Lyn Gardner, of The Guardian‘s Theatre Blog, put out a post this week calling on regional theatres to do more to keep themselves in local people’s consciousness, writing:
“If these buildings are to survive it will be because local communities decide that they really cannot live without them any more than they can live without recycling services or streetlamps.”
We’re talking regional theatres here, the kind that are going to be suffering as local authorities as forced to slash their budgets this year. Gardner diagnoses the problem as being one of communication; theatres and companies have simply failed to embed themselves in communities’ consciousness in the way that other indispensable drivers of community cohesion do. And she makes no bones about laying the blame where it’s due:
“however good the work a theatre is doing, if most people in the local community never step through the door, the fault lies with the theatre.”
In Gardner’s view, a lot of the “outreach” work that theatres have been doing in recent years has been focused around box-ticking rather than driving audiences into the theatres to see productions:
“Too often outreach, community and education have been about accessing funding and the work done in those departments is entirely divorced from what happens on main stages and the rest of the artistic life of the building.”
Gardner’s points all segue nicely into those put by Anthony Alderson of the Pleasance theatre when A&C interviewed him in November, who told us that:
“There’s a balance to be struck between money spent on art and money spent on marketing… without marketing, you might as well not do the art.”
Alderson was confident that there was a lot of great theatre being produced in regionals all around the country. For him, the way it has been organised and funded in the past, notably removing support for touring, have dampened publicity and audience-building. Gardner notes that the Birmingham Rep is being forced into a sort of extended tour due to building work, and wonders if their coming to audiences rather than expecting audiences to come to them will build enduring audience numbers. A resurgent interest in the theatre after two years of touring would be good evidence than what funding there is might need more thoughtful redirection.
In the meantime, Alderson also pointed out that there is a lot local authorities could do to support theatres that needn’t cost them a penny. There’s a lot of potential to use council property to raise theatres’ profiles and put them back at the centre of communities. Alderson and Gardner would probably point out that theatregoing is a great stimulus to the local economy and nightlife, too. A worthwhile investment for councils to consider?
“What if we allowed artistic communities free space to advertise – for example on lampposts? This would bring greater exposure and it would pay for itself in ticket sales and less money spent on fly-posting and flyering.”
Saving money, boosting the economy and getting people into the theatre at the same time – as we keep saying, it’s easier than it looks!
Arts & Cuts 