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• audiences, conversation starter, ideas, marketing, presenting, storefront theatre

  What’s In Your Bathroom?

  04.19.10 | Permalink | 6 Comments

  I’m sure they’re clean.  I’m sure you’re a good host.  I’m sure they’re stocked with ample and appropriate paper products for your anticipated audience, and that the plumbing works.  Is that it? A few weeks ago, I wrote how theater lobbies are often functional, neutral spaces—closer in design and function to a waiting room or [...]

• audiences, conversation starter, directors, dramaturgy, ideas, playwrights, producers, rabble rousing, the process, theatrical ecosystem

  Sellars Notes, January 2008

  04.06.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

  So many live, perishable experiences hang on the decision to leave the house, the decision to take the trouble to go to the venue before the event no longer exists. I remember weighing the $20 cab fare it would cost me to make it to Mandel Hall at the University of Chicago in time to [...]

• audiences, conversation starter, ideas, marketing, non-profit theatre, producers, storefront theatre, theatrical ecosystem, Uncategorized

  Who It’s For, You or Someone Else

  03.26.10 | Permalink | 7 Comments

  A Thai restaurant opens on your block.  Or a taqueria, or a sports bar, or a coffeehouse with nightly live music.  At some point, if the signs are in a language you understand and the place has windows and the price is right, you’re likely to check it out.  Now: a house of worship opens [...]

• audiences, conversation starter, ideas, marketing, producers, theatrical ecosystem

  Where They Are When They’re Not Here

  03.11.10 | Permalink | 3 Comments

  Concerts.  Big concerts—arena size.  I often hear and read how potential audiences, if they’re not going to theater, are going to arena-size, celebrity-driven concerts.  And if they’re not at a big concert, they’re at home watching American Idol or Lost.  None of this is true. Sure, every week tens of millions are streaming Netflix, watching TV, and attending concerts [...]

• audiences, conversation starter, ideas, marketing, storefront theatre, Uncategorized

  What’s In Your Lobby?

  03.05.10 | Permalink | 5 Comments

  Not long ago, I finally went to Great Lake Pizza in Chicago. In 2009, GQ magazine declared that Great Lake makes the best pizza in the United States. Articles about the particulars of the pizza and of the restaurant’s proprietor soon followed. Sharply divided reviews also followed. I loved the pizza I brought home—every ingredient converged. But [...]