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Make it cool, cheap and relevant and they will come … maybe
BY: FRAN HELLER Contributing Writer
Recently I reviewed three theatrical performances in one week.
All were well attended, no small miracle given the price of theater tickets today, the sour economy, and the competition of cheaper entertainment venues, like TV, VCRs and computers, none of which require leaving the comforts of home or hiring a babysitter.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that everyone in the audience at two out of the three venues was 60, 70 or older. As for the third, which had more contemporary appeal, the audience was still noticeably gray-haired.
As a gray-haired, 60-something myself, I am hardly adverse to seeing a theater filled with senior citizens. Quite the contrary. Their fully engaged enjoyment is always palpable and catching. Furthermore, it is my generation, raised on the thrills of the legitimate stage, that keeps many of today’s theaters on life support. My concern is the lack of young people in today’s audiences, which invariably leads to the next question: Will there be any audience of tomorrow?
Theater is expensive
Much has been ballyhooed about the price of tickets as too expensive and that young couples cannot afford to see a live theater performance. Indeed, purchasing a pair of tickets, hiring a babysitter if there are young children, and maybe adding dinner beforehand can put the cost of an evening’s entertainment at well over $200. How can theaters compete when you can borrow a movie from the library for free, watch one on cable TV for pennies of your monthly charge, or rent at Blockbusters for less than $5?
Box-office receipts only cover about 30% or 40% of putting on a production; foundations, corporate, public and private support are necessary to make up the shortfall. How then, one may ask, can a theater possibly lower its prices to make it affordable to the young?
One way may be to designate a free night of theater for the 18-to-30-year olds (ID required). The Museum of Modern Art in New York, with a hefty admission fee of $20 a head, opens its doors for free every Friday night, 5-9 p.m., and a tidal wave of young folk streams through.
The Metropolitan Opera, where tickets can run several hundred dollars each, sets aside a number of $20 tickets several hours prior to the performance. When I was at the New York opera house, the pre-show lineup for these tickets seemed a mile long, and many in that line were of the backpack variety. It must be noted that the only way the Met could afford to offer such inexpensive tickets was the result of gifts from wealthy patrons and individuals who earmarked their donations for this express purpose.
There is plenty of untapped wealth in our town as well, and all theaters, large and small, should embark on an aggressive campaign for private and corporate donations to set aside affordable ticket offerings.
Sponsor a student with a theater gift
In 1998, playwright Wendy Wasserstein, wanting to instill her love for theater in a new generation of New Yorkers, initiated a program to bring smart, underprivileged students from New York’s public high schools to the theater.
Wasserstein, who died in 2006 at age 55, wrote that every New Yorker is born with certain inalienable rights, including the “right to grow up regularly attending the theater.” The program, which began with eight students from a public high school in the Bronx, today consists of 17 groups and more than 100 students chaperoned by volunteer mentors to a season’s worth of theater offerings.
Cleveland has a rich theater scene. I, likewise, believe its students should grow up with the same inalienable right.
Not just ticket cost
The high cost of a ticket isn’t the only obstacle keeping young people away from live theater. A colleague recently told me that she and her husband exposed their son to theater throughout his growing-up years, yet, as a professional adult, his entertainment interests lie elsewhere.
The myriad of entertainment choices today saddles theater with stiff competition. Furthermore, theater’s seasonal picks are not always targeted toward a younger audience. If theaters want to draw young people, they need to program shows that will appeal to them by being pertinent to their lives and the world in which they live.
“South Pacific” and “Oklahoma” may be classics, but “Rent” and “Spring Awakening” rock with the “now” generation. “On Golden Pond” strikes at the geriatric heart, but “Fat Pig” is about body image, and the subject of “Bug” is terrorism. Make it “cool,” cheap and relevant, and they’ll come. Maybe.
Theater appreciation, like the visual arts or music, is an acquired skill. The greater the exposure, the easier and more rewarding it becomes. Like good literature, theater at its best teaches us something about our own lives in a way no other entertainment medium can.
Ben Cameron of Theatre Communications Group once noted that if you don’t turn young people onto live theater by age 18, you never will. Which is why education outreach programs such as those at Great Lakes Theater Festival, The Cleveland Play House, and Actors’ Summit, to name a few, are so important in exposing young people to the genre.
In a review of a current revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George,” New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley described the show as “a ravishing epiphany of artistic harmony … Every member of those audiences, whether consciously or not, is struggling for such harmony in dealing with the mess of daily reality … It is the generosity of all great art that allows you, for a breathless few moments, to achieve that exquisite, elusive balance.”
So to all my fellow theater lovers I say, if you want to buy your children or grandchildren a gift of a lifetime, send them a year’s subscription to your neighborhood theater.
And offer to babysit!
All were well attended, no small miracle given the price of theater tickets today, the sour economy, and the competition of cheaper entertainment venues, like TV, VCRs and computers, none of which require leaving the comforts of home or hiring a babysitter.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that everyone in the audience at two out of the three venues was 60, 70 or older. As for the third, which had more contemporary appeal, the audience was still noticeably gray-haired.
As a gray-haired, 60-something myself, I am hardly adverse to seeing a theater filled with senior citizens. Quite the contrary. Their fully engaged enjoyment is always palpable and catching. Furthermore, it is my generation, raised on the thrills of the legitimate stage, that keeps many of today’s theaters on life support. My concern is the lack of young people in today’s audiences, which invariably leads to the next question: Will there be any audience of tomorrow?
Theater is expensive
Much has been ballyhooed about the price of tickets as too expensive and that young couples cannot afford to see a live theater performance. Indeed, purchasing a pair of tickets, hiring a babysitter if there are young children, and maybe adding dinner beforehand can put the cost of an evening’s entertainment at well over $200. How can theaters compete when you can borrow a movie from the library for free, watch one on cable TV for pennies of your monthly charge, or rent at Blockbusters for less than $5?
Box-office receipts only cover about 30% or 40% of putting on a production; foundations, corporate, public and private support are necessary to make up the shortfall. How then, one may ask, can a theater possibly lower its prices to make it affordable to the young?
One way may be to designate a free night of theater for the 18-to-30-year olds (ID required). The Museum of Modern Art in New York, with a hefty admission fee of $20 a head, opens its doors for free every Friday night, 5-9 p.m., and a tidal wave of young folk streams through.
The Metropolitan Opera, where tickets can run several hundred dollars each, sets aside a number of $20 tickets several hours prior to the performance. When I was at the New York opera house, the pre-show lineup for these tickets seemed a mile long, and many in that line were of the backpack variety. It must be noted that the only way the Met could afford to offer such inexpensive tickets was the result of gifts from wealthy patrons and individuals who earmarked their donations for this express purpose.
There is plenty of untapped wealth in our town as well, and all theaters, large and small, should embark on an aggressive campaign for private and corporate donations to set aside affordable ticket offerings.
Sponsor a student with a theater gift
In 1998, playwright Wendy Wasserstein, wanting to instill her love for theater in a new generation of New Yorkers, initiated a program to bring smart, underprivileged students from New York’s public high schools to the theater.
Wasserstein, who died in 2006 at age 55, wrote that every New Yorker is born with certain inalienable rights, including the “right to grow up regularly attending the theater.” The program, which began with eight students from a public high school in the Bronx, today consists of 17 groups and more than 100 students chaperoned by volunteer mentors to a season’s worth of theater offerings.
Cleveland has a rich theater scene. I, likewise, believe its students should grow up with the same inalienable right.
Not just ticket cost
The high cost of a ticket isn’t the only obstacle keeping young people away from live theater. A colleague recently told me that she and her husband exposed their son to theater throughout his growing-up years, yet, as a professional adult, his entertainment interests lie elsewhere.
The myriad of entertainment choices today saddles theater with stiff competition. Furthermore, theater’s seasonal picks are not always targeted toward a younger audience. If theaters want to draw young people, they need to program shows that will appeal to them by being pertinent to their lives and the world in which they live.
“South Pacific” and “Oklahoma” may be classics, but “Rent” and “Spring Awakening” rock with the “now” generation. “On Golden Pond” strikes at the geriatric heart, but “Fat Pig” is about body image, and the subject of “Bug” is terrorism. Make it “cool,” cheap and relevant, and they’ll come. Maybe.
Theater appreciation, like the visual arts or music, is an acquired skill. The greater the exposure, the easier and more rewarding it becomes. Like good literature, theater at its best teaches us something about our own lives in a way no other entertainment medium can.
Ben Cameron of Theatre Communications Group once noted that if you don’t turn young people onto live theater by age 18, you never will. Which is why education outreach programs such as those at Great Lakes Theater Festival, The Cleveland Play House, and Actors’ Summit, to name a few, are so important in exposing young people to the genre.
In a review of a current revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George,” New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley described the show as “a ravishing epiphany of artistic harmony … Every member of those audiences, whether consciously or not, is struggling for such harmony in dealing with the mess of daily reality … It is the generosity of all great art that allows you, for a breathless few moments, to achieve that exquisite, elusive balance.”
So to all my fellow theater lovers I say, if you want to buy your children or grandchildren a gift of a lifetime, send them a year’s subscription to your neighborhood theater.
And offer to babysit!
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