When Karen McKenney, who heads the Rainbow Company Youth Theatre, arrived in town decades ago, she cited venues ranging from the College of Southern Nevada (then Clark County Community College) and UNLV to Rainbow Company (heading into its 41st season), Las Vegas Little Theatre (celebrating its 40th season) and the long-gone New West Stage Company, which performed at Charleston Heights Arts Center.
2 comments:
I feel like, anecdotally and without numbers to prove my theory, there has been a general proliferation of smaller theatre companies (many doing more challenging work) in the last seven or eight years. I certainly felt this was true in DC when I was living there. I’m pleased by the idea that there are enough artists interested in founding these companies and audiences interested in supporting them, but also curious what this could mean in terms of industry competition. Eventually, the number of companies in a given city will reach critical mass and outgrow the ability of the local population to support them. A large number of local, cash-strapped theatres competing with one another can’t spell good things for their staff. But it sounds like Vegas’ local theatres are taking steps to grow their audience together, rather than isolating themselves in an effort to hoard their audience base. They seem to understand that building an audience for one theatre raises the profile of local theatre in general and therefore helps build an audience for all of them. I hope this sense of mutual support and cooperation can continue and spread – the arts are facing enough challenging circumstances as it is.
I think that Rachel offers some valid concerns about the growth of small theatre and the industrial competition that could mean as well as that they seem to be aware of this and combatting it together as a community. I love the quote from one of the founders towards the end of the article that talks about his desire to get "everyone in the room. We’re stronger together.” With so many theatres creating so many kinds of shows the theatrical community in Las Vegas is really just expanding the various kinds of audiences and therefore increasing the likelihood of more people attending their productions in general. I appreciate their attention as well to branding and platform as that will be a vital and essential part of helping all of the individual theatre companies to thrive and to continue to produce not only entertaining but relevant and new work.
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