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Try On Theatre, It May Fit Better Than You Think

August 9, 2022

by:

Joe Patti

American Theatre recently had a great piece about an interesting approach Princeton University is using as an alternative to auditions called “Try On Theatre Days.” They describe the program as “replacing high-intensity auditions with educational workshops as a means to cast performers and stagehands for the school’s seasonal productions.”

What I appreciate about this approach is the broad invitation to the campus community to come and check out the theatre program and experience mini-lessons in various functions. This is a departure from the practice at many non-conservatory theatre programs I have worked with and encountered where the invitation to the campus community starts and ends with the audition notice. The approach that Princeton is described as using seems to do a better job of giving people the confidence they have the ability to contribute to a production both by getting them to participate in various activities and raising awareness of roles beyond performing.

There is also a hope that the process will introduce greater diversity and reduce insular clique culture in the theatre program:

The first day of the three-day process is a community day, at which all Princeton students are invited to meet the theatre department and to experience introductory-level singing, dancing, and acting workshops…The next two days are designated for students to “try on” specific shows in the upcoming season, … not only in the acting sense but also, for example, stage management, in which prospective students get the opportunity to try calling cues. The purpose is to introduce and teach students to different facets of theatre rather than make judgments about what capabilities certain students walk in the door with, and in turn let students decide if theatre is something they want to pursue.

This new process aims to level the playing field for students who didn’t have traditional theatrical training prior to attending Princeton University. The goal is to transform the student theatre culture and attract a more diverse population, as well as to reduce the cliques and the student hierarchies that often result when theatre students consistently casting their friends in productions.

The “Try On Theatre Days” grew out of an initiative where the university administration paid students to conduct teach-ins about the challenges, biases, and other discouraging factors they faced when trying to participate in productions and classes. Students interviewed by American Theatre said the result has been an increased degree of authenticity in productions, a shift in power dynamics, a rethinking of the casting process, and an improved sense capacity to participate in the creative process.

Art(ist) Education, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, creativity, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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You’re Not Meant To Eat Everything On The Menu

August 8, 2022

by:

Joe Patti

Many of you may have seen the news about the accusations of “wokeness” being leveled at the restaurant chain Cracker Barrel for adding plant based breakfast sausage to the menu. To be clear, they aren’t replacing the existing meat based sausage option, just adding the plant-based option.

Upon reading this, I immediately thought of a talk Nina Simon did at the Minnesota History conference discussing her book, The Art of Relevance. Specifically, I was reminded of her statement that not everything an arts organization does is for the insiders. She mentions this idea in other talks that she did, but this was my first introduction to the concept so I remembered it clearly and thought the Cracker Barrel story was a good opportunity to revisit it.

While I remembered this talk so clearly I was able to find my post on her talk immediately, I had not recalled just how appropriate it was.

Right there in the second paragraph I wrote,

“She uses the metaphor about going to a restaurant and how you don’t suddenly decide to boycott the restaurant if they start adding vegetarian and heart healthy options to their regular menu.”

Sorry Nina, it looks like you were wrong.
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There are a lot of lessons and things to consider in the Cracker Barrel example. There are a number of other restaurants and chains that started offering faux meat like the Impossible Burger without this sort of reaction. Dunkin Donuts in particular offered the breakfast veggie-sausage patty on their menu. So why the negative reaction to Cracker Barrel’s decision? My theory is that people have made the restaurant chain part of their identity and adding a non-meat option threatens that identity in some way.

I think in a lot of ways arts organizations might view their core supporters reacting in a similar manner and be reluctant to effect change. Honestly, I don’t know that Cracker Barrel offers a cautionary tale to most arts organizations. I do think that there will be a lot of people in a community who very closely identify with and organization and are invested in its well-being, to the point they will mention a show they just attended a few months ago. The fact the show was two years ago just illustrates they feel like they have close ties.

On the whole, I think it will be like most restaurants adding heart healthy and vegetarian options — people’s eyes will pass over those listings looking for what they like. New opportunities to open doors to new audiences isn’t going to bother long term supporters overall, especially if promoted well while maintaining a perception that long term supporters aren’t losing anything by it. It think it is easy to overestimate the push back. I have seen a whole season of classical music concerts fill the house despite the inclusion of some contemporary, non-canonical pieces. The traditional audiences seemed happy to see younger audiences filling in the seats beside them.

Certainly, context matters and the emergence from Covid restrictions provides license to try new approaches. Arts and cultural organizations would be wise take advantage of this opportunity.

This is not to say that there aren’t organizations with which supporters have made their association an integral part of their identity. Supporters for whom any change feels like a personal threat. A situation like this bears very, very serious examination. Not only is it an impediment to inviting new people in to renew the vitality of the organization, but it may clash with the organization’s self-perception of who they are for. Most Cracker Barrel locations are near interstate highways so the addition of the vegetable based faux meat is meant to signal that travelers with different dietary preferences are welcome. But the response of a lot of customers is, no they are not.

Audience Relations, Management Philosophy, Marketing/PR, State of the Arts

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You Now Have Permission To Have An Authentic Response

August 3, 2022

by:

Joe Patti

Last month the San Francisco Chronicle ran an opinion piece by Nataki Garrett, the Artistic Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, titled Theater can help drive economic recovery in S.F. and elsewhere. But not if it stays so white

She talks about how there are a lot of barriers to participation in theatre for new audiences like ticketing pricing, lack of representation on stage and in leadership, accessibility, etc., but focuses most of the piece on the formal attendance etiquette. She notes that in addition to “how to behave” sections on organization websites, Business Insider had published a similar guide as Broadway prepared to open post-Covid.

Even as the opportunity to re-write the narrative about who was was welcome presented itself as Covid restrictions loosened, traditional gatekeeping practices re-asserted themselves. She cites the example of the Tina Turner musical which encouraged audience response by design:

The musical takes audiences through the life of legendary rock ‘n’ roll icon Tina Turner, using her own popular songs to tell her story. It’s a theatrical performance that compels the audience to physically react, something Hall encourages in her audiences. Yet, when attending a preview performance in 2020, I watched white audience members scold other audience goers for their audible reactions to the electrifying performance. Their message was clear: Adhere to our rules or you’re not welcome.

In terms of alternative messaging to use in order to welcome audiences, Garrett gives the example of the playwrights notes for the Broadway show, “Skeleton Crew:”

Inserted in every “Playbill” was a note from the playwright on “Permissions for Engagements.” It reads in part: “Consider this an invitation to be yourselves in this audience. You are allowed to laugh audibly. You are allowed to have audible moments of reaction and response. This can be a church for some of us, and testifying is allowed.”

This isn’t a boilerplate text for widespread use. Every organization and show has a different context requiring a differently worded invitation.

A storytelling group in my community does a pretty good job of this prior to every session they have when they layout a framework of behavior. The rules are mostly about eliminating crosstalk at the tables while people were telling stories. People are encouraged to snap, stomp and yell things like “You know that’s right!”

I think this works out well for them because there is really only one thing they ask you not to do and then invite you to feel free to have a spontaneous response. By providing examples of what form that response might take, they manage to generally keep things from getting too disruptive for both the audience and storytellers unaccustomed to public speaking.

Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture

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How Do You Take Your Program, Digital Or Printed?

August 2, 2022

by:

Joe Patti

Last month, Washington Post Classical Music Critic Michael Andor Brodeur wrote a piece about why people like himself are unhappy with classical music organizations ditching printed programs. Most places started shifting to digital programs during Covid to cut down on opportunities to transmit the virus.

While we weren’t primarily a classical music venue, my team and I decided to go the digital route as Covid restrictions wound down for the purposes of saving money and cutting down on paper waste. For us that meant putting the program content up on lobby screens and providing QR for people to scan.

As Brodeur points out, the QR code option can be problematic because many people aren’t really adept at accessing and reading content on their phone despite the fact that it seems like everyone around us is always reading stuff on their phones. We would have a handful of large format printed programs on hand for ADA purposes and really annoyed patrons, but for the most part it worked.

For us the shift represented a modest budgetary savings and a reduction in paper waste, but for much larger organizations the decision can have a considerable impact. For the Bethesda, Maryland based National Philharmonic, it meant a savings of about $20,000. However, for the Kennedy Center which said they made the shift based on trash rather than monetary savings, there is a much greater impact.

The 1.5 million programs the center printed — for every event in its main spaces, regardless of genre — amounted to 250 tons of paper per season at an annual cost of nearly $400,000, according to Andrews. This doesn’t count the additional paper waste created for inserts, which primarily address corrections or updates, though are sometimes geared toward fundraising. (Those 1.2 million inserts could add an additional $200,000 to seasonal costs, Andrews says.) Not to mention the programs produced by renters of Kennedy Center spaces.

The change to digital has allowed them to bring program operations in-house rather than sending content off to Playbill. (I would imagine this is going to impact Playbill severely if others follow suit.) In addition to likely reducing the 60-70 day lead time required by having a 3rd party print their materials, this decision has brought other benefits to Kennedy Center:

Since transitioning to digital, the arts center has shifted program operations in-house, using its own stable of writers to produce essays, its own designers and its own proprietary platform to develop programs with a consistent identity across the board. This also allows programs to be scaled for the events they detail. (A one-size-fits-all program approach for both text-heavy events like operas and relatively straightforward rock or jazz performances was another source of waste.)

“It’s an evolution,” Andrews says. “It’s somewhat entrepreneurial, but at the core we’re using technology to streamline the process and reduce the total amount of paper consumption — because we are the Kennedy Center and these are big numbers.”

Many arts and cultural organizations aren’t as large an operation as the Kennedy Center so the same stable of writers who created content for the print program are going to be creating content for the digital version. Though the digital format provides a little more freedom to present information in different dimensions, orientations, and timing/ordering than print.

It may not turn out to be an issue, but one factor I haven’t come up against yet or seen anyone else address is sponsor and advertiser receptiveness to the digital format. With the print format there was always dickering about placement of logos and sponsorship content – inside cover, back cover, center break, opposite title page, etc., Despite the jockeying that went on, those placements may ultimately not be as important to individuals and organizations as they seemed to be. But I wonder if the loss of some of those options may reduce the perceived value and end up reducing sponsorship and advertising revenue.

Audience Relations, Marketing/PR, Working In The Arts

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