I've been involved with local theatre here for a long time. I've since moved to Hollywood and continued on, so I think I can share a few insights into what we're dealing with.
Awhile back, Jeff Elwell put together a season of shows at the MU theatre department that was nearly unthinkable for this area. They did David Mamet's "American Buffalo" and "Keeley & Du", as well as several others, and those shows are chock full of adult themes and language.
MU STILL had their big crowds. If ANYONE should be doing new and cutting edge work, it should be Marshall. If you're training actors, they need to be trained in not only the classics, but new work as well, regardless of content, because the fact of the matter is, you're supposed to be training them to ACT in the real world, wherever that may lead them, and I promise you that not everyplace in the U.S.A. is so addicted to Rogers & Hammerstein. If you want to be an actor, the last thing you want a casting director to say to you is:
"Well, I see you have plenty of classic, safe shows, but have you ever done anything written since 1975? No Mamet? No Bogosian? No Stoppard? No Lucas? No Durang? No Shepard? You know that's over a 30 year gap in time, right?"
I agree that HOT should keep doing the kinds of shows they do. I agree that First Stage should keep doing what they're doing.
Regardless of what anyone tells you, if you do one show a year in order to pay for your next show the next year, you're going to be stuck doing the "Li'l Abner", "Oklahoma", "Cinderella", "Music Man" dances the rest of your life. BUT, if you are producing theatre as ART, you have to live with the fact that you're CHANGING LIVES instead of MAKING MONEY, whether it's the lives of the people working on the production or the people seeing it. The "starving artist" stereotype is a stereotype for a REASON. Sometimes you have to continually pay the price in order to enlighten the people. A guy in the Bible had the same idea.
Marshall should pave the way for the kind of thing we're talking about, if there's not another group, or a "new" group, to come in and take a season of chances. Marshall should never cater to the idea that they have to do stuff that makes everyone happy. They have a responsibility to prepare their students for the real world of theatre. And at the same time, if they're afraid they're going to lose sponsorships or donations or money in general, then those people need to be put under the microscope, because THEY are the ones holding the students back from learning what they need to be learning.
Let me also clarify that this isn't a rant at the MU School of Theatre. I graduated from Marshall. I was in A LOT of Marshall productions. I learned A LOT from the MUT teachers. But before I finished school with them, I had started in the professional actors training program at Ohio University, a program that consistently did nine main stage shows a year and upward of 20 lab shows. Shows like American Buffalo, Angels in America, The Quick-Change Room, Our Country's Good, Red Noses, Speed-the-Plow, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, The Tooth of Crime, Buried Child, etc. And I have to tell you, Athens has the same kind of people Huntington does, and it's only about an hour and half away. Sure, they do their Shakespeare every year, too, and they have a summer theatre that does a musical, as well as some other local theatre groups outside of town that tackle tough subject matter like anything by Neil Simon.
The point is that they do it all, and the people not only respect them for it, but they attend en masse, and Huntington should be no different.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Pushing the Envelope
While we're waiting (and waiting and waiting) for the announcement which should be arriving any day now, let's look at another comment from the recent discussion about community theatre in Huntington. This comment is from Mike Murdock (I've edited it down a bit because the original was, like, 15 pages long - you can read the full-length version in the comments on this post). As you'll see, Mike doesn't pull punches when talking about local theatre - it's a topic he's passionate about. Take it away, Mike!
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9 comments:
So I have been reading everyone's comments and thought I'd add my two cents. First, you're crazy if you think you can produce theatre without it making money, after all, as much as we hate to admit it, theatre is still a business. You have to have an audience before anything else. Rodgers and Hammerstein make money. Evrything else is risky. Every theatre company is probably one flop from financial ruin. (Okay maybe a slight exaggeration but you get the point.)Speaking from experience, I never thought I'd produce The Sound of Music but I wanted to do theatre and nothing else brought in an audience so I gave that a try. Secondly, renting a performance venue is expensive. All of our profits for ART went to renting a venue to perform in. It is sad that you have to pay $4,000 to use a stage. Unless you charge $15.00 or more a ticket, you have no hope of breaking even. Our audiences complained that the ticket price was too high as it was. Next, finding a rehearsal venue is also very difficult. Also storage space is impossible. If you can't keep everything you have previously built, ie: flats, platforms, props & costumes then you always have to start each show from scratch. ART was able to eventually lower costs for sets because we had accumulated pieces from the previous productions. But it seemed we were constantly relocating which also costs money.
A smart producer understands his/her audience. We are producing theatre for Huntington, WV not anywhere else. Try to do American Buffalo and see how many people will come. A well known non-musical will average 50 - 75 people in the audience per performance if you are lucky. Production costs will average around $10,000, remembering the cost of renting a facility. So if you do 5 performances and charge $15.00 per ticket you'd need to sell around 675 tickets, which is an average of 135 per performance. ART never came close to that many tickets sold for a non musical.
In the five years ART was in existance we produced some fine quality entertainment. We produced Noises Off. No one came. We rented whatever space we could find, but at what cost?
If you want to produce shows that I have heard mention, Sweeney Todd for example, then do it. I'd love to come see it, I just think we are being impractical to think that we can do whatever show we wish and an audience will show up.
And a deadly silence crept across the blog...
It seems everyone must agree with me!
-M
(Editing me, eh? I know where you live.)
Danny, I appreciate the comments and absolutely agree that the cost of putting on shows is what makes it so difficult to do. ART produced some amazing shows during its five years, and I think "Noises Off" was downright brilliant. I do think it's possible to do the smaller shows and succeed, but it's going to take someone changing the rules of local theatre - like you say, when you have to spend thousands of dollars to rent a facility, you're starting out way behind the game.
By the way, everyone should make a point of seeing Danny in "Oklahoma" - I hear he's awesome! (I haven't seen it yet, but I will - soon!)
Mike, sorry for the silence - I've been away from the computer all day. As to editing your comment - what can I say, I'm mad with (editing) power! Bwah-hah-hah!
Thanks for the information, Danny. Having been part of several of your shows, I can attest to the fact that they were good entertainment and a lot of fun to do.
But you have stated the exact problem with what's going on here in this area's theatre "arrangement".
You aren't giving this area any credit. And if EVERY group continually ONLY tosses garbage onto the people, the people are only going to expect garbage every time. And that's JUST a euphemism. I'm not saying the shows people do are all garbage. Far from it, most of the time. Don't misunderstand, please.
This town is a healthy mixture of college kids and regular people. The college market is completely untapped. Completely. Not by Marshall, not by anybody, save maybe the bars. The rest of the people only have Rogers & Hammerstein and their ilk to expect, so that's what they get. When college kids realize they could go see something LIVE that could be as good as a MOVIE, they'll come. 'Cause I tell ya, they ain't sittin' at home waitin' for the next big movie version of "The Music Man". Just ask Matthew Broderick.
We NEED to not automatically dumb down the great people of Huntington. I was born across the bridge. I've spent nearly all of my life here, and most of you people have to. How then can we say "This is Huntington, not New York or Chicago or someplace where they'll APPRECIATE IT." We turned out OK didn't we?!? There HAVE to be more like us.
Now before anybody starts saying I'm against old musicals or whatever, I'm not. I've cut my teeth as an actor in nearly every old musical that's been done in this town, and AWAY from this town. And if I haven't been in it, I've seen it. There are places for those musicals in the grimoire of Theatre with a capital T. One of those places is Huntington Outdoor Theatre. People want that kind of thing for summer entertainment, I say more power to 'em! Do it! Do 'em all!
Of COURSE those shows draw mad people because that's all people KNOW. It's time to do something about it. It's time to allow this area to see that theatre isn't just bubblegum pageantry, and that theatre is a VIABLE ADULT ENTERTAINMENT OPTION, not just a playground for the kids.
Others have tried and failed. I understand that, too. Sadly, they weren't as prepared as I am.
And again, I'm not interested in doing shows for shock value. I'm interested in doing shows that matter to the human brain and heart. I'm interested in making the audience feel something about the show they're actually watching. Making them involved.
$4000 to rent a stage is ludicrous. I only paid HALF that a MONTH to have an ENTIRE theatre, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a YEAR. In HOLLYWOOD.
If anybody thinks that's a good idea, it's not. And how do you avoid that? You buy a building and turn it into a theatre. And I promise you that your mortgage or your rent or whatever on that building will NEVER be $4000/month, let alone $4000 for a couple of weekends in a place you can't sleep. No wonder all the little theatre groups are going belly up. It's INSANE.
Chuck was perfectly right. It's time to change the rules. It's time to make things happen. It might be slow at first. Maybe. And I'm not even sure it WILL be. But I have a plan for it, if it is.
I hate the fact that Danny has had to close shop on ART. He's a good director, a GREAT actor, and an all around nice guy. It shouldn't have to be that way.
It IS a business. That's for sure. But I've yet to see anyone treat it LIKE a business. HOT is the closest. High ticket prices, a million things to sell, huge amounts of donors, casting a million people to guarantee sales, a pre-show for MORE people, deals with the t.v. stations, newspapers and radio... but they only do it once a year. They throw it all out there for one show, good or bad. But by GOSH they do the business part of it RIGHT!
If I had the money, I would do a twelve show season the first season and do the following 12 shows, year-round, 1 a month:
1. Oklahoma
2. The Music Man
3. The Sound of Music
4. Nunsense
5. Grease
6. Hello, Dolly
7. Guys and Dolls
8. Li'l Abner
9. The King & I
10. South Pacific
11. Fiddler on the Roof
12. A Christmas Carol (the musical)
Then I'd step back and say "OK, other Huntington theatres, what are YOU going to do...?" They're lucky I CAN'T force them into doing something else, because that would be AWESOME. I'd shoot myself, but it'd be AWESOME.
And as for Buffalo... it's just not true. Marshall did it and sold out every night in the Experimental. And that's all I want. Under 150 seats. We get 50 people, we've got ourselves a ballgame.
-M
p.s. And yes, Danny is GREAT in HOT's Oklahoma! I saw it on opening night, and you should go see it too!
Mike, I love that first-season lineup! But I suspect your second season would be spent recuperating in a hospital somewhere. ;-)
Again I would reiterate that if you think you can get enough people who are interested in live theatre and willing to pay over $15.00 to see cutting edge, post 1970 non musical theatre in Hintington, WV, then please do it! I haven't figured out how.
And thanks Mike for the compliment on Oklahoma. Oh, and btw, we had an excellent turn out for Hello, Dolly auditions. Cast List will be available after callbacks on Sunday.
Danny, be sure to send the "Hello Dolly" cast list to me and I'll post it on the blog (you can email it to me at TheMinskers@aol.com). That's one of several great shows coming up this fall!
I would like to add a different spin to what Danny has said. I think that ART proved that there is a market out there for a more Adult taste. The results are simply lost in the fact that ART no longer exists. But here is the data and you make the decision. Here are the shows performed, (to the best of my recollection and I may have forgotten one or two):
Steel Magnolias
Odd Couple
Brighton Beach
Rocky Horror
Love Letters
Broadway Broads
Broadway Broads & Beaus
Nunsense II (I think)
Arsenic and Old Lace
Into the Woods
Sound of Music
Noises Off
Barefoot in the Park
Now, like I say, I might have missed one or two, but I think that is pretty comprehensive. Of those, pick the two most Adult in nature.
Rocky Horror
Into the Woods
Now, guess which two put the most seats in the seats and did the best financially.
Rocky Horror
Into the Woods
This was against the adversity of very little help. Danny practically built every set by himself, having to move around for a venue, and literally no money for advertising, because it took every penny, just to get the show on the stage.
Imagine if you were always in the same place and people knew you were there and you had an advertising budget that reached those that did not know you were there. You minimize your cost for each show by having the venue and you reach more people to know about your show.
Another thing that might be considered. Most of the time when I go to a show, I either go eat somewhere first or go somewhere to get something to eat and drink after. This generates revenue in the entire city. While some of the places that will serve food late, actually seem put off when a late night theatre crowd shows up, a real businessman would embrace it and might even work with a nearby theatre to provide a mutual benefit.
There was a meeting last night about revitalizing 4th Ave. from 16th st to 8th st. What if you took two old buildings and turned one into a theatre and one into a restaurant and they both are within walking distance of Marshall? Do you think there might be any market for that? Would anyone come? Could you have joint marketing of shows, meals, merchandise, things that add to the bottom line that don't involve ticket sales?
I don't know, I'm just asking. I also believe, that the ART shows were some of the best shows around here. I may be biased, but every show was tight, entertaining and full of talent. I was honored to be a part of such a group. Danny never lacked for quality people auditioning for his shows. On the contrary, I know it sometimes was his hardest task, having to pick one person over another, because he had the best in the area auditioning for him. If I had to use one word to summarize ART, it would be, "quality". I think that should always be the goal of theatre. I know money is important, but I believe if yu produce quality shows, the money will come.
Tommy S
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