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Monica Reida

On Epic Theater Programming Failures

03.01.10 | View Comments

CATEGORIES audiences, conversation starter, non-profit theatre, playwrights, rabble rousing, the process, theatrical ecosystem

The theater in my hometown recently announced their 2010-11 season and, to put it softly, I was disappointed. If this tells you anything, for those of you that didn’t click on the link, the most exciting shows are On Golden Pond and Boeing, Boeing.

Now, this theater has had tough times; they lost several years worth of props after the Iowa floods in 2008. But my biggest problem was that I looked at the season and thought, “I don’t care to see any of these shows.”

Which brings me to the point I’m trying to make: when you do a safe season, is it really a wise choice for a theater’s revenue?

A safe season won’t have any ballsy choices that would make a potential subscriber or patron think, “Wow, they’re doing that show? I’ve got to see this.” Some safe seasons might also lack the nostalgia that some selections might carry. For example, if a theater company in Iowa decided to do How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, that might be exciting for my mother because she hasn’t seen it since she was in high school. If you do Death of a Salesman or The Odd Couple, audiences might go, “Well, might as well miss this because I just saw that show.” How many times can subscribers stand to sit through a certain Christmas show that is done every three years?

If theaters go with “safe” seasons, they might be screwing themselves over by not drawing audiences to the plays. And then ticket prices might have to be hiked up, which will drive away even more potential patrons.

Of course, this might not be the situation for every theater. But, still, is it possible to kill off your own theater company by going with “safe” seasons?

  • http://www.twitter.com/rzcrow RebeccaZ

    I was looking around the theatre's website for a spell but decided to come back over here. Did this theatre used to do “riskier” shows or have they always been a pretty established and typical community theatre?

    I f the answer is typical, please continue reading. If the answer is “riskier”, then pay no mind and we'll start talking about that.

    I grew up in a town that had a community theatre in the next town over and I was a very active member. I had a great time and nobody cared about being cutting edge. Everyone just wanted to have fun and do fun musicals and meet members of the community. I played Eulalie McKeckney Shinn in The Music Man when I was 18 and the man playing the mayor was a high school teacher and my mom was a part of the townlady's chorus. She can't deliver a line to save her life but she had a good time giving it a whirl.

    Again, I don't know what your community theatre is like and maybe it strives for greater and higher things but don't be too rough on it. If it makes the people happy and its non-theatre volunteers happier … well, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Have I been back to see a show in the community theatre I previously mentioned? Nope. But that doesn't mean I want anything to do with their programming. They're not doing things I want to see, but they're introducing theatre to people who wouldn't normally think about it.

    (Come back to Chicago!)

    If you don't want to get back to Chicago … I challenge you to start your own theatre and create the programming you want to see, especially if there are more audience members in the community looking for a challenging season. There's always room for more theatres.

  • monicareida

    They did do slightly more challenging works in the past, such as “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” which did upset the blue-haired subscribers. Many of the plays that they would do that had expletives would have expletives cut out, even “Virginia Woolf” was subjected to this slaughter. The sole difference was when a director other than the artistic director would direct (this was usually the children's theatre artistic director) and he felt as though it was an essence of the script. If you go through the past seasons, they're a bit more challenging. It's not of the level of a theater in Cedar Rapids that did both parts of “Angels in America” in one month, but they did do more challenging things. (Sadly, I'd now consider “Art” to be edgy for this theater because they did do “Art,” and it was a terrific production.)

    I sadly can say that I'm not the only person with issues. There are people outside of my family that have issues. (My sister just added that all of their season members are dying.) But my sister also pointed out that, in this theater's defense, they did “Proof” and no one came. They did “A Man For All Seasons” and no one came. They did “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and no one came. They did “Art” and no one came. This might be a marketing problem, but it is very possible that they got a message for that.

    Yeah, if I don't come back to Chicago, I might have bring storefront theater to Northeast Iowa.

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