HowlRound: Last spring, I sat in the darkened mezzanine of the Goodman’s Owen Theatre while a tech rehearsal played out below me. The team was working out a run-of-the-mill scene transition, figuring out which actor was going to put the dishes in the sink, how fast a costume change could be made, and how much music would need to be played while the transition took place.
4 comments:
I would beg to differ with this articles author about his/her last statement in that “theatre is not for those who make it: it’s for everyone else.” Yes we make theatre for people to see it and hopefully be moved but I know for a fact that those of us working on the show do it because we love the work and so we do it for ourselves. There are instances where audience members don’t like a show and wish they didn’t see it but the actors and tech people involved in that production are happy with their work and what they put up. They did it for themselves; to push their boundaries and make the art they want to. So, we make theatre for people to see it but we make it for ourselves. We want to fulfill our vision for the show and sometimes those visions mean that everyone in the process enjoys themselves and learns something new and that it is not necessarily for the audience.
While I don't think the main goal of this article was to really highlight the one particular instance where the Goodman let a couple audience members see behind the emerald curtain, I think it ties very nicely with the rest of the content in terms of really exploring how we can increase engagement and develop the relationship between the audience and the work being presented. This also comes with some very positive side effects: new works have the potential to gain more popularity and also more stage time, as they rarely are able to make the cut in a larger theatre's season because of a lack of audience interest. The article also provides a very interesting explanation as to why this is true: audiences prefer to see classics, because they trust that they're good, otherwise they wouldn't have been around for this long. While the explanation makes sense, it leaves me frustrated to think that audiences aren't being exposed to contemporary works simply because they are too afraid that they won't get their moneys worth.
Hm, this is a pretty neat concept. Arts organizations certainly need to do all the outreach that they are capable of in order to continue to drum up support. Certainly, when I was new to theatre, I could see how sitting in on a professional tech to be quite the interesting experience. I am unfamiliar with the Wallace Foundation, but it is great that the Goodman has the resources to really examine their existing audiences and continue to experiment with ways to engage both their existing and new fans. I am intrigued by the type and quantity of video content that the Goodman produces with two full time videographers.
The article also makes it sound like the Goodman has run additional analytics on it's existing audience pool. I wonder if there is any information there that they could publish so that other arts organizations might glean some useful data from it.
Finding new ways to engage an audience is incredibly important to the theatre industry. Especially with television, film, and web-based entertainment being so much more accessible, theatre needs to find a way to give audiences something special. One of the unique things about theatre is that it’s all done live, that there’s no chance for mistakes. It’s something that keeps the audience on the edge of their seat, so of course it makes sense that audience members would want to see the process of creating a perfect performance with no second chances. The Goodman’s idea to allow a few audience members attend a tech rehearsal is brilliant. The show is far enough along that it isn’t intrusive to the creative process really, and the audience members feel like that they are part of a secret club where they get to watch the magic. It’s a win-win. The only issue that was raised in the article was that the moment an audience is introduced, people feel pressure to perform. This is true, of course, but the average tech rehearsal is filled with producers walking in and out, office staff members sitting in to watch a scene, and the entire design team watching every move. So I’m not sure adding 25 quiet people up in the mezzanine is really going to make a difference (so long as the size stays relatively small). In all, allowing people into the tech rehearsal sounds like a great new way to engage audience members.
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