To Market We Go

One of the unexpected results of coming back to blogging and writing specifically about theater has been the discovery of the number of theater bloggers already in existence. I'm still getting a handle on the various personalities and viewpoints. Most of those I've been following so far are pretty New York-centric, but some of the discussions that have gone 'round deal in universals.

A New York theater artist named George Hunka maintains a blog called Superfluities, where his thoughts on theater are so prescriptive and alienatingly impenetrable that I wonder if he takes any joy in his work. On Friday Don pointed to a recent entry in which Hunka states:

The attempt to market and sell theatre is as useful a concept as an attempt to market and sell air.

What a ridiculous statement, I thought.

To be fair, Hunka seems in this post and others to be responding to an idea of "marketing" as it relates to a recent throwdown about the perils of the play development process in the big nonprofit theaters (the general consensus seems to be that development is reductive, aimed at dumbing down to make plays more marketable to a broader audience) and to a pre-Tony Awards opinion piece on Salon.com that compared theater (Broadway, that is) to TV and pretty much pissed everyone off. Opinions on those topics are, well, opinions, and to each his own. But to make a high-and-mighty pronouncement that theater is something that cannot (or, worse, should not) be marketed?

I imagine Mr. Hunka's theater company must perform night after night to empty houses, because if he's not marketing his shows, how would anyone know about them? I always thought the audience was a pretty vital part of the theatrical experience.

Perhaps he might be more comfortable with one of the euphemisms we've come up with for marketing: "outreach," maybe, or "audience development." (I spent a summer several years ago temping in the "client development" office of a major international law firm headquartered here in Chicago. If corporate law shills need a euphemism to be comfortable with their positions as marketers, I can't begrudge it of theater artists.)

Canadian playwright Jennifer Fawcett told a story in a guest blog yesterday at Theatreforte about an experience a few years ago at the fringe festival in Thunder Bay "flyer-ing (yes, in the fringe it is a verb)" in an attempt to get people to her show. She approaches a group of Thunder Bay citizens outside their office at a telemarketing firm—not incidentally, the show she's promoting is about a depressed telemarketer—and gets shot down repeatedly.

By the time I left the parking lot I was seriously depressed. And I was also pissed off – because my show was good and screw this audience development bullshit. Sure the majority of the audience members are other theatre people – that’s fine by me. Theatre’s hard enough without having the beg people to come and then justify my choice to do it.

So, how does all this fit together? I find myself with these questions: what is relevant theatre? Do you try to make relevant theatre? I mean, be honest – outside yourself, your circle, your anticipated audience – in the bigger picture – for the people who are standing at the bus stop. Does it matter? These questions aren’t as rhetorical as they may appear.

Making theater that will speak to people and then finding ways of making them aware of and interested in your theater. This is marketing, no matter how distasteful the word may be. If one audience member attends one of Hunka's shows, Hunka is marketing. He must be. As blogger Malachy Walsh comments at Don's blog, "I don't think he has any idea that he's actually engaged in marketing just by having a blog." Furthermore, as Hunka's blog bio notes, " he has also written about theatre for the New York Times, Time Out New York, and other publications." Yep, that's marketing too. As much as I insist on the need for a firewall between editorial and advertising in journalism, the fact remains that theater journalism is, to a degree, marketing for the idea of theater itself. Theater criticism and theater journalism may be good or bad for an individual show, but they are marketing for theater as a concept. I write about theater because I love theater as a medium and want more people to experience it. When I push a good show, here in the blog or in print, it is marketing for the whole dying conceit of going to a play.

I believe that anything that gets butts in theater seats is probably good for theater as a whole. That's why I love Wicked. Regardless of anyone's feelings about the merits of the show, it draws huge crowds of new theatergoers here in Chicago, in New York, and on tour. If Wicked is what it takes to make millions of tweenage girls interested in the idea of live theater, so be it. If 57 separate stage productions of High School Musical (and that's just in Illinois [note: this number is made up, and yet plausible]) are what it takes to get kids used to the idea that seeing a play can be fun, more power to them. Better yet if it gets those tweenage girls to enroll in their own high school drama classes in hopes of finding another Zac Efron (or, if they're like me, tweenage boys looking for Zac Efron). Suddenly we've got not only new theater audiences, but new theater artists.

Tony posted yesterday on the power of image, or preconceived notion, and the image many non-theatergoers have of what theater is:

The image in a lot of peoples minds when they hear theatre is out of date, high brow snobbery--or stupid jazz hands musicals about silly things. The truth doesn't matter, as long as the image is powerful.

So what do you do? Say, No it's not? Tell yourself you are artist, you are far superior? I don't need to pander to their level, if they aren't intelligent enough to get it?

Or, go out and try to change that perception, change the image? Why your work is not like that image in their head.

Which way do you think will get people to see your show?

Finding ways to get past the image and get audiences to give your show a chance to affect them: that's marketing. Maintaining the attitude that you are superior, that you're somehow above marketing: that's theater without an audience. Endless rehearsal.

Consider marketing a necessary evil if you have to, but I wouldn't even call it evil. It's simply necessary, or else we're all playing to empty houses.

Comments

[Paul Rekk]

I have written (and will be writing) further thoughts on my newly christened blog as well, but to the gist of things:

While Hunka's statement is idealized silliness, I do see an only slightly tangential point that all of this focus on marketing and pulling in audiences is a slope quite slippery, not because of some high-falutin' "we don't need to market ART" philosophy, but because it is a little derived from the oh so current American and all points beyond "more, More, MORE!" vein of commercialism.

At what point are we seeking new minds to join us in a cultural dialogue and at what point are we just trying to sell tickets? And my big question, at what point do we acknowledge that our houses are not empty and stop backhanding our current patrons?

[Kris Vire]

Paul, that's an interesting response. You think attempts to expand to new audiences are somehow insulting to current audiences?

Several weeks ago I saw a show at a Sunday matinee that turned out to be one of the best things I've seen all year. There were four people in the house counting myself. Should that theater company just roll over and sigh and be content with performing to four people? Should they congratulate us four for being smart enough and cool enough to attend their show? Well, perhaps. A pat on the back and a "please tell your friends" is worthwhile, but I'm not going to be offended if the company keeps trying to fill the seats around me. Theater isn't supposed to be a secret society.

[Tony]

There are a lot of examples of bad marketing, where it takes over the company--like doing a show solely because you think it'll get butts in the seats.

But if you truly believe in your work, why would you not want as many people as possible to see it? Especially if you see your work as part of a larger discussion.

[Paul Rekk]

Oh no, expanse isn't an insult, it's all this talk of the dire state of things and references to 'empty' houses that is -- or could be, anyway.

I'll try to be brief here, as this is exactly what I hope to expand upon on my own blog, but a question I have for the members of the blogosphere that are in a particular tizzy is exactly which demographic they are so concerned with attracting -- The Sopranos crowd or the (for the sake of argument, let's say) American Idol crowd.

I'm honestly not trying to be snooty here, but if the theatre's inability to attract the latter is considered one of its foremost problems, then I think it is a bit (but, yeah, only a bit) insulting to our current audience. Not because they're better or more intelligent than non-theatregoers, but because they're apparently not as sought after since they don't need to be wooed as much.

And a brief sidenote: if the show you're referencing is the show I'm fairly certain you're referencing, you'll be happy to hear that it rewarded the company with their first official sell-out crowd last weekend. It's heartening to know that the numbers are there from time to time, at least.

[RebeccaZ]

I don't know what it is about this blog or the conversations in the blogosphere lately that make me want to reference 80's movies and Elvis songs, but ...

"If you build it, they will come."

I think that's absolutely right. If the strong brick is laid in the foundation (I'm referencing Don's post from last year), the critics will notice, the people in the production will be proud, and word of mouth will start its work for free.

Theatre companies need to do their initial legwork to get their core audience and press in the seats, sure, but, as Don has also stated in his producing class, a maven is an amazing thing to have at a company's side to help generate that word of mouth.

The theatre company may start out with 4 people in the seat ... and how special that only 4 people were able to see a one-time only piece of live theatre that so many others missed ... but because of positive word of mouth and decent reviews, they were able to pack the house by the end of their run.