Theatre only for the wealthy!?
Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Theater Administration
Forum Name: Running Your Theater
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URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2856
Printed Date: 11/22/24 at 10:46pm
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Topic: Theatre only for the wealthy!?
Posted By: 75director
Subject: Theatre only for the wealthy!?
Date Posted: 12/04/07 at 12:18pm
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We recently encountered an issue of perception and I wanted to see what other theatres thought or had done to deal with it.
We applied for some grant funding from our city (Beatrice, NE) to purchase new seating for our auditorium. They have a program where they contribute to "community projects not currently funded by the city budget", that's their description of the program on their website. We do not receive any city funding for anything we do. The funding was approved by the advisory board that is supposed to determine who gets funds from the account, but it needed city council approval to actually issue the funding.
There were several city council members who said they felt that funding the theatre was not a community project since we charge admission to events and not anyone who wants to can make use of our facility (which we own), like they can with the Humane Society or playground equipment (things which this program has funded in the past). At the council meeting we stated that we do offer free programming a couple of times a year, but that didn't seem to satisfy the dissenters. They tabled a vote on the funding until they determined if we were eligible for the funds, since none of them understood their own rules about the program.
When I shared the discussion with members of my board of directors I received a response from one of them who said she had been hearing grumblings from some people that the theatre is only for the wealthy and not everyone.
What have others done to combat the perception that attending the theatre is only for the rich?
We do things like Rush Tickets and have shows that we do for elementary kids where we only charge the school the cost of royalties of the performance and things like that. Our regular ticket prices are Musicals $16 for adults, $8 students; Plays $13 adults, $8 students (which is cheaper than all the theatres in the nearest town to us). Our board and volunteers are from a divers backgrounds from farmers and factory workers to teachers and bank executives.
Sorry for the long post. Thoughts from anyone?
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Replies:
Posted By: MartyW
Date Posted: 12/04/07 at 12:53pm
501C3?
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Marty W
"Till next we trod the boards.."
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Posted By: 75director
Date Posted: 12/04/07 at 1:26pm
Posted By: jayzehr
Date Posted: 12/06/07 at 3:44pm
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Well, a quick google search to the Beatrice city website says they're charging $65 for a season pass or five bucks a head to the (apparently) city owned water park. So, your city appears to be financing projects that do require admission. Your prices aren't that much more than a movie, really. Theater audiences tend to be more educated and therefore usually wealthier. The resentment might have as much to do with that as with the actual cost.
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Posted By: JoeMc
Date Posted: 12/06/07 at 5:22pm
I don't know if this helps?
Check out the article on the AACT site;-
AACT Article;-
http://www.aact.org/advocacy/impact.html - http://www.aact.org/advocacy/impact.html
Arts & Economical Prosperity
Calculator;- http://ww3.artsusa.org/information_resources/economic_impact/calculator.html - http://ww3.artsusa.org/information_resources/economic_impact/calculator.html
If you do the sums & have the outcome sent to each Councilor
&/or thier flunkies, along with the local rag, this may get the
message across.
Especialy if you do a quick survey of the bussinesss that are effected & gain thru having a theatre in the area.
Further I'm not sure how your Humane Society works there, but here they
charge the public fees when they adopt an animal from them - just a
thought!
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[western] Gondawandaland
"Hear the light & see the sound!
TOI TOI CHOOKAS
{may you always play to a full house!}
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Posted By: TonyDi
Date Posted: 12/13/07 at 1:30pm
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Is there not an ARTS COUNCIL in your town? Here where I live, there is an Arts Council who is funded partially by the city, partially by private and/or corporate donation and the money is divvied up among all the arts groups from the theater companies to the small individual groups. Apparently there is a deep rooted opinion among the members of the city council who think that the rich people are the only ones to whom you are catering. And ANY IDIOT of any community - with ANY half brain or sense - KNOWS that MOST theater companies are NOT making much money at all with the exception of making enough to keep a building going and enough to produce the NEXT show - much less a season of shows. It's just a closed-minded group apparently.
There is even a group here in town who has at least ONE performance that allows people to "pay what you CAN" so that it's accessible to everyone. So if all you can pay is 2 bucks, well you get to experience live theater as a result. Of course they've built into their business structure that capability and in this case, "spend a little to share the wealth" so to speak, with anyone who WANTS to come. It's sad when a community is that closed to funding the arts. It appears that they're more interested in CONTROLLING what they fund if they're going to fund it at all - rather than offer you all a grant because you own it yourselves. I've seen that here too. If it's city owned, they'll throw money at it - BECAUSE they can then define how it's run or control it. LUCKILY the company I worked for so many years, RENTS the building from the city but WE raised the money which they helped match plus got a sizable donation from one of our wealthy patrons to build ON to the building. But the city still RENTS it to us - it's their building - but our rent is like $1,000 a year and we have it for at least 10 years at a time. We've been in existence for over 55 years now. The city would LOVE to define what and how we do what we do - but we've been at it so long they pretty much leave us alone. And the Arts Council DOES offer us MINIMAL amount of funding every year - but we refuse it - simply SO they cannot take what WE have built away from us and feel guilty even trying should they ever. And it's really more a slap in our face to be offered MINIMAL amount of funding when the other theater companies in town get 10 - 20 times what they offer us. We're solvent - have been for a long time. Investments have been made intelligently such that the company is self-sufficient. But it's not always been that way.
HOPEFULLY you can find some sympathetic ear on your city's council who has a sense of vision and progress in the arts. Until then, work smart toward becoming self-sufficient and then you can thumb your noses at them when your successes are of note in spite of their inability to see beyond their own limited scope of vision. Your patrons will learn and know eventually. Maybe a fund raiser that makes the city council look stupid would be in order..I don't know. I don't get it when they dump money on things of far less significance and benefit to the public when the arts can provide so much for so many. Short sighted, inept and ignorant. Maybe they need educating. Who better to do that than your group?
Good luck
TonyDi
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"Almost famous"
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Posted By: 75director
Date Posted: 12/13/07 at 2:43pm
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A slight update from the original post I made on this topic. While we haven't heard anything from the City regarding the funding we did get a grant from our County for $15,000 and then a patron called the other day to pledge $18,000 to the project, putting us at 75% of our fundraising goal. So even without the City coming to its senses we'll fund this facility upgrade without a problem possibly even slightly ahead of our timeline.
(Personally I just want to wave the County's funding in the City's face and say, "What's wrong with you? The county gave us twice as much money as you were even considering!" but have to maintain a certain level of politeness, the city offices are next door to our building and I don't want a parking ticket)
But the key lesson that it has made us aware of is the perception in the community at large and we're going to work a lot harder to outreach and educate our community. Including starting a pay-what-you-can preview program and increasing the visibility of our diverse volunteer pool.
Jamie
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Posted By: Kibitzer
Date Posted: 1/22/08 at 10:09pm
Unfortunately, this is a problem that exists - and has existed - for a long, long time here in the good ol' USA. There is headway being made in many cities due to, of all things, globalization. There are two books out that I believe lay all the groundwork - although there are many more supporting or contributing to the thinking of these books. They are Richard Florida's "The Rise of the Creative Class" and Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat". I won't do a review of these books, here, but a couple of the key points is that business as usual is now a dead end and success - personal, business, and community development - is going to the innovators. As a society, we must become more and more creative and innovative if we are going to be competitive. Florida tells us that the most successful and healthiest communities will be creative communities. More and more public officials are paying attention to this thinking - that's the very dim light at the end of a very long tunnel.
Unfortunately, we cannot sit back and wait for someone else to wake up our community leaders to today's realities. As community theatres, we now have much more to offer our communities than ever before. But we have to be a part of the solution. On my web site I address this exact issue in an article I wrote entitled "Putting the community into community arts and putting community arts into the community." I know, long winded title, but the point is critical. One of the things I say in that article is that we have to not just become arts leaders, we have to become community leaders. We need to come out from our studios, our theatres, our galleries, our recital halls and make ourselves known to community leaders. This is not an overnight fix - this is a long term process. (If you're interested in the article, go to http://www.artskibitzer.com and hit the "scribblings and useful links" button.)
I'll be specific about something I accomplished at a community theatre I managed several years ago. When I started at the theatre, I began to attend neighborhood community development committee meetings and the meetings of other civic organizations. The theme I was promoting was that for decades our theatre had been a quiet neighbor, now we were going to become a good neighbor by getting involved with our immediate community in a positive way. I had put together a fairly significant facility renovation and upgrade program. Part of that effort was to invite the various elected officials at the city, county, and state level that represented the district in which we were located to functions at the theatre. I eventually had a meeting with them and discussed our capital improvement projects and the positive impact that would have on their district. We were investing in our neighborhood and we hoped they would find a way to invest in us. Out of the blue one day I got a call from our city councilman. He had secured $100,000 of city funding - a city that was on the brink of bankruptcy, by the way! - for our improvement campaign. I leveraged that grant to secure another $175,000 from foundations along with a few other funding sources. We ended up with just over $400,000 over about a 3 year period for much needed capital improvements.
It can happen. It just takes some time and a lot of outreach. I don't want to make this story sound like it's an easy thing to do. I spent a lot of time with a lot of people that yielded nothing concrete - but I believe all that effort created a bit of "buzz" in the neighborhood. And I got lucky, but I paved the road to lucky by networking and educating key officials in our neighborhood and community.
The point of all this is: As frustrating as it is, don't get mad - get involved.
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"Security is a kind of death." - Tennessee Williams
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Posted By: John Luzaich
Date Posted: 2/26/08 at 4:46pm
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We're a small community theatre in the midwest and are in a state and city that has funding mechanism through hotel/motel tax revenues. At one point we received no funding from our local city. We've had to make our case over the years regarding our positive impact on our community. Specifically, local business owners and managers. We slowly and steadily grew our season ticket holder base and individual ticket buyers. We now have season ticket holders that live in 43 different cities. It took some time to build that up and to communicate it with the general public and local elected officials. But, we're doing our part to bring people from outside our own area into our area. And, when we do well, our local business owners and managers do well. We have to make our case that we have a positive reisdual effect on our business neighbors and then we share that with our local elected officials. We are also putting together some data regarding the positive things our "theatre group or family" means as a whole to the community. Add up all of the volunteer hours your volunteers do.... no, not for your theatre, but for the community as a whole. Many people involved in your theatre probably volunteer somewhere else. Add up all of those hours and create a list of places your "theatre insiders and board members" volunteer in other places and then share that, send out a press release. That way you're not all about "me, me, me", but telling everyone else "look at all of the good our theatre people do in the community". For instance, "twelve of our theatre people gave blood last year at the hospital drive or blood bank". You know, those kinds of things. Also, all of our members join other service clubs like Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, Sertoma, etc and that's been a big help in networking and sharing our vision and information.
John
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John
cfct@cfu.net
http://www.osterregent.org
http://www.facebook.com/osterregent
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Posted By: John Luzaich
Date Posted: 2/26/08 at 4:49pm
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Oh, and forgot to mention in my last post that we have been receiving great support from our city now for the last several years with growing dollars. A couple local elected officials are now season ticket holders and several more come to the theatre on a regular basis.
John
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John
cfct@cfu.net
http://www.osterregent.org
http://www.facebook.com/osterregent
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