Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Seattle's Intiman Theater Takes Step Toward Reopening
NYTimes.com: Seattle’s Intiman Theater, which laid off its entire staff and closed its doors in April, has taken a first step toward reopening, hiring a consulting artistic director to come up with a plan to present to potential backers and the theater’s creditors, the Seattle Times reported.
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The challenges facing theatres across the country are mounting. The private sponsorship that has sustained the theatre community for the past twenty years is slowly drying up. According to CNBC Seattle is number three on the top ten US cities for young people. The fact that a Tony award winning theatre can fail in a city with close to average unemployment and an expanding population is indicative of a problem in the business model. Though we are an artistic community the reality of show business is that we are a business. Theatre is a diminishing market share within the entertainment community. The number of LORT theatres across the country has been in steady decline for the past thirty years. The facts in this case indicate that theatre has a problem with adapting to a modern audience. With the massive technological increases in film projects theatre is having trouble keeping an audience. There is an apparent correlation between the shows chosen and economic viability. With the exception of Cirque shows theatre seems to be loosing its economic viability as evidenced by the number of Broadway shows closing and regional theatres closing. Theatre without a radical change in content and presentation will become similar to Opera, becoming a high society and academic entertainment only.
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