-profit arts organizations in America. It is my opinion that [they] may be facing the same fate as print journalism. My colleagues have responded [to declining arts attendance and the rising popularity of things like music downloading and video game use] largely the way The New York Times has responded over the last 15 years as they saw the web tsunami coming at them. They hired people and then didn't listen to them. They forgot what business they were in. They thought they were exempt in the same way my friends [in the arts] believe they are exempt. I put it to you that the tsunami is about to crash down on them. And they don't want to talk about it. There are four things I think we need to do: (1) We've got to admit we have a problem; (2) We have to admit we don't know [all] the answers; (3) We have to listen to people who know what they're talking about, and in this case, that means young people; and (4) We've got to be like scientists in a lab and fail our way into success."



Click here to watch streaming video of Mosher's hour-long talk in its entirety.

websites

Ah, technology. You would think that by now an average human being should be able to get all of these sites working in tandum in the shortest amount of time. Though for someone who has spent the better part of his life now, working in empty spaces we call theatres (and not as a lighting designer) I am doing pretty well.

For now, rest assured, I am not ranting about anything in particular.

bruffy

Long awaited

So that might be a little presumptuous of me, “Long Awaited”. It has been long awaited for my own desires to start blogging about the theatre. So it that respect it is long awaited. I read quite a few different blogs during my days. Thomas Cott’s daily digest has not helped my addiction at all. However, I think it is ideal that we (theatre pro’s) keep an open dialogue, even if it is via emails, websites, blogs, etc.




And so I begin with my first post. Ok, yes, not a very interesting or ideal post, but it is a start. I have no subscribers, no one checking in here, no one really even knows it exists yet. That seemed the best way to begin, in any event. Though check back, cause I have a bit more to say about this world we play in.



Thanks for stopping by.



bruffy