Fighting the good fight

Theater is dead. OK, maybe not, but I like saying that, for shock value. Anyway, it's not a new statement, but it's still at least a little unexpected in a publication dedicated to the art form, right? And maybe it will wake some people up.We live in one of the greatest theater cities on the planet, but does anybody care? I'm sure someplace is the greatest scrimshaw city on the planet or the greatest lute-playing city on the planet. Because we live in such a rich stage town, and are in that business, and all our friends are either performers or technicians or writers or patrons, we forget that theater is a tiny little art form. A very, very small percentage of arts consumers see theater. (And before you pull out some research numbers from the NEA to argue with me, I would encourage you to recognize that movies are arts, much television is arts, pop music is arts, mass-market novels are arts. To many people under 25, lots of video games rise to the level of arts. Somewhere along the line we got it in our heads that the only things that count as arts are things that not very many people like. It's a weird kind of backdoor elitism.) In the Twin Cities, theater is in danger of becoming a market like academic publishing: everybody's just making stuff for each other. In other words, it's not a market at all. We're all struggling to get a bigger piece of the pie, when the pie is a cupcake. We need a bigger pie. I've had a tumultuous love affair with theater and theater marketing for most of my life. The first "advertising" I ever did was designing the poster for my 6th grade class play, but I did virtually nothing in the industry for 25 years following college. When I was hired at Jeune Lune in September 2007, a not-unfamiliar flood of combined delight and sadness hit me: here were people doing incredible art, with beautiful words, images, performances, yet far too few people had any interest in seeing it. "Marketing and communications" could improve things on the margins, but the truth loomed very large in the background. This stuff can only survive if foundations keep giving out grants in large quantities. And they're not. After the well-documented demise of TJL, I found myself nearly obsessed with righting this perceived wrong, even as I turned my attention to politics, my other (professional) love. What is it that's fundamentally, intrinsically wrong with theater? How are we thinking about it wrong? What have I learned in the other industries I've worked in that might point to a new, more sustainable model for theater? And, finally, what really is "theater," dammit? When Alan asked me to come up with an idea for a piece on grassroots marketing for Minnesota Playlist, I gave him six. Very nicely (and without apparent pity) he asked me if I wanted to write this blog-based in-depth thing. Without shame, I said yes. Some of the strategies that will be part of this series are more conventional, ways to maximize your current situation. But because I would feel disingenuous if I just wrote about those, I'm very happy to be able to address the core issues, and maybe point the way to a more successful future for the art. Next time: Audience, patrons, and fans: What theater can learn from indie rock and politics.