Thesis: Introducing bold new kinds of productions will require change. Change can be frightening. This post is basically a sermon intended to help beat back the fear. “How do you give In to the true That wants to become A new part of you?” – Craig Wright I expect most...
Thesis: Celebrity is one of the strongest social forces in America. Increasingly, though, people are responding to apparently oxymoronic “Narrow fame;” that is, being highly salient for some quality among a modest sized niche of people. Theatre companies can take advantage of this phenomenon by promoting their currently unknown performers...
A shade more than two years ago, David Loehr and I met during a gathering at Arena Stage. He encouraged me to do some writing for this web site. Since that time, this is the 20th post I’ve written and the I’m-not-sure-how-to-count themth post I’ve read. The contributors to this...
Thesis: Skills in event creation and performance can be applied to marketing appropriately and effectively. If stunt marketing is selling out, it is selling out in a very classy way. I was in London for a few days in the late spring of 2004. I’d been doing weeks of country...
Thesis: Holding the idea that artists are different in kind from non-artists may create a barrier that discourages non-artists from attending or engaging with your work. Choosing to believe that audience members have a key role in theatrical production may reduce or remove such a barrier. I invoke the term...
Thesis: You can learn more when you innovate if you adopt a few concepts from the scientific method. In my experience, plenty of people in the American Theatre innovate frequently. Whether the subject is artistic style, theater technology, seating plan, or any of dozens of other things, our field is...
Thesis: People with whom you have some relationship are far more likely to attend your work than are total strangers. I am aware of two major movements within marketing over the last century, and I’m increasingly convinced that neither of them is any longer well suited to attracting audiences to...
Thesis: If your productions aren’t getting the word-of-mouth support you hope for, you may be able to take action to shape the word-of-mouth. Most companies who survey members to learn why they chose to attend a show find that recommendation from friends, often called word-of-mouth, is a high frequency response....
Thesis: Adherents to a hobby define their relationship to a hobby partly through swag – collectibles and ephemera related to their activity. Theatre companies could create swag around their productions or seasons to provide audience members additional hooks in to the hobby. Dog and Pony DC’s current show A Killing...
