20 Audience Relationship
Audience Relationship
Theatre is for audiences. Therefore, the relationship with them must be part of the equation.
Oscar Wilde famously said: “The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster.” Whereas most artists recognize that ultimately the audience decides the meaning of the art, we can create something with a clear intention. However, we cannot force an audience to see it that way, nor can we stand there and explain the play after the curtain call.
Activity: Outline what the role of the audience is in theatre. How can they affect the performance?
As well, theatre is also reliant on the audience. This is both due to the need to sell tickets as revenue to cover costs, but also since attendance is often used as a metric of success with funders and sponsors. A sold-out show will also create buzz, which for some translates to a demonstration of artistic excellence, or at least appreciation of the work.
It is important in a live performing art practice to understand things from the perspective of the viewer. If we see theatre as an experience, then the whole of the experience from the ticket purchase to the drive home becomes a part of it, and will influence one’s impression. Often box office staff are the first to interact with audience. Then the front of house and specifically ushers, who are usually volunteers. This contact is important as it will affect how the audience feels when the show begins. A friendly, enthusiastic, and helpful usher can put you in a receptive mood. A problem with the tickets, a rude encounter, stress finding the venue…can mean the play will have to work harder to distract and engage you.
The front of house includes the box office, lobby, audience seating – basically everything up to the stage. A House Manager is generally on staff to oversee things, dealing with customer service, putting out fires, managing access needs, and then letting the SM know when the house is theirs (audience is all in and the play is ready to begin). A good House Manager is a gift. I’ve seen some great ones diffuse challenging situations with grace. Most audiences are wonderful, but as in all customer service work there will be those who are inconsiderate, rude, feel entitled, don’t listen to instructions, or are just oblivious.
The box office process is also a consideration. Now that much is digital, theatres need to think about the ease of buying tickets online and how they communicate with patrons. Larger theatres will have some type of customer service management software to manage every interaction and sale. Smaller theatres or self-produced work might take advantage of event-based ticketing platforms like Eventbrite, WHOVA, Tix, Stubhub, or Woocommerce (an app for WordPress based websites).
Artistic visionaries, brilliant artists, solid management, an able board of trustees, and inspired fundraising are the dream of every institutional planner. Still, without a loyal, committed audience, only half of the performance equation exists. Artists and audiences are the only truly necessary ingredients for performance, and an entire industry has surfaced to chase every leisure-time dollar that the American consumer has available. Can the arts compete with surfing the internet, 300-plus around-the-clock television channels, movies-on-demand at home and in theatre megaplexes, sports, family commitments, and the joy of a quiet novel? – How to Run a Theatre by Jim Volz (p. 146)
Under Marketing Audience Development was outlined. Much effort is put into attracting audience and then keeping them happy so they will return.
Ticketing Trends
There have been major shifts recently and ongoing surveys are being done to gauge what the trends are post-pandemic. In particular, Business and Arts has done tracking over the last three years.
Even before the pandemic happened, theatres across the country have been seeing a decrease in the number of people willing to commit to a subscription, which was always seen as kind of like the saviour of theatre. People who would commit to five, six, whatever plays in spring of the previous year. It’s a steady income stream you can count on, and also you knew for a fact that there was going to be X number of audience in the different shows. That has been dying off. That’s been going on for years. PTE was not seeing a really big drop. But now we are. There’s a lot of uncertainty in potential audiences right now. You know, they don’t know what the future holds. Financial security has become a bit of an issue. People are definitely more likely to wait to commit to a play until the play is right there. And Winnipeg is a really last-minute town, it’s a nail-biter in this city. So that’s made it even more critical to try to figure out how to get different audiences in. Some of that is programing. But some of it is opening up dialogues, I think, with diverse groups of people and communities. So, outreach can be really important, identifying influencers in different markets. We’ve been making a really strong effort in trying to increase the diversity of our playwrights, and the experiences that we show on stage. One of the things that we’ve been trying to do is also increase our outreach into communities of people of colour, indigenous communities, newcomers. Some of these communities may not have traditionally gone to theatre and some of the prevailing wisdom is that’s because they haven’t seen themselves represented in the theatre. But it also doesn’t mean that just because you do a show written by a black playwright with a black actor in it, that the black community is instantly going to go, yeah, I’m going to that. Right? Because theatre has not been part of the experience of so many in that community. It’s a challenge. It’s a real challenge. One of the things that most of us have found is that young audiences have always been really hard. Really, really hard. This is nothing new. Nobody has come up with the ultimate solution yet. We’ve all got some form of 30 below programs, where we’ve reduced the prices as much as we can. We’ve tried events because we’ve been told that that particular segment really enjoys kind of like the feeling of being part of something special and having, you know, extra experiences. Again, it’s not a be-all solution, but it’s definitely one prong that we need to keep trying. One of my observations through all of these years where we have all gotten around the table and tried to figure out how to get the young people in, is that it’s definitely really important that we have matinees for high school students, so that they have that early experience. Then they get into university and they get really, really busy and then after university they’re trying to establish a career. And now folks are not really establishing families until into their thirties. There’s a gap there that I don’t know that we will ever actually be able to get our hooks into. But if we can give them the early experiences, then when they are ready to start leaving the house, and leaving their kids with a babysitter, theatre is something that they have experienced and can see it as an option. And then we have to find those people and get them the information. So, a lot of it is trying to find the people. Find the target markets. – Haanita Seval, Director of Marketing, PTE, Winnipeg, MB
The trend long before the pandemic for the larger theatres was that of an ageing audience. For far too long theatre audiences have been pretty homogenous. When sending my university students to shows they notice the age difference and, depending on the show, the whiteness of the regular attendees. There are exceptions of course, when larger theatres have taken on exciting, locally written Indigenous work the audience has looked completely different. It is also important to note that we see exciting groups of people at festivals and independent work, as well as community-based theatre. Historically though theatres have been supported by older, middle to upper middle class, white, currently able-bodied, and cisgendered patrons. Statistically it is also a majority women.
I think the biggest thing for me right now is. There’s been such a shift in what stories we are telling and, and who is telling those stories. But I don’t see the reciprocation from the audience yet. I see a lot of pushback from the audience. And it’s not easy to make change. And so, I think that the future of theatre is going to take a lot of hard work, but I think that there’s definitely an audience out there for it. It’s just how do you get them coming out? And so, yeah, I really think that community is so important. And so, in our city, it’s really felt like in the last couple of years, everyone has started to kind of intermingle more than they used to.
Now, it’s like everyone is working together and team effort and we all support each other and go to each other’s shows. And I think that that is something that is changing in theatre. It’s less about me and it’s very much more about the community. And I think that that will hopefully translate into a different audience and a wider audience being able to come out and access theatre. – Ricardo Alvarado, Stage Manager, Persephone Theatre, Saskatoon, SK
A desire for new audiences can influence programming, however countering that can be traditional audiences’ power. Not always, but sometimes, the regular audience can resist change and larger theatres defer to their subscribers in programming. Theatres feel they need their existing audiences’ support as attendees, as donors, and as advocates. The audience in turn believes that they are supporting what they consider to be “Theatre” and “Artists”. They may believe that theatre has a responsibility to them as arts advocates. These audiences have a strong sense of ownership. They may then share their opinions on what work should be done, what the theatre has always been to them, and resist something new. So the balance of satisfying old and new audiences is what some theatres have to deal with as they program.
In many regions of the world, tribalism is on the rise as groups of people, fearful of what might come next, take refuge in what they think is a place of safety and surety – “their own kind,” however they define it.
What role can, should and will the arts play in our unpredictable and changing world?
By dealing only with the aftermath of any given external event, we create short term fixes rather than enduring solutions. Simply responding to change at the moment of impact does not enable us to get to the root of what’s happening; nor does it enable us to create effective strategies for dealing with what is clearly a world of constant change.
– Arts Leadership: Creating Sustainable Arts Organizations by Kenneth Foster (p. xii)
Activity: The above quote refers to tribalism. Do you believe tribalism exits in theatre? What does it look like?
It is again important to acknowledge that much of mainstream theatre has been designed to play to a certain audience. This reality may not feel safe or appealing to everyone. I’ve heard from many community members outside of theatre that they do not attend because they feel the shows are all about white, cisgender, heteronormative people and targeted to those audiences. Historically there has also been ableism at play.
As theatre is changing, so too are audience practices. There are now select Sensory Friendly performances for those with sensory needs, including people on the autism spectrum, those who identify as neurodiverse, as well as first-time theatergoers and young children. There are Black Night Outs, performances exclusively for Black audiences. Select performances will be offered with ASL and audio description. As well, other performances will be designed for certain sectors in order to meet their needs and create a sense of comfort one might not feel when the usual audience or traditional etiquette is at play.
Audience research is being done to explore both past and emerging practices. For example – If they will not accept us, we will create a space where we are accepted: The creation of a safe theatre space for BIPOC. — Kelsey Jacobson
Engagement is another term used a lot:
- Engagement is a way of creating a symbiotic relationship
- Theatre is not just entertainment but an important way to enrich our lives and can engage in a much more profound way if done right
- New community engagement practices are being used so that theatre as an art form can be seen as something for everyone not just the elite
- Engagement programs also develop new theatre artists, volunteers, or supporters, and they create new webs of connections
- These are also ways for theatres to invest in community
- Engagement can make an impact on the community and improve it as a place to live and work
- Any engagement activities need to connect to the company vision and mission
- Examples include play reading groups hosted by theatres, youth groups run by theatres who get backstage tours, dinner before the show with the Artistic Director…
I want to acknowledge that there’s a lot of work that happens outside of those parameters. You know, some of them, I haven’t even mentioned Kevin (Loring)’s community work, which is also a huge part of why we’re here. And, you know, that is work that he literally did in his community with babes in arms to elders based on stories that were recorded on wax cylinders and working with community and language speakers brought back into life, brought back into current knowledge and practice in creating performance pieces with community members over a summer. And, and you know, that work is incredibly, incredibly important, inspiring. It is about retention of language, retention of knowledge, retention of cultural resiliency and pride in who we are. And, you know, as I say, speaking to those from our own community, that work exists in all kinds of communities. So it started, so it’s been again, that adaptiveness, right? But I don’t know where you necessarily learn that other than keeping an open mind and approaching challenges with an open mind… looking for an opportunity and looking for an option rather than saying no. More of an iterative process, if / then scenarios. – Lori Marchand, Managing Director NAC’s Indigenous Theatre, Ottawa, ON
Of course, at the core is the need for the work to be engaging enough that folks want to come back and see the next show by that company or these artists.
In addition, audiences themselves can influence the show. Most have experienced how the same show can be very different from audience to audience. A dead or low energy audience can suck the energy from the stage, especially with a less seasoned cast. One big laugher in an audience can also make a comedy seem funnier to everyone else.
The script is created by the writer. The production is written by the director and the actors. But the play is written by a specific audience on a specific night. It’s all of those different levels. So our memory of a play would be different if we saw it on Tuesday night and it was a silent night versus on a Saturday night and suddenly we’re in the midst of comedy. They are absolutely different plays. That’s another thing I adore about theater.
– Paula Vogel in “Conversations with Anne” (p.90)
It is truly a relationship. In theatres that are thrust (audience on three sides), arena (audience on four sides), or even alley-style (audience sandwiching the stage); the audience becomes part of the scene as audience members watch each other.
I love reading about commercial theatre and how it happened and why things were hits. And it’s really, has a lot to do with the audience. Like, you know take the temperature of your own audience. You know, go okay, that’s the fourth audience who didn’t laugh. I thought it was funny. We thought it was funny. Nobody’s laughing. Why? Why aren’t they laughing? Like, figure that out and don’t just keep force feeding them. Unless, you know, it’s like, it’s different if it’s like, oh, they kill themselves laughing and then they kind of were tempered and then they kill themselves laughing. That’s not what I mean. I just mean when it’s like, yeah, this isn’t working. keep figuring out why. – Denise Clarke, Choreographer/Theatre Artist/ Associate Artist One Yellow Rabbit, Calgary, AB
Etiquette/Expectations
There are so many outlines of audience etiquette available, dozens pop up with any on-line search including Emily Post Institute (experts on all things etiquette). Some theatres release their own guidelines, especially in education guides for Theatre for Young Audience (TYA) shows so children can learn how to be good audiences. Although with an interactive play you always hope teachers haven’t insisted the children be quiet, sit still, and behave. I’ve been on school tours where we wanted the kids to yell out, but the teachers had scared them into “good behaviour”.
Some basic expectations often listed are:
- Arrive on time
- Take off hats or anything that might be an obstruction for those behind you
- Turn off your phones, not just vibrate, and don’t text during the show as the light is distracting (unless the show requires you to use your phone for some interactive fun)
- Don’t talk during the show, unless audience participation is requested
- Don’t make loud noises, like unwrapping noisy candy
- Try to control coughing
- Don’t fall asleep and snore
- Dress for the theatre, which for a high end theatre could mean dressing up or at least not wearing ripped jeans and t-shirt
- Don’t take photos or video
- Do not leave, be sure to go to the washroom before and at intermission
- Take your garbage out with you and put it into a bin
- Be polite and follow usher instructions, remember they are volunteers so treat them well
Content Warnings
Both content and trigger warnings have been used more in the last few years. What might be triggering for someone is hard to gauge. I was told some gaming (electronic video games) allow players to add warnings based on their experience of a game for others to view. Although this doesn’t yet exist in theatres that I’m aware of, it could be a useful model. Currently most productions will list possible aspects that audiences may want to be prepared for or that could cause a negative response.
Some audiences don’t want any warnings at all as it might ruin the experience of discovery. Practices, such as having a separate link to click on for those who want to see the warnings, are trying to give audience agency in deciding based on their needs. There have been some great debates on this topic and some conflict between playwright and theatre companies. Do content warnings change the experience of the play? Do they scare some audience off? Is it possible to go too far?
Read more:
adc-theatre-content-warning-guide.pdf (adctheatre.com)
Responsible Theatremaking | HowlRound Theatre Commons
Aftercare
Some shows and theatre companies are now incorporating aftercare for productions that tackle particularly difficult material. Most examples that I’ve seen have been to have elders on hand and a space to go when shows have dealt with traumatic material such as residential schools. Having trained counsellors for a production I directed dealing with sexual assault was important. Although no one utilized them, knowing they were there seemed to create a security blanket. Having representatives from service agencies or community organizations that specialize in the topic area can allow for debriefing, but also sharing of further resources for those who might require them.
The Talkback
There are many different types of talkbacks. Generally, directly following the performance audiences are invited to stay back to witness or participate in some sort of dialogue around the show. At times these are more of a Question and Answer period where audiences can ask actors, playwright, director, or others on the team about the production. It can be an interesting way to learn how a play was developed. At times the questions feel a bit repetitive from show to show as audience ask how the actors memorized so many lines. In other cases, when the show covers a topic or issue that might need further nuance, the talkback might include a panel, or experts, who discuss the subject and take questions from audience.
It is important for producers wanting to include a talkback to be clear about what the intent is. Is it to engage the audience, engage community, educate, inform about the theatre-making process…?
Having a good facilitator is crucial. They can make sure the intent is clear and deal with any challenges, such as an audience member who might try to monopolize the talkback with their own agenda or ideas. It can also protect the artists or experts from being asked inappropriate or personal questions.
Concession
Finally, there is the reality of many theatres hosting a concession and/or bar, both for the audience’s convenience but also as another way to earn revenue. Some theatres will insist a show have an intermission so that these sales can occur. Some actors feel having a drink beforehand can help make an audience more receptive. It used to be that patrons would have to quickly eat or drink their purchases during the 15 or 20-minute window before returning to their seats, but several theatres shifted in the last few years to allowing patrons to bring their drinks into the theatre. There are even live performance venues that allow popcorn during the performance. Some love it and others hate it.
It is good to note that alcohol sales may not be appropriate for a play about alcoholism or addictions. I’ve hosted some Indigenous performances that wanted a sacred space and as a result they wanted to make sure no alcohol was served at the theatre during the performance slot.
There is a great deal of research being done in terms of spectatorship. Check out the Centre for Spectatorship as a starting point.