Monday, March 28, 2011
Regional theaters find cachet and cash in national tours
Philly.com: "When the cast of the Walnut Street Theatre's The Glass Menagerie packed it in after a final performance Saturday night, the performers were far from Philadelphia and the nation's oldest theater, where they'd started out in January.
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6 comments:
It's nice to hear theatre companies trying something new, and breaking out of their traditional mold of operating. I was unaware of WST and BRTs new touring work, but it sounds this has been really successful at building name recognition and increasing revenue streams. I like the idea that the things they produce can build a wider audience, potentially bringing quality theatre to places typically without, while increasing return on investment and helping with the financial aspect of art. I think this goes along with co-producing, or whatever the term is, a show. That's another nifty idea, and perhaps that could be a stepping stone for more theatre companies getting into this world.
I worked for a company in Philly (though not the two mentioned in the paper) that did this. It was strictly a financial reason for them: they had a hit that sold really well and they wanted to sell it in other markets. No surprise that the AD for this company is also a co-producer for Broadway Shows. Interesting to see this not only from the finacial side but from the geographical side as well. To be quite literal, the region in regional is expanding. No longer is it theaters in different cities co-producing the same production but now it's LORT theaters expanding into different markets. WE've seen this before with avant-garde and storefront theaters having shows picked up by different regions but this is different.
But I also think the financial aspects are local and not broad. I bet these theaters don't make huge profits in other markets but I'm sure they ride their success on their touring shows to help sell subscriptions: "Want to see the next big thing in Austin? Subscribe to our season in Philly!"
This is a fantastic development for regional theaters. I've always felt that regional productions have so much more to offer audiences than big Broadway tours, and if theaters start taking their productions on tour they can (as Charles said) rake in more money while bringing quality theatre to places normally devoid of it. I feel like an even greater step, which I hope will follow this one, would be to bring newly developed work on tours, rather than keeping them in their original theaters for their short runs.
I would be interested in reading a follow-up article that confirms whether or not the Walnut earned or lost money on the tour. It's exciting to hear that the theater is once again on the forefront of the progress of theater. After converting into a dramatic/musical theatre (as opposed to a circus/horse show theater) it was constantly producing new work with now big names playwrights, such as Tennessee Williams, and shows that would eventually move on to Broadway and now are even major works of the American repertoire. In the past decade or so they have been more focused on leasing rights to shows and have put off mounting new works, which was probably better for business but declined their progress a bit. I'm glad that they are again pushing theater in new directions, but this time with the availability of works and spreading them to more communities.
Very interesting. I wasn't aware that the Walnut had started to do this. It's interesting that some theatres are able to find the ways and means to put on a successful tour while others struggle to even find a small audience base. I suppose in this case, the Walnut is a centuries old, well-established regional theatre with a national reputation. I have no doubts that this helped contribute to the success of it's tour. I do agree with Nicole that it would be interesting to see how successful the tour actually ended up being...
This could be taken to the next level. If regional theaters could get together and plan their "tours" then they could send them around to each other. This would lower the initial costs for all theaters. However, there might be some more work to get it started.
I am just glad to hear that people are exploring new ways to keep their finances in the black, and may actually make some money doing it.
At the end of the article, he says that there is a calculated risk involved with touring. Guess what, theatre is a risk. If you don't think so, then you are lying to yourself.
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