I love this idea. It's so important not just for a theater, but for a city, to create a culture of celebrity around its actors, directors, etc. The more we act like our talent matters as much as the talent anywhere else, the more everyone pays attention and stops going elsewhere for their entertainment.
Travis Bedard
· 10 months ago
A leading light in the Austin theatre community passed away last year (Karen Kuykendall) and it led me to thinking who the others WERE. And I didn't have an answer. At all. And while I'm not supremely plugged in (despite all my big talk) and have my ear to the ground.
If I don't know all the players how can a community do it? Given unlimited column inches (online) we need to be running weekly profiles of our people and pushing them.
The way Qui is with Soul Samurai and the way Simon does at the NextStageMag.
Dan Zisko
· 10 months ago
It took years for me to agree to this concept, but you are 100% correct. The masses want to see the people they are coming to support on stage. If you can put them into an interesting (or "titillating") shot, all the better. People on posters and in marketing grab theatergoing people and make them more likely to see your show.
Nick Keenan
· 10 months ago
Indeed. We've been playing with both ideas - the human, the conceptual, the narrative - in our marketing for New Leaf for a couple years now. Without fail - every time - The thing that makes a concept work is a human element. A face. A person. This, actually, is the reason we still elect politicians when we hate them - because the person as brand is a powerful tool.
Is it a dangerous one? Probably not for theater, but theoretically, yes. The cult of personality can overtake an artistic approach or theory pretty easily. I think we in the theater sometimes shy away from crowd-building techniques used by sports teams, politicians, and oh, fascistic dictators (whipping up tension and support around a person and their vague causes or personal challenges) because theater wants to hang on to that status of the last voice of dissent in a society. But boldness, excitment, and calls to action don't get packaged in an intellectual idea - they come attached to the emotion and passion of the person who puts forward those ideas.
We are primates, after all.
Lindsay Price
· 10 months ago
Yep, yep, yep. Theatre at it's essence is communication and community. Get your people out so that audience feel there is someone to communicate with, that there is real life people behind the curtain.
We send out catalogues every year and go to conferences. Time and time again customers have said at a conference 'now that I've met you, and know you, I'm going back to your catalogue.' It's all about being a real live person. Which is always better than a fake dead piece of plastic....
All Comments
Kuykendall) and it led me to thinking who the others WERE. And I didn't have
an answer. At all. And while I'm not supremely plugged in (despite all my
big talk) and have my ear to the ground.
If I don't know all the players how can a community do it?
Given unlimited column inches (online) we need to be running weekly profiles
of our people and pushing them.
The way Qui is with Soul Samurai and the way Simon does at the NextStageMag.
Is it a dangerous one? Probably not for theater, but theoretically, yes. The cult of personality can overtake an artistic approach or theory pretty easily. I think we in the theater sometimes shy away from crowd-building techniques used by sports teams, politicians, and oh, fascistic dictators (whipping up tension and support around a person and their vague causes or personal challenges) because theater wants to hang on to that status of the last voice of dissent in a society. But boldness, excitment, and calls to action don't get packaged in an intellectual idea - they come attached to the emotion and passion of the person who puts forward those ideas.
We are primates, after all.
We send out catalogues every year and go to conferences. Time and time again customers have said at a conference 'now that I've met you, and know you, I'm going back to your catalogue.' It's all about being a real live person. Which is always better than a fake dead piece of plastic....