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Dozen-ish Views On Etiquette

December 1, 2015

by:

Joe Patti

Audiences today, they just don’t know how to behave!

You have probably seen a lot of conversation on this subject crop up whenever something egregious occurs and makes the news or social media rounds.

UK based What’s On Stage decided to tackle the subject of etiquette from all angles over the last week. There is a full index of all the articles on their site. It can be worth taking a look through because while they have the usual perspectives from actors, annoyed audience members and the obligatory post about how things only got staid and passive during the Victorian era, there are some voices that aren’t commonly heard.

For example, an usher writes how they and their compatriots are the public face of the theater and bear the heaviest expectation to enforce the rules but don’t receive the support necessary to carry out their charge.

What the usher has to say probably isn’t news, but is a reminder to examine whether we are providing our front line staff/volunteers with sufficient support.

A theater manager writes:

I do think audience behaviour has changed recently. People feel they know their rights more and don’t necessarily have to think about other people. It’s all about them: ‘this is ridiculous, I shouldn’t have to queue’. There is a sense of entitlement. It always seems to be: ‘I’m traumatised now, and what are you going to give me?’

People are angry when they get disrupted by phones, but it also works the other way. The person on the phone says: ‘What’s your problem? It’s my phone and I am busy.’ There’s no sense of being able to put yourself in another person’s shoes.

He/she notes that so often a balance has to be struck, especially when it comes to assessing whether dealing with a disruption will cause a bigger disruption than is already occurring.

Then there are those who like their audience rowdy and involved and a woman who was dismayed that the audience at a performance at Mamma Mia! was so polite, she couldn’t manage to get them to sing along with the performers.

If nothing else, the series is a good reminder that the question of etiquette is one encompasses an entire range of people, not just those in close proximity in a single moment.

Audience Relations, Volunteers

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Not As Simple As Subtracting The iPhones

November 30, 2015

by:

Joe Patti

I was really interested to read how a coffee house in NYC was using conversational prompts in an effort to get customers talking with each other. It seemed quite similar to the program a Brazilian bus company created to get people on their buses chatting with each other and inspired me to try something similar at my performing arts center.

It was only when I read the story a little closer that I realized the reason the prompts exist is part of a philosophy which also involves keeping the Wifi off until 5 pm. Turning the Wifi off helps the coffee house serve more customers because fewer people are camping out at the tables all day, but it is also about creating a communal space.

“We truly believe that coffee shops were created for people to engage with one another, and meet new people, and be community hubs,” says Birch Coffee co-founder Jeremy Lyman. “When everybody has their face in their laptop, that can’t happen. We’re trying to create a way for people to be a little more vulnerable.”

Initially I thought to write something about how every time I encounter another anecdote about personal electronic devices causing people to disengage from normal interactions, it offsets arguments about the benefits of allowing their use. Sure they may tell their friends about their experience or research upcoming shows, but is short term economic benefit worth the erosion of social interactions?

But as I re-read the quote above about coffee houses being community hubs where people engage with and meet new people, it occurred to me that this is often the same language arts and cultural organizations use when touting their benefits. This made me question, if the primary format being offered is sitting quietly in a dark room, is there a lot going on that is staving off the erosion of social interactions?

Sure, the fact people have come out and are in physical proximity with strangers rather than at home watching Netflix is fast approaching the point where it will be considered a major victory. Is it really raising the bar and setting a new standard for enabling community involvement and interaction? Subtracting iPhones doesn’t automatically increase a participant’s engagement in an event.

Granted, the primary purpose of a cultural organization is not to stimulate social interactions. Then again, nor is it the primary goal of coffee shops. If it is a value you embrace or claim to bring, it needs to part of the planning.

Recent studies have started to suggest that the term “creative expression” is viewed more favorably than “arts” so arts groups may need to offer more opportunities for interaction and creativity. This is not to say that current practices needs to be abandoned. Rather alternatives will need to be provided if group are going to claim they are a community resource and bemoan the decline of social interactions.

One example that pops to mind (or more accurately, my salivary glands) is the Bach, Bacon and Biscuit event in Chattanooga that Holly Mulcahy recently wrote about.

Think about it-

-Free samples of a new biscuit?
-With BACON!?
-Free Concerto Concert?
-With BACH-ON?

What’s not to like? f that isn’t a recipe for bringing people together and getting them to interact…

Art(ist) Education, Audience Relations, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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Tell Stories For Thanksgiving

November 25, 2015

by:

Joe Patti

When you are eating Thanksgiving dinner with your family and you get asked when you are going to get a real job, or something to that effect, instead of trying to justify yourself with logical arguments and statistics from studies on the value of the arts, simply try telling stories that illustrate why you love what you do.

Maybe it isn’t even related to your discipline and maybe the one incident you talk about isn’t significant enough to convince people your life devoid of career prospects is worthwhile. The one thing arts people do well, but need to learn to do better outside of their preferred circumstances, is tell stories.

Just to give some examples.

-In the last 12 months, we have had some great shows and offered great experiences at our performing arts center. Among the highlights were a great stage combat workshop that seamlessly involved 25ish people from 10 year olds to college sophomores.

-Last March there was a terrible snow storm that forced us to cancel a performance. Fortunately, the group was willing to perform the next day. While they were waiting, they wandered around town. The owner of the coffee shop still tells me how charming they were.

-The three year old grandson of one of our patrons has to walk by the performing arts center a couple times a week on his way to and from daycare and still asks if he can go inside and see the Tuvan throat singers that performed here over a month ago.

-A couple weeks ago I went to the local museum to listen to an artist demonstrate how she created the effect on her work using encaustic. It was a lot of fun, especially when she started to debate the relative merits of hair dryers, heat guns and embossing tools as part of the fusing method. Afterward many of us went to a local rib place and had dinner.

I kept these examples brief and left out many of the compelling details in the interest of holding a reader’s attention. As a subject of conversation the last story about the encaustic workshop might be the best simply because I am not a visual artist and know as little with about the discipline as those with whom I am having dinner. There is less danger of using language or focusing on minutiae relevant only to insiders. (Though you probably had to be there to understand the heat gun v. hair dryer v. embossing tool conversation.)

I think relatives around a dining table can relate to stories about: artists skilled enough to involve participants of all ages; artists who are committed to seeing a performance happen and have positive interactions with community members; strange, unfamiliar singing styles from other countries that even excite little kids; visual artists who are accessible in the explanation of their work and as potential dining partners.

Even if you don’t do the best job telling your stories and your relatives don’t quite get it, you can simply say you are thankful that you have been able to provide opportunities where people learned interesting things and enjoyed themselves. If they are interested, you would be able to involve them in the future.

Art(ist) Education, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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This Post Did Not Emerge Fully Formed Like Athena From My Skull

November 24, 2015

by:

Joe Patti

A topic I frequently like to write about is the misconception that artistic inspiration is the result of a lightning bolt moment rather than the product of long term effort.

In the past, the examples I have given have focused on how creative people subscribe to this notion. However, Howard Sherman retweeted an article today that pointed out how society at large reinforces this belief.

In the article Rebecca Atkinson-Lord draws attention to the language used when describing playwright Katherine Soper’s winning the Bruntwood Prize for Playwrighting. Like many people in the arts, Soper has a second job she works in order to provide financial support for her writing efforts. Many media outlets described her as a “shop assistant,” “perfume seller,” and “first time writer.” (She is a trained playwright and this isn’t her first effort.)

Atkinson-Lord writes,

By perpetuating this myth of the ‘Big Break’, our media culture teaches those outside the arts world that to be a successful artist is easy, that there’s no need to aim for excellence, no need to push yourself harder, to educate yourself and develop key skills to be the very best you can be. It makes the arts look easy. And easy is cheap.

In turn that undermines the case for proper funding of the arts – if anyone can make excellent art, then there’s no need to pay artists competitively or fund its development. Presenting Katherine as (just) a shop assistant also conceals the stark reality that most theatre makers have to do ‘money jobs’ to survive while disguising the systemic flaws in how the arts are funded and theatre makers are employed.

She goes on to note that the headlines also make subtle class assumptions about a shop assistant’s capability to create award winning art work and certainly that is another factor at play here.

According to the article, Soper mentioned on social media that included her second job in her bio as a way to emphasize that artists are balancing multiple roles. It appears that got turned around a bit on her.

While media channels really need to be more responsible about researching and honestly reporting on a creative person’s existence and career before their big break, it isn’t likely to happen. The romance of the humble origins in a garage is just too compelling a story, even if it isn’t true.