I have often wondered why the heck ballet companies always decide to do Nutcracker every year instead of mixing their offerings up a bit. I know it is a money making show that pays for other productions, but there are three companies performing it in my city alone!
Sure there are theatre companies that do A Christmas Carol every year, but it is nowhere close to the frequency with which Nutcracker is performed.
From some observations I have made of regular season ballet performances, I don't think the show is helping to convince people to come for the Nutcracker and return for the Coppelia.
Just to be fair though, I thought I would check to see if anyone was doing any alternative shows.
I Goggled Christmas Carol Ballet and found one performqance in upstate NY, Traverse City, MI and Chattanooga, TN. There is a production in Australia. Royal New Zealand Ballet has done it, but aren't this year. Northern Ballet Theatre in the UK last performed it in 2003.
London's Royal Festival Hall did it in 2000. Athens (GA) Ballet Theatre did it in 1999, as did Honolulu Ballet Theatre.
It goes further back in time from there.
I Googled It's A Wonderful Life Ballet and came back with nothing except a teasing mention of the ballet in a Ballet Oklahoma dancer's bio (scroll down to Emily Fine)
Googling Messiah Ballet turned up a load of links--all of the in Canada, with the exception of past productions by Carolina Ballet. Granted, few of the productions are/have been performed at Christmas, (Easter is the alternative time of the year it is performed), but it was the only other subject area I could think that might be turned into a ballet.
I don't know if the fact that many companies who have done non-Nutcracker performances haven't done them in a long time is an indication that people are so used to the concept of Nutcracker, they can't imagine going to see any other subject.
Some might say the ballets have their audiences well-trained to accept what they are offering. Yet the fact they can't wean people away from Nutcracker and on to a variety of shows may mean they have the people trained to a fault.
Many of the original articles are no longer available from the respective newspapers, but this post-Christmas 2005 summary from Artsjournal tells an interesting tale.
Boston-Cutting salaries because they were booted from the Wang Center by the Radio City Christmas Spectacular and had to make due in a smaller space.
Colorado- Fights Radio City Christmas show to a draw
Pittsburgh-disappointing holiday sales (and this is before they stopped using live music)
Philadelphia-Penn Ballet's numbers hold steady.
Utah-Opening season with Nutcracker because it is money maker.
I came across an article in Backstage, by way of Artsjournal.com that put me in mind of the chorus of They Might Be Giants' "Whistling In the Dark."
There’s only one thing that I know how to do well
And I’ve often been told that you only can do
What you know how to do well
And that’s be you,
Be what you’re like,
Be like yourself,
And so I’m having a wonderful time
But I’d rather be whistling in the dark
The article in question, "Hung up on Tent Poles, Studios Think Too Big" looks at many great movies that haven't done well financially in recent years because big movie studios are paying big movie studio prices to make independent studio quality films.
Audiences are looking for high quality films and the studio are responding by making films that are clearly worthy of being made. They just aren't going to be as wildly popular as a Harry Potter movie and bring as big a return on investment. The article points out that it is difficult for studios to be economical because directors and actors know that the studios have the money to pay them and can stubbornly hold out. If the studio wants the picture made badly enough with the draw of a star, they relent.
As is often the case with my entries, I see a lesson in this for arts organizations!
Because our audiences often use NYC based arts organizations (Broadway, The Met, NY Ballet) as the yardstick by which they measure the quality of our offerings (though I often have my events compared to Las Vegas shows!) there is often pressure on us to grow bigger, better, and more professional in quality.
If we were once avant garde, we may be accused of selling out. But who cares, we are putting more butts in the seats and that is paying for all the improvements we need to do. Its pays the salaries of the development office and for lobbying the government to build a performing arts center.
I am guessing you can see where I am going with this so I will stop here. It is hard to resist the lure of becoming bigger and better, even if improved standing in the community is not the goal. If we are reaching out to underserved kids, we feel pressured to expand our programs so we can get more money to support our important outreach activities.
Reading the Backstage article gave me hope. The fact the big guys have a hard time producing worthy stuff economically means that there is a probably a niche in the arts world that the small, hungry orgs can serve successfully without having to grow too big.
Now if only we can get more people out to see the performances ;)
I was reading about a recent Urban Institute study on attendance at cultural events in the Chicago Tribune today. Many of the results weren't surprising--people go to live performances to socialize and go to museums to expand their knowledge.
What made me want to read the study more indepth was the report that "...attendees at music and dance performances, plays, and fairs were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the art." Yet at the same time the article mentions that "...people who go to art museums, dance performances, concerts, plays, or arts and craft fairs find the experience less emotionally rewarding than they had presumed."
I understand that quality of art and emotional reward can exist exclusively of each other, but the suggestion that people didn't have high expectations of the quality and yet looked to have a larger emotional pay off didn't quite make sense.
A short newspaper article can hardly explain all the intricacies explored in a 48 page report of course. Even though the article warns that the report's author, Francie Ostrower, forms no opinions about why there is no emotional reward, I had my own theory.
My theory being-People view live performance as high art, full of meaning and power. The report of the performance exceeding expected quality is actually an expression of relief at understanding what is going on. However, there is an assumption that if one comprehends the work, one will be enriched with the meaning and power of high art. Walking out with out a profound understanding of the nature of the universe results in an emotional let down.
But that is just the theory with which I started.
In the process of reading the report-The Diversity of Cultural Participation, I picked up some other interesting tidbits.
Interestingly, many people did not go to cultural events that they say they find very enjoyable...Many people who said that they most enjoy dance had not gone to a dance performance during the previous 12 months. The same was true for plays and concerts. On the other hand, this was far less common among those who most enjoyed museums and galleries.12 These findings suggest it is easier for people to attend certain types of cultural events than others...(e.g. because museums do not require advance tickets)
-"Frequent attendees are likely to be civically engaged." People who volunteer, go to church, belong to associations, vote.
-"Frequent attendees are more likely to donate" Not really surprising.
"Frequent attendees were more likely to have gone to multiple types of events and to have attended each type of cultural event. Thus, frequent attendance at cultural events is associated with more varied attendance, indicating that multiple art forms would benefit from increases in overall arts attendance."
Don't know if this result implies that it would be beneficial for organizations to pool their resources and perform at a central location thereby offering the public variety at a familiar location. Other results of the surveys show the people who attend plays are more likely to attend dance, live music, and museums/galleries.
Among the reasons people attended the arts were socialization (it will probably come as no surprise to learn that the survey found people most often attend in groups), wish to experience high quality art, gain knowledge, support a local organization, learn something about ones culture and to have an emotionally rewarding experience.
Interestingly, the more frequent a person attended, the more reasons they stated for attending.
"Frequent attendees also cited a greater number of strong motivations for attending cultural events during the past 12 months. On average, they cited 3.5 major reasons, compared with 2.6 major reasons given by moderate attendees, and 2.2 among infrequent attendees.26 This strongly suggests that frequent attendees’ active engagement in the arts is driven by the very multiplicity and variety of positive experiences they derive from the arts."
It would seem then that whatever approach one takes in marketing and advertising performances is likely to appeal to one of the motivators for a frequent attendee. Of course, if a competitor offers a similar product in a way that appeals to more of these criteria, you may end up back on square one.
According to the report, attendance at different event types is strongly motivated by the aforementioned reasons in varying ratios so the elements that promotions highlight must change as well.
Minding your audience surveys is very important:
"Interestingly, even substantial percentages of those who expressed a negative judgment about some aspect of their experience said they would attend a similar event again."
So you get a chance to make things better the next time around. However, there are some deal-breakers right from the beginning-
"The two negative experiences most likely to result in respondents saying they would not attend again were not liking the venue and not having an enjoyable social occasion."
In regard to the whole emotional reward question, I think the way the Chicago Trib article was written somewhat overstated it as a problem. According to the report, people who expected to get a rewarding experience, got it. In fact, pretty much everyone got what they came for:
two-thirds of those who said that a major motivation for attending was to experience high-quality art strongly agreed that the artistic quality of the event was high. Likewise, most (56 percent or more) who were strongly motivated by a desire for an enjoyable social
occasion strongly agreed that they had one; most who were strongly motivated by a desire for an emotionally rewarding experience
strongly agreed that they had one; and most who strongly wanted to learn something new strongly agreed that they did learn something.
And almost all who did not strongly agree, agreed.
It made me wonder if this was another piece of evidence for the suspicion that the plethora of standing ovations today are a result of people convincing themselves they got what they paid for.
There were some variations by event type though that need consideration by arts administrators.
"Fifty-seven percent of those who attended a play said a major reason they went was that they thought it would be emotionally rewarding—but only 43 percent strongly agreed that it was.Forty-six percent of those attending music performances said a major reason was that they thought it would be emotionally rewarding—but only 37 percent strongly agreed that it was."
It was in terms of high quality that numbers went the other way, few people entered performance halls expecting high quality and a greater number exited feeling they had experienced it.
Since it is tough to know if the people who said they didn't have an emotionally satisfying experience were some of the same people who had a quality experience, I can't say if my hypothesis (which, granted was more of a semi-educated suspicion) holds any water. (Though the percentage of change in attitude on both topics is quite close.)
As poor a job as a newspaper article can do summarizing a 48 page report, my blog entry is hardly an improved transmission of all the valuable info (and I haven't tried to be.) Give it a read! (Especially since the meat of it is only 27 pages long.)
I am so pleased to be finding more and more arts related blogs out there and the most recent I have come across is just great.
Joshua James' Daily Dojo is a working, living playwright's view of what a working, living playwright has to go through in that line of work these days.
I started reading his November 8 entry where he discusses his frustration (quite entertainingly) with the way directors/actors/etc feel scripts are just a starting point to do their own thing.
Come to find out, this long entry is just the latest entry in his "Talkin' Smack About Theatre" series. Two other entries (Hey, What's That Guy Doing In a Dress and Hey, What's That Guy...Part Deux) give actors, directors and others advice about how to get the most out of working with a living playwright (and how to work with other people in general.)
The other entries in the series are a rant on how so much Broadway is a cover of someone else's work (ie adaptation, revival, etc). I haven't had a chance to read the cover entries yet, but the "Guy In A Dress" entries, while long are a lot of fun to read.
The titles come from Joshua's experience showing up at a theatre to find a character in a dress because he is "making bold acting choices." He does a great job exploring the friction behind the necessity of remaining true to the playwrights intent and choices and the urge artistic people have to explore the opportunities the material presents beyond the limits the playwright set.
He acknowledges that some of that exploration can be illuminating for the author too--provided he is consulted and included at all. He also shares a number of anecdotes where the playwright's name shouldn't even be used in association with the work because the changes blatantly run counter to what he/she was trying to achieve.
Again, he presents it all in an entertaining manner --writing dialogue and presenting courtroom testimony accompanied by parenthetical sidebars of advice-- all the while making his argument/plea for empathy/compassion/cooperation/consultation with playwrights.
I responded to an Artful Manager post today commenting on how I didn't see the harm in taking pictures of stage sets on backstage tours even though technically it is copyrighted work because it at least showed people were excited by what they saw. I noted that I would worry if they weren't entranced by an experience with theatrical illusion up close since it would mean there was one less thing they saw value in the arts experience.
As I finished writing, I realized that I had probably unconsciously channeled the sentiments of an article I read this weekend care of Arts & Letters Daily. In an article on Triangle.com, J. Peder Zane discusses the surprising lack of curiousity students seem to have these days.
"...such ignorance isn't new -- students have always possessed far less knowledge than they should, or think they have. But in the past, ignorance tended to be a source of shame and motivation. Students were far more likely to be troubled by not-knowing, far more eager to fill such gaps by learning. As one of my reviewers, Stanley Trachtenberg, once said, "It's not that they don't know, it's that they don't care about what they don't know."
I actually mentioned this article to my technical director today and he told me he could see it happening in his stage craft class. He had a gurney with a sheet over what appeared to be a body next to where his students sat yesterday and not one of them lifted the sheet to check it out.
Part of the problem is that there is so much to know these days about everything, even the mundane, that people are forced to specialize in gathering information on specific areas. As a result, people are primarily interested in learning more about topics that are immediately useful and discard anything else.
Without social pressure to be well-rounded, people are becoming less so. Because so much information is available so easily and quickly, there is no need to worry about not knowing until the need is imminent. Want to impress a girl with your knowledge of the controversies surrounding who actually wrote Shakespeare's works? Check out the Wikipedia entry and take a side trip to collect some sonnets to whisper in her ear.
This sort of trend should be of concern to arts organizations. Where there might once have been hope that as young people matured, they might suddenly decide that it would be valuable for them to engage in visual and performing arts experiences and might one day come a knockin', there is a danger now that they will never consider there is any value in doing so.
Back in early September, I wrote about the National Arts Leadership Institute and Andrew Taylor commented "that he continue[s] to be frustrated by the disconnection of leadership initiatives in the arts." This was based on the fact that there are many such institutes and few of them talk to each other so they end up inventing the wheel over and over again.
I decided to take a look at just how many there were out there and what they were offerings. I have to admit, while I didn't doubt Andrew, it soon became clear as I searched that I could have continued far longer than I had.
Mostly I focussed on leadership training institutes that seemed to be focussed on offering sessions at conferences so my brief research doesn't include programs like the Kennedy Center's Institute for Arts Management which offer longer term internship and fellowship programs rather than an attempt to offer one day seminar type classes.
The Theatre Communications Group straddled both world offering the mentor/internships of the Kennedy Center along with institutes in conjunction with conferences.
Every conference I could think of seemed to have its own institute. I can see why Andrew Taylor felt there was a lot of duplication that might benefit from merged efforts because the list of topics covered is essentially identitical.
First of course, came the Southern Arts Federation's National Arts Leadership Institute.
The Western Arts Alliance has their own. (Since they hosted a NALI session, perhaps they are thinking of merging their offerings with them.)
-Arts MidWest professional development offerings.
Arts NorthWest has them at conference and sends them on the road through Washington and Oregon
And of course, the granddaddy of them all-Association of Performing Arts Presenters offers some learning..
Like Theatre Communications Group, the national organizations for the other performing arts also offer institutes at their conferences-Dance USA, American Symphony Orchestra League, OPERA America
Americans for the Arts also holds sessions at their conferences. Alas, their Arts and Business Council's Arts Leadership Institute is only available for arts leaders in NYC.
When I found the leadership institute for the Alliance of NY State Arts Organizations, I realized I could probably find a similar program in nearly every state and decided to stop there.
Merging all these programs into a single national program most likely isn't the answer since certain regional organizations have strengths the others don't. (Western Arts Federation seems to have a strong research bent, for instance.)
Some consolidation that saw conferences hosting leadership institutes generated by one of a handful of regional or national organizations (who co-ordinated syllabi to some degree with one another) might in order to ensure quality and uniformity.
Back in July I posted an entry about how internet sites were limiting access to their content through various means. At the end of the entry, I promised to think upon it and post a follow up later.
Well, here I am posting a follow up.
I had hoped to do a little more reading on consumer psychology before posting, but it doesn't look as if that might happen any time soon. Since I posted last week about how new media entertainment was taking a page from live performance's book, I figured that was enough reason to post about how we should steal a little bit from them.
At the end of my entry in July I had posted that the only way I could see arts organizations doing something similar was if the first part of the show was free and then re-entry after intermission cost the ticket price.
The more I thought about it, the less crazy it seemed. (Though granted, was still crazy.) Performing organizations frequently have free performances to try to lure people in, why not partially free performances? Also, there are a number of performing arts companies that have fundraising appeals that point out that the ticket price only pays for the show until intermission. This turns that around so you can claim the sponsors paid for you to get in the first act, now the rest of the show is up to you.
Will people go home at intermission feeling they have gotten their fill? Perhaps. Performances with a plot of some sort would probably fare better than a collection of repetory pieces. A novice theatre attendee is probably more likely to feel a need to go see the end of Death of a Salesman than a novice symphony attendee might feel compelled to hear a Mozart piece based on the Bach he heard in the first half of the evening.
On the other hand, reading the psychology of decision making scenarios Andrew Taylor presented back in May, I could see a newbie deciding that after getting a babysitter, driving and paying for parking, maybe it is worth paying for the second half.
Museums, I am still at the same place, sorry. Best I could suggest is a small exhibit in an antechamber with the ability to pay to enter the exhibit proper after getting a taste of it.
For performances, this sort of suggestion opens big cans of worms, even for those who might experiment with it only once a year to see how audiences like it.
First of all, there is front of house-instead of letting the box office and part of the usher staff go home after the show starts, their fun just begins at intermission.
Also, if you have reserved seating how do you handle that? Subscribers and those who know and trust the quality of your works will have purchased their tickets for the whole night's performance in advance. But say that only fills up to the tenth row.
At intermission, the guy who got row Z is the first one out of the theatre because he is closest to the back, runs to the box office and buys tickets in row K so he can get closer. Guy in that seat in row K for the first act is annoyed. God forbid and people actually enjoy the show so much they start leaving during the first act to secure tickets closer to the stage.
A lot of theatres use bar code readers now so people can print of tickets at home. While you could use this and only charge people who scan in after intermission, you would then have to force people to scan in by 5 minutes to curtain so you could sell the vacant seats to people waiting at the box office before intermission was over (and of course, most empty seats will be singles and most people wanting seats will be in a party.)
Something like this would be best used either with General Admission audiences or for shows you know will be 80% sold so that you can set aside specific seats for this program and have no need to worry that you might end up with a gulf of 10 rows between your full night buyers and the half night taste testers.
The other issue is artistic-Do you end the first act with a bigger bang than necessary in hopes of luring people back for the second act even though the second act isn't as exciting as the end of the first act lead them to believe? (I am looking at you Phantom of the Opera)
Then there are shows that are so short, an intermission makes no sense. Some shows are structured in a way that an audience loses its involvement in the momentum of the action if an intermission occurs.
Still, I have to think that there are some organizations out there for whom this sort of scheme might be just the thing they need to excite a community and provide an introduction to what the company does.
I do a lot of talking about the value of blogging, but until I came across the Great Dance weblog, it never occurred to me that I was remiss in not letting people know how they might go about setting one up for their project and arts organization.
Fortunately, Doug Fox at Great Dance has thought of that and has written up a white paper, "Embracing Blogs: A New Blueprint for Promoting Dance on the Internet" (Free Adobe Acrobat Reader required)
Doug does a good job walking a reader through what blogs are, what resources exist to set one up and suggesting how to use the blog to promote your organization to good effect and employ it as a revenue earning tool.
The only problem I saw with his paper, (and I posted a comment to that effect on his blog) was that the need to have donations and other transactions pass through a secure server wasn't mentioned. If you are a novice at blogs, you probably need to know that as well.
Doug goes over resources for publishing blogs enhanced with video, still images and sound. He even has some interesting suggestions about using video on blogs to solicit feedback and even participation in the creation of a piece.
I have just started the first fundraising campaign the theatre has had in about three years. Prior to assuming the job, the temporary theatre director was also the executive director of another arts organization. Because of the conflict of interest with soliciting donations, he didn't run any campaigns.
At the 1.5 week mark, we have had some modest returns though we have also seen donations from people who haven't previously contributed which is always good.
Because the current thank you for your donations note has been used for many years, I have been working on a new thank you letter. Now it may seem like an easy thing, but I had a theme I used in my appeal letter and wanted to complement that theme with my thank you letter.
Essentially, I am trying to educate my audience about what sort of things their money is going for. It always seems to me like fundraising campaigns underscore the sexy aspects of what the money goes toward and downplays the less prestigous stuff. Either that or the appeal is so vague, you don't know what the money is going for.
I take my inspiration, in part to a post on Artful Manager from two years ago where Andrew Taylor suggests arts organizations have a discussion about "worst practices." My letter is a long way from mentioning mistakes we made, but that entry got me to thinking that references to less sexy, but essential needs, over time will more broadly inform my audience about elements beyond the curtain line that they can impact and feel good about.
My aim is to let people know what sort of things the money supports without making it sound so unsexy they don't see any worth in giving again. While we aren't buying reams of people, we are making purchases that are important to the safety of our operations and contribute to hospitality for our artists. If you aren't in the business though, it is difficult to appreciate the significance of the materials and how grateful we are to have the funding.
Thus why it has taken me seven hours across three days to write the dang letter. I had a lot to say and then distilled the concepts down to a shorter letter, rewrote that, showed it to people, rewrote some more, rewrote, rewrote, etc, etc.
I did much the same thing with the appeal letter. But of course, I was asking for money at the time so my incentive was obvious, right? My thank you note is part of what I hope will be an ongoing relationship with my donors and ticket buyers so it is just as important as the appeal.
I want to take every opportunity I have to tell them the different aspects of my theatre's story while attempting to avoid cliche phrases and common platitudes. I want to set my organization apart from the letters they are getting from the other non-profits by writing something different, something interesting...something brief...something sincerely gracious. And it all has to look effortless.
But it ain't.
Back when I was registering my copy of Dreamweaver software at work, I apparently neglected to deselect a box asking them to send me info on their products by email. I usually ignore and delete the emails because I have better things to go than pursue the opt out process.
However, through either coincidence or targetted marketing, Macromedia (the guys who make Dreamweaver) got my number because the last two emails have caught my attention. The first email was about success Southern Utah University had using their software. (Granted, I might not have looked closer had I not worked at the Utah Shakespeare Festival which has its HQ there).
The second email contained a link to a short movie about the NY Philharmonic using their products. I hate to appear like I am pimping the software by posting the link here as much as I do like Dreamweaver for my modest web design needs. However, I think it is one thing to read blog entries about how technology can work for your organization and another thing to see how many ways it can be applied. It is worth watching just to look at how your website can work for you.
One warning before you watch this. While you can do all of this with the Dreamweaver program and it is fairly easy to produce a very respectable product, what the Philharmonic has done is very time consuming. Some of it requires advanced understanding and programming abilities. (Some of it only looks tough.) Note that the NY Philharmonic's tech staff is larger than the entire staffs of most arts organizations and they farmed the work out to a design firm.
Without further ado, the NY Philharmonic Dreamweaver ad!
Proof that instead of adopting new methods acknowledging that emerging entertainment technology is drawing our audiences away, we should stick to the old, well-known ways!
Well, sort of.
I had to chuckle at the irony of a pay for TV shows proposal I came across on Slate today. It is so groundbreakingly...familiar.
MIT's Henry Jenkins, for one, has already written extensively on potential business models for online, on-demand television. Jenkins outlines a subscription model where viewers pay in advance for an entire season of downloadable episodes, providing the startup capital needed to fund production. Episodes would also be available at a higher cost on a per-episode basis, providing a steady stream of additional funds.
Just goes to show while you are learning from technology, it is learning from you too. And there is still more to learn from technology for performance organizations. A year or so ago, Andrew Taylor suggested having snippets of music on iTunes to whet the appetites of subscribers. Why not have movie snippets of proposed performances as well?
Many theatres take pictures for their brochures of upcoming shows using actors who aren't cast in the pieces dressed in costumes that won't be worn in the production. Why not take an exciting section of the work and provide a two minute snippet on your website or on a DVD for people to peruse. (This sort of thing is becoming less and less expensive to do.)
Based on a bit of Henry Jenkins proposal, existing subscribers could be given an opportunity to help create an upcoming season that is more likely to sell both because they feel an investment and they are picking shows that most appeal to them.
Imagine a subscription based model where viewers commit to pay a monthly fee to watch a season of episodes delivered into their homes via broadband. A pilot could be produced to test the waters and if the response looks positive, they could sell subscription which company had gotten enough subscribers to defer the initial production costs.
One might argue that allowing people to voice their opinions, even if it were in specific categories (choose which of these period comedies you like, which of these American dramas, etc), will produce an undistinguished, bland season.
Except...1) Your organization ain't a democracy, choose what you want but don't be surprised if the option that got 30% of the votes only fills 30% of your seats. (Might be best to allow people to rank them rather than yes or no so that psychologically people don't decide they aren't interested in attending at all because the one they didn't vote for won.)
2) Video actually provides you with an opportunity that text in a brochure doesn't convince people to attend more cutting edge stuff by presenting it in an interesting way that lets people judge if it is something they may enjoy.
3) Probably some other benefits I haven't thought of yet.
Now you just gotta negotiate with unionized performers about what section of their contracts you gotta pay them under.