Reviving a Sagging Theater Group
Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Play Suggestions
Forum Discription: Need help finding a show that's right for your theater? Ask here.
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5636
Printed Date: 11/21/24 at 6:15pm
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Topic: Reviving a Sagging Theater Group
Posted By: edh915
Subject: Reviving a Sagging Theater Group
Date Posted: 4/25/18 at 4:19pm
No doubt about it. Our theater group has seen better days. Attendance has been falling off for the past five years. We're at 70% of where we used to be.
How do we turn things around?
We have two factions on our board right now. One faction wants to do safe, tried and true, audience friendly plays. The other faction is pushing for doing new, edgy, artistically challenging stuff.
We've tried sort of a mix of things for the last two years, but with no definitive results. We're in the dark and grasping at straws. --- Any ideas?
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Replies:
Posted By: jayzehr
Date Posted: 4/30/18 at 8:44pm
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What kind of community are you in? Unless it's a major city you're most likely not going to improve your numbers doing edgy, artistically challenging stuff. Maybe not even then. Our group had this argument for over 15 years and the numbers were irrefutable: People come to see Rumors and Steel Magnolias. They don't come to weird, new plays no matter how many people tell you that's what they want to see. YMMV.
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Posted By: jayzehr
Date Posted: 5/01/18 at 8:30am
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I also wish there were still people here to bounce ideas off. We're down, too. I'm wondering if that's everywhere and maybe has something to do with the current climate of the country? Or maybe the audience is literally dying off? Maybe bad play selection on our part? Outside of children's theater. I"m thinking the safest bets now are big farces with no political or challenging content whatsoever. Fortunately, we have some cushion from the local Arts Council which gives us latitude as far as potential financial losses from more serious productions.
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Posted By: edh915
Date Posted: 5/03/18 at 12:06am
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We're close to a major metropolitan area (specifically, Chicago) and many in the group are influenced by what they see being produced there. I tend to agree with you that TV sitcom stuff is more comfortable for our audiences to risk money on. They want entertainment - not a profound artistic experience (even though both are theoretically possible)
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Posted By: edh915
Date Posted: 5/03/18 at 12:09am
You may have a point about our audiences literally dying off. Entertainment comes in a wide variety of forms now. Who'd have ever thought that TV / Cable TV would ever be in danger of extinction? It's all "streaming" now. But how do you stream theater? Maybe we should try touting it as "something old is new again."
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Posted By: edh915
Date Posted: 5/03/18 at 12:11am
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Thanks, by the way, for your thoughts. I was beginning to think I had been talking to myself.
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Posted By: jayzehr
Date Posted: 5/03/18 at 11:05am
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Yeah, I don't understand what the deal is with this site. I've been getting that "server error" message for years on the main page and thought the site was gone as did everyone else, I'm sure. But somebody still has to be paying for the domain, right? You have to wonder why at this point. If there's a community theater discussion elsewhere on the web I haven't found it. Not on Facebook or Reddit or anywhere else.
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Posted By: jayzehr
Date Posted: 5/03/18 at 12:24pm
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If you don't count the people who come because they have some connection to the cast or crew, I'd say the average age of our audience is well over 50. But it seems like it's been that way for years.
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Posted By: hobbyactor
Date Posted: 6/06/18 at 2:43pm
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We've had pretty good attendance this year and our season has been somewhat mixed. We started off with a mystery/comedy (Done to Death) and had mostly sell-outs. We did a pretty unknown show for Christmas (Christmas Cactus) and it also sold well. The December slot has historically done well. We did One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest in February and it was sold out most nights. Then Nunsense II, using a large cast. We scheduled a few extra performances and most sold out. Our current show is not selling as well -- Brighton Beach Memoirs. I think it is partly the time slot, but who knows!
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