I just read an article about a Theatre Communication Group conference on arts marketing and it raised all kinds of emotions. In the article, someone commented that playwrights were complaining that marketers don't know how to market their plays. And marketing directors were complaining that playwrights don't know enough about marketing to tell them what to do.
Having been both a marketing director and a playwright, I think I have as true a perspective on the problem as anyone. Both parties are right. In my experience, arts organizations choose products without consulting the marketing department and then complain when sales figures are low.
As one friend in the business once said, "When a play sells well, it's an artistic success and when it doesn't sell well, it's a marketing failure."
Artists and arts managers should remember that in the for profit world, the product originates in the marketing department. Marketers decide what people want and then help create a product to sell to these people. Arts organizations don't often ask their audiences what they want, unless we're talking about Broadway - and there's a reason that ticket prices are high on Broadway: people want to see the shows.
Arts organizations are encouraged to take risks and expand their audiences' horizons by presenting work that is new, that challenges the status quo and makes people feel and think. That is good art. The problem with good art is that people don't like it as much as good artistic product. The fact about nonprofit theatre audiences is that they don't know nearly as much about theatre as the people running them. This is not a bad thing.
I worked at a theatre in San DIego that got a huge grant to study audience demographics in the service of expanding audiences and especially minority audiences. It is no secret that the majority of theatre goers at that time were older, well-educated, well-to-to white people. This years-long study supported African American plays, Latino plays and traditional plays and tried to integrate audiences to all of them. The results were interesting.
Generally, Latinos supported Latino plays; African Americans supported African American plays and Whites went to everything. So the audience, after the years-long study, turned out to be predominantly an older, whiter, well educated and well-to-do audience but one, we learned, who appreciated more types of plays than we thought.
The same crowd that marketing directors at theatres have been marketing to for years. With limited budgets for marketing (something I have never understood), marketing directors have to market to this demographic primarily.
I am not advocating for marketing directors to dictate to playwrights. People engaged in this activity are on TV and in film and playwrights (and theatres and audiences) want something different. I am advocating for marketing directors and artistic directors to communicate.
Remember, artistic people, that the marketing department manages the only people who interact with customers who like and dislike the product. Remember, marketing people, that artists have to develop seasons of thoughtful, thought-provoking and powerful art.
Of course, all you really have to do, playwrights, is look at what the large and medium theatres are doing to see what they want and what they want is brand new but proven thought-provoking art. The fact that playwrights are even in theatres in the first place is a miracle. The fact that they are complaining about this miracle is heart-breaking.
My goal is to wright a Tony Award winning play and, during my acceptance speech say, "To the people who chose plays: know that there are still a number of plays with my name on them in your stacks of unread plays. The cost of doing these plays just went up. Also know this: in support of the play writing community, I will submit the rest of my plays under pseudonyms so you will have to read them all to find mine. During that process I know you will find other voices as good as, or better than, mine. Thank you."
Too bitter?
