3 easy ways to get kids’ butts in seats
How we can quickly lay the foundation to make theatre a part of every young person’s life

American Theatre Magazine just posted an article from Onstage Blog about the expense of producing work in public schools. The premise is that charging tomorrow’s artists and audience members for the privilege of creating contemporary works of theatre is foolish, and can lead to the deterioration of the quality of the program, if not its cancellation. The author, Chris Peterson, suggests that especially for low income schools, we shouldn’t be charging a fee.
That’s a great start, but it doesn’t nearly go far enough, and is considerably less than our industry could and should do if we are truly focused on protecting the future of the art form. Here are 3 easy, immediately implementable, and reasonably inexpensive ways that professional theatre groups can support our young audiences.
Free admission to all the shows, all the time
Going to theatre should be free for anyone in elementary or secondary school. Period.
Theatre industry reactions to this recommendation usually go along the lines of “give tickets away for FREE? ANYTIME? We’ll lose so much money!” But is that really true? What percentage of a theatre group’s audience is made up of paying 14–18 year olds? How many completely sold-out performances does the average LORT theatre have in any given year? The answers are usually “a fraction”, and “few”, respectively. Ultimately, money won’t be lost because the teens coming will be new patrons filling seats that would have remained empty otherwise.
Applying specific dates or times (“Free tickets on the 2nd Saturday every other month except September if you show up 15 minutes before curtain”) is counterproductive; we’re trying to get the least motivated group of people to come to a show many of them couldn’t care less about. The more obstacles we put in their way, the less successful we’ll be: any criteria that makes getting the free ticket require effort will turn off many teenagers who otherwise could have a great time. If they can’t just say to their friends at 4:30 on a Thursday “I’m bored. Wanna go to that theatre? It’s free.” we haven’t done our job. Think of it as an always-open gateway ticket, where we get ’em hooked young and then charge them full price when they can actually afford it. Our task is no less than re-creating a culture of going to theatre; half measures won’t work.
Oh, and their parents will have to buy tickets for themselves if they want to come, too.
Stronger, long-term relationships with public schools and local public school systems
High-level leaders in professional theatre need to build stronger connections to their local public schools with a service-oriented, future-focused vision of how we make sure theatre is healthy in 30 years. If you run a major theatre in your city and you don’t know the names of every theatre teacher feeding you your future audiences, you’re dropping the ball.
Showing up a couple times a year doesn’t cut it. We have to up our game and be intimately involved in the protection and propagation of theatre programs and theatre curricula. Not only does the future of our industry and art depend on it, so does our community and our school system and our society at large. This goes beyond individual artists volunteering at schools (something happening more and more as art programs are cancelled which is an amazing testament to the civic bent of many artists…) This is a call for organizations to re-orient themselves and elevate their relationship with their public education system to be nearly parallel to their commitment to making art.
Pro-tip: if you have an education program at your school that makes you money, you’re doing it wrong. If you charge public schools for your services, you’re doing it wrong. This includes and expands upon Mr. Peterson’s point above.
In-house rules that reflect experiences young people value
This is the hardest sell of them all.
We have to rethink the “rules” that permeate the experience of going to theatre, and the boundaries between the art and the communication of the art. Consumer research shows that experiences — from initial marketing contact to post-product relationships—need to be holistic and thought through to have an impact on “Gen Edge” (14–20 year olds). A study done by Metropolitan Group in partnership with Portland Center Stage found that collaborative creativity is the most surefire way to engage people in the arts in the 21st century, but especially young people. Static presentation is a thing of the past; interaction is where it’s at. From an audience behavior standpoint, preciousness is out, irreverence is in.
This recommendation goes further than adjusting programming to reflect these new attitudes; the theatre industry is in general excellent at innovating work to reflect contemporary expectations. We have to change audience culture to welcome the young. That means no more “don’t take pictures of cool things” during shows. It means older audiences will simply have to grit and bear the laughter, commentary and sometimes even catcalling of younger audiences. And actors will just have to get used to the idea that the 4th wall is no longer a one-way mirror. We can bitterly cling to the old culture of theatre propriety, or take in hand the changes happening already and craft a new audience culture that straddles the line. Not everyone will be happy, but who knows? We may end up moving the art form forward by embracing rather than rejecting the (to us) esoteric and challenging expectations of the up-c0ming, hyper-mediated, always-connected generation that will be our audience in 10–20 years.

