So the ratings are in and of course 11 million or so viewers watched the Sopranos Finale, against about 6.2 million who watched the Tony Awards on Sunday night. Because of the ubiquitous Salon article, these figures are of interest. Some have used it as confirmation that Theatre is failing to reach audiences, and use it to point to what they see as flaws of playwrighting and producing the medium.
I've said, in a bit of a rambling way, that I found the article to be indicative of stereotypes and also a misunderstanding of how development affect theatre as a whole. Jason Grote speaks well to a lot of this here.
Let me get a little more to the point and sort of bring my thoughts on this together.
Over at Superfluities, George Hunka threw his hat into the ring regarding the debate about Howard Barker and the sudden lack of funding that his company is receiving. The argument can be reduced to this (I'm sure it's more complex, but bear with me):
We have a responsiblity to fund and support significant artists as a public, because simply applying the standards of commerical viability to them does them a disservice. Not all value can be reduced to dollars.
What struck me as a bit paradoxical in George's argument, and in the arguments of some others, is that while he was supporting Barker's right to public funding, he has also noted that he felt that one of the reasons that audiences haven't been attending the theatre, is because theatre artists are lacking something. They are making trite, uninspiried works that fail to communicate something of merit, or that fail to reach audiences. In this respect, George and Scott Walters are in a sort of agreement: They both seem to believe Theatre is broken and needs fixing. One way or another. Either because modern theatre lacks the desire to adventure in form, or content, or because it is too beholden to the marketplace, or because it refuses to abhor the marketplace, or because plays are using old forms, or because the new forms aren't new enough, etc. etc.
This, oddly enough, is the logic of the marketplace. It might be the marketplace of ideas, but it's still a marketplace. It says that audiences follow and find good works because of their quality. That seems to contradict the idea, of course, that the Arts need public funding. If Barker needs public funding, does it mean that his work fails to attract an audience, and therefore is of low quality?
The answer, of course, is no. How does this connect to the Sopranos versus Tony Awards discussion? The same principle is at work here.
No single factor brings audiences together, just as no single factor creates quality artistry in any medium. The Arts do need public funding, because the value of a dollar does not equal the value of an actual thing. If it did, public school teachers would be paid more than NBA Basketball players.
They aren't, of course, because the value of a dollar is merely reflective of a revenue stream. What goes in must come out. Basketball players are necessary members of an industry that uses a game to sell labels, products, tickets, t-shirts, television adverstising, the works. They have a revenue stream that supports thousands of people and hundreds of products. Public school teachers do not create a revenue stream. They create (ideally) intelligent, responsible citizens.
That is why public school teachers should not be held to the same market standard of basketball stars. They are not in the same business. It's simply not an apt comparison. It might indicate that the society's standards for the value of a dollar are skewed. It might also, simply, indicate that dollars move in certain ways around a market economy and the function of government, and public funding, is to stress the importance of things that are not immediately reflected by the sale of a t-shirt.
Now, the comparison between television and theater is a bit different. They have the outward appearance of similarity. They both have characters, writers, directors, storytelling. They share, often, themes and structures. Even talent. It is not a question of sports and school. It's a question of one medium of storytelling and another. That's why it's tempting to see the rise of one as the fall of the other. It's tempting to see 11 million viewers versus 6 million viewers as an damning indication that television is more popular because it speaks to audiences more effectively than theatre does.
That conclusion is wildly off-base.
The major difference between television and theater (of the many) is simply technological. That technological difference transforms not only the way in which each tell stories, but the way in which those stories are absorbed, by whom, and how often.
How does one watch The Sopranos? Spend the money to get a TV, cable, and a subscription to HBO. How many times does one watch The Sopranos? If you're a fan... 86. There are 86 episodes of this television show. Even if you watch only half of them, you are viewing it 43 times. A single episode is also rebroadcast throughout the week of first-run. That is not counting re-runs. Or rebroadcast on A&E.
So... one of the revenue streams of the Sopranos is subscriptions to HBO. What else? DVD sales. The box set of Season 1 of the Sopranos costs about $45 on Amazon.com. If you paid $45 dollars, yourself, for each season that's $270 you just spent, personally, to own 86 hours of television. That's just a single person. Millions of these individually packaged Seasons are sold.
What else does this provide besides a revenue stream? Knowledge. What if you didn't watch the first season of The Sopranos? You can buy or rent the DVDs, or get the mailed to you via Netflix, catch up, get HBO and watch with everyone else. Audiences can be built. They can go away and be replaced. They can be educated to the story. There is a deliverable.
The Sopranos is rebroadcast on A&E. A&E sells advertising during the edited episodes. More revenue, more audiences.
I want to take note of something. I have yet to speak about the quality of The Sopranos. I'm talking logistics. How does this show reach 11 million people and cultivate a fan base? How does it speak to so many people? How come a kid in the middle of Kentucky and I, living in Brooklyn, can have precisely the same experience with this television program? Technology. Revenue streams.
Theatre, by its nature, cannot do this. Theatre is performed live. It is performed in certain locations at certain times. Videotape it and e-mail it to a friend and you are not, actually, experiencing it as Theatre. Theatre reaches fewer people. That is not an indication of its quality, it is an indication of its nature.
Is this a flaw? No. It is a fundamental difference. Wicked is a smash hit on Broadway. Last week's grosses were about $1.4 million or so. It played at the Gershwin. That's with a $100.00 ticket price. Wicked will run for years, and sell its cast album.
Knocked Up made about $30 million dollars at a $10 ticket price in its opening weekend. It played on 2,800 screens. It will play on those screens several times a day for a few months. Then, we can all buy it for $30 on DVD until the stop making DVDs. It wasn't even Number One at the Box Office last weekend.
Is Knocked Up, therefore, of higher quality than Wicked? It makes no difference. Even the worst movie will outgross Wicked simply because it is capable. That does not mean, of course, that Wicked is unprofitable or without value. Any given production of Endgame will have substantially fewer viewers than any single showing of American Idol. There's no remedy for that, unless we believe that simple exposure is akin to a value judgment.
What does this all mean? None of this is a question of quality or value. We can argue the merits within the purely subjective context of merit itself, certainly. I see lots of quality theatre and I hope that I create quality theatre. That's an entirely different issue, one that has its own ups and downs. It is a question of technology and logistics. Theatre, perhaps, can do more to market itself to new audiences (I've raised that flag often) and certainly we should never stop seeking to innovate or strive in our art. But to compare Tony Soprano to the Tony Awards is like comparing the NBA to the Opera.
It's fundamentally unfair and misleading to use the differences in audience as the foundation for an argument about the merits of what is seen on the stage.
About Me
- Freeman
- Matthew Freeman is a Brooklyn based playwright with a BFA from Emerson College. His plays include THE DEATH OF KING ARTHUR, REASONS FOR MOVING, THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE AMERICANS, THE WHITE SWALLOW, AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR, THE MOST WONDERFUL LOVE, WHEN IS A CLOCK, GLEE CLUB, THAT OLD SOFT SHOE and BRANDYWINE DISTILLERY FIRE. He served as Assistant Producer and Senior Writer for the live webcast from Times Square on New Year's Eve 2010-2012. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to Gamespy, Premiere, Complex Magazine, Maxim Online, and MTV Magazine. His plays have been published by Playscripts, Inc., New York Theatre Experience, and Samuel French.
25 comments:
"But to compare Tony Soprano to the Tony Awards is like comparing the NBA to the Opera."
But the Tony Awards are a TV show, like the Sopranos, and American Idol. There was plety of infighting by the producers about what shows could pay (my understanding is they had to pay for the production costs of the numbers) to put up a live commercial, er . . . number during the telecast.
I know this will seem blasphemous to some, but would the logical progression be The Tony Awards are not a valid argument about the merits of what is seen on the stage.
food for thought?
The Tony Awards are more of a live event that is broadcast on television, celebrating live events.
I think you're right, that the Tony Awards are not a valid argument about the merits of what is seen on stage. That's sort of a different issue, to me.
What was put out there is the idea that the reason people watch the Sopranos more than the Tony is that "theatre" has been surpassed in quality, essentially. My post is more of a response to that conclusion.
I am glad you are bring up the distribution issue Matt.
Doubt opened to rave reviews at MTC off Broadway in November 2004. It then transferred to a hit Broadway run. Almost 2 and a half years later Boston gets limited engagement tour with Cherry Jones.
By the time some regionals,mid-sizes or community theatres get the rights and start producing it we will probably be about 4 years out from the height of its au currant cache. (Charlie Rose interviews, etc.) And sadly, it will probably have already been on HBO as a movie version.
I love this post. You are exactly right. I really think Birkenhead missed the boat on this one.
Re: the validity or the Tony, of course not. It is an infomercial for Broadway, to boost ticket sales and NY tourism.
I didn't see that article as an attack on theatre, I saw it as an attack on Broadway (which is also all about revenue streams.) Though the methodology and his examples are questionable, I agree with some of his points.
There are things that can be learned from film and tv--especially what audiences will watch. (Also, what works on tv doesn't always work on stage.) If producers looked to film and tv not to see what to turn into a musical, but what audiences will see-there is an audience for challenging, intelligent work.
A lot of the responses I've read have pointed out the great work that's being done in places other than Broadway, usually in contrast to what's currently there.
Someone (and there are a lot of them out there) who only think of/see Broadway shows and tours as contemporary theatre, will have vastly different ideas about it than someone who is able to see the rest of what's happening.
I wonder what would happen if there was a different structure that didn't hold up the great white way as the end all be all of American theatre? If, to use Art's example, Doubt opened at the same time all across the country?
I don't know if there is a right answer. But I think it's a decent question. And, as the saying goes: there are no stupid questions, only stupid people who ask questions.
Now...that is a thought. What would be the logistics of "national openings" for major plays. What if, in lieu of endless try-outs, major productions (such as RENT, THE COAST OF UTOPIA, PROOF, DOUBT) all opened with different casts on the same night at major theater's throughout the United States AND Broadway.
What would be the logistics of that? Is that a model that could help popularize plays that are currently localized?
Then again, wouldn't that mean that more stages are dedicated to fewer productions?
Hm.
Not sure. Certainly something that hasn't been tried.
Yeah Matt,
I thought of that too.
I'm just kind of throwing that out there.
I don't mean to suggest that a commercial distribution method like that is going to help quality at all.
The indie films are still going with their same day on demand, theatrical release, and dvd release model.
Well... what would the cost of that actually be? Hypothetically? It would, at first glance (or less than first) mean less development time, more resources thrown at a single production, more actors employed by one company which means higher costs over all for marketing, scheduling etc, etc. The risk would be very high.
The reward, though, would also be relatively high in ticket sales and name value for these larger shows.
What would happen with touring, under that circumstance? I'm sure there would still be a market for it.
The worst effect would be that it would turn almost all of the major downtown theaters in across the country into clones of one another without individual artistic identities.
Then again, many of these houses are simply running pre or post Broadway shows anyhow. I wouldn't imagine the Guthrie or NYTW or Playwrights Horizons or the Goodman would participate in something like this. It would be houses that are meant for a different sort of distribution.
Hm.
Something to think about.
Regardless of what you think of the actual plays, the 365 project is collaboration nationwide on a scale that hadn't ever been attempted. There's a lot that may be able to be learned from it--good and bad probably.
I don't know if anyone would go for it, but if what we have right now is regional theatres doing the same show across the country a year or two apart, the end result is probably the same amount of stages for the same amount of productions. Just not as staggered.
Art, I don't know if it would have any effect on quality, but anything that turns people on to the live experience, ultimately helps all theatre artists. Often it's far harder to get people in the door the first time than to get them to come back.
There have been crazier pipe dreams.
Excellent, clear-headed, humbug and pretention-free post, Matt. Art can never be produced in commercial maketplace conditions not because the art is bad or middling, but I’m sorry, because people generally don’t go for quality. Yes, some do, but why is Budweiser one of the biggest selling beers in the world? Because it tastes the best? No, because Bud spends millions on marketing and advertising. Why is there a giant frickin billboard of Cup O Noodles in Times Square? Because it’s the best soup in the world? People follow advertising and mass tastes are necessarily crude. So until you have millions to spend on advertising for your avant-garde play, you will never be a popular success, you will be a marketplace failure and you will need federal funding to keep body and soul together because the public doesn’t give a damn. (BTW, I have no problem with the Tonys being an infomercial for theater, even if it is only Broadway. If the Tonys could acknowledge the wider world of theater beyond Broadway, that would be optimal, but any mainstream representation of theater is welcome. Six million people watched the Tonys. Six million. Does that mean nothing!?!) Okay, two models to throw out there as producing alternatives. DeVore had the first idea, which I think is brilliant and ridiculous: open a chain of bar/lounge theaters across the country and produce a season of "edgy" playwrights, standardized in every outlet whether it's Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Indianapolis, LA or Portland. Make it a cool hangout with sexy, gritty theater. That's one way of nationalizing it. Second idea comes from my girlfriend, who’s a clarinetist. Often, several symphonies or orchestras will pool their resources and commission a big composer for a piece that they all pledge to play more or less at the same time, creating a sort of simultaneous, multi-location world premiere.
Sorry, my grammar went very bad... reposting...
The problem with Barker wasn't that he didn't get audiences; he did. Just that by the nature of the beast, as you point out Matt, they're small.
I know very distinguished directors who maintain that theatre can't happen if the audience is bigger than 400 people: once it gets past that figure, the essential intimacy is lost (and some people might as well have binoculars). I agree with them: what's the point of rehearsing for nuance and subtlety if all some people can see of an actor's face is a blur?
I find the idea of franchised Starbucks theatre rather alarming. Surely everything has to devolve on the particularities of a production, or what are you making? I know Cameron Mackinstosh franchises his productions worldwide, but hey, that's spectacle, not theatre... Myself, I avoid Starbucks like the plague (it never caught on in Melbourne anyway, which is a coffee city) - anyone who puts caramel in coffee is in league with the Devil.
I was talking to a friend a bit further about this. He said the same thing: A multi-location, simultaneous world premiere.
What would it be, for example, to have the newest play by David Auburn or David Mamet or Sam Shepherd or Sarah Ruhl or Tom Stoppard open simultaneously, with different casts, in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Louisville, Denver, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Boston, and Seattle?
Let's say the play has a modest cast. A producer could have the play directed by a single person (as many remounts are simply restagings of the original direction anyhow) and they could centralize things like building sets and marketing and rehearsal. While there would be some upfront costs that would be challenging, ticket sales would outpace that of a single theater and the national press might actually be attracted to a nationwide opening.
Furthermore, you could create a sense of buzz about a play that plays have trouble creating for themselves if they LACK spectacle. Or you could create a sense of nationwide buzz about an avant-garde work, simply because of the way in which it was mounted... all over the country. There is spectacle in the very nature of its premiere, so it doesn't have to be "Legally Blonde: The Musical" or "Showboat" to make people feel like they're getting their money's worth.
More local professional actors could be put to work on high profile productions.
Playwrights could become a part of a national conversation, which could cure a bit of the problem of the overly regional nature of theater.
I haven't thought it through all that hard, of course. But it doesn't sound impossible, to be honest. It seems like something that is worthy of some thought.
That means that an intimate play could have a large amount of exposure, without having to be at an overwhelming house (per Alison's issue.)
Regions could benefit from a new work that usually have to wait for New York to close the show.
I'm sold. Who has a couple of million dollars and a great new play?
Actually, it could start even easier as an experiment.
There are a lot of cities with the capability of putting up a major production. They may not all be the same, but they aren't currently. It might even be interesting to see how a Philly production is different than one in Portland, etc..
Under the current system if a play is on Broadway, typically the rights are locked down nationwide. When Roundabout toured 12 angries--that show was locked up for a couple or years. What if those rights were available to one company in each city.
It would probably take a heavyweight playwright to try it, someone with the clout to set the terms of the rights contract, but . .. .
Ans as far as the money end it'd be a win for everyone except for the broadway producers--who'd still do pretty well if it were a hit. For example 1000 seats at $100 a pop vs. 10,000 seats (20 cities with 500 seat houses) at $50, and even better royalty check for the writer with the clout and guts to try it.
I know I'm blaspheming, here, but the 365 plays project isn't all that, really. After the launch, silence in the papers, weeklies, blogs....
I mean, have you read any article, from any critic, discussing how one of those plays ran? How the audience responded? If it was any good? The press has been about the logistics and the variety of groups involved, not whether these plays have even been seen by any substantial number of people.
This points out one factor in making a national premiere happen: Getting an independently-minded theatre community to decide on one play, one production group, one director, and one system of contracts. You do know just how loud the cries will be against the director who's getting all those royalties, in one shot?
And, if centralized set building and shipping's involved, then we involve the craft unions, their turf, their negotiators and their lawyers. This had to have been thought about before -- and I bet one or two producers have a file of letters describing just how many roadblocks exist.
And, Mr. Cote, what you suggest already exists, except the theatres tailor their seasons to fit their clientele, who like more food than drink with their performances, plus some catchy showtunes. It's called dinner theatre, and if egdy producers started learning from it about getting, serving and keeping a loyal audience, while keeping the drinks and content potent, then more to the good.
Why do I have go to a distant location in order to eat before a performance, get to stay in the same seat, to watch it, then get served something nice during intermission? Why do nightclubs now insist on hyper people, standing room only? Why only roast beef, or cocaine? Why can't we have both, plus good plays?
I mean, speaking figuratively....
Hey CGEye: there may be dinner theater all around, but no actual standardized chain guaranteeing quality environmental theater or -- what would you call it -- lounge theater -- under some recognizble name: TheatreZone, Ruth's Chris Theatre House, Chuck E Theatre. God, that sounds awfully tacky, but if you're trying to mass-market entertainment to people, it needs to be packaged and rolled out in an attractive, modular fashion so folks know what they're getting. Plus dinner theater is for old folks annd suburbanites. Imagine trying to open 20 400-seat theaters in 20 or 30 cities around America? Still wouldn't make as much money as TV or movies, but you'd grab the attention of the general public or media. I'm still very much into the idea of a big-name playwright having a show open in multiple venues across the nation. But WHERE would the play be set, eh?
Well, the plays could be produced at major houses, who have the organization and resources to come together.
Then again, this might be an opportunity for smaller companies to combine resources and create buzz for themselves. If you have a string of smaller theaters with loose affiliations under a single umbrella (The League of National Independent somethingorothers) they have more clout than any single one of them could have on their own. Talent and budget sharing, pooled marketing, etc. There are lots of companies that have resources that are more or less equal in major cities.
One of the benefits of smaller companies doing this together is their agility. They don't have lumbering legal offices and marketing machines and boards to satisfy...they can make executive decisions and create handshake agreements to make something like this happen with far more ease than a series of large roadhouses that are looking after their personal fortunes.
That being said (continuing to think aloud)... why would we need to use playwrights of existing note? Why not do this to benefit up and coming writers that could use the national exposure? What if this was done for Sheila Callaghan or Anne Washburn or Jason Grote or Adam Szymkowicz or Jordan Harrison or David Johnston or James Comtois or Qui Nguyen or, I dunno, Jenny Schwartz or George Hunka or ME?! (I had to.)
Wouldn't that finally get one or two or all of these writers out of their particular niche and into the national conversation? David Mamet and Tony Kushner are already there.
I was just thinking the same thing, about smaller houses. Probably because I work primarily in smaller houses in Chicago.
My initial thoughts were about the major houses, as it came out of a discussion of the Tonys. And if something was done with broadway and majors--and those contracts, it would take a playwright of that stature.
But I agree that smaller companies, could easily pull it off, if the will was there. And lets face it will power is what gets most shows at smaller companies up anyway. And there would be more of a marketing benefit to a company that doesn't already have a seven figure marketing budget
It would be nice to see what the fuss is about, with these playwrights beyond Grote (who DCTC produced, thank you very much) and that newfangled voodoo that they do. Would it be so much, to see God’s Ear before its good reviews get filed away?
To see the last season of NYC or Chicago or LA's plays in other cities, in an organized way, so at least they can get frakking published outside the industry, so people can read and grok and get adjusted to their new ways of telling stories, unmediated by critical judgement?
Y'all don't know how frustrating it is to read about all this great work -- and have great new plays premiere, out here -- and know that we won't see each other's best for five to ten years, depending on which small companies can survive to produce it.
Matt, I don't know if this is exactly what you have in mind, but the National New Play Network (http://www.nnpn.org/) does have as its mission not only developing new work, but then getting that work continuing life in different cities, which I don't need to tell you is the hardest thing for a playwright to achieve. The plays aren't produced simultaneously, but a play developed at Prop in Chicago can then move on to Philadelphia, for instance, sometimes with part of the original cast, sometimes with actors in the new region. I think in essence it's replicating what the regionals already do -- they develop work by higher-profile playwrights that will go on to either off-Broadway or Broadway (August Wilson being a prime example) or will immediately enter the regional circuit, or some combination thereof. What NNPN does is try to make that process work for playwrights who aren't marquee names yet.
Though I think franchising as it's usually done is a bad idea. For one thing, a show's success depends on having the right cast available. Trying to cast a hundred Sisters from "Doubt" or whatever simultaneously just seems perilously close to the stunt casting shows on television, and it seems to me, at least, to work against the prime selling point for theater - it's regional, it's local, it's handcrafted, it happens right in front of you, and it can be a little different every night, or with every production, depending on the actors, the director, the visual design elements, etc.
Or, again, we can just go with the Disney model and have a gazillion productions of "High School Musical" everywhere at once -- professional and community productions, as well as schools. Which is happening now. I'm not sure that is building future theater audiences or if those interested in that show will ever see another show, but who knows?
There are some theaters I know who have done "dinner theater" in a smart way. Theater Oobleck in Chicago did a production of "Babette's Feast" years ago where they served the same food Babette made to the audience. They sold out, but I think they ended up losing money because they were still trying to keep their ticket prices low in accordance with their usual "pay more if you've got it, free if you're broke" policy. And a lot of theaters let people take drinks back to their seats now. But why can't the dinner theater model be used for shows that aren't vehicles for has-been sitcom stars?
Excellent thought-provoking post. Thanks for writing it.
Kerry Reid
Shoulda remembered NNPN, since I think Curious Theatre Co. is part of that. My bad.
"But why can't the dinner theater model be used for shows that aren't vehicles for has-been sitcom stars?"
Precisely. And considering that out here we use homegrown talent good enough to go to Broadway, dinner theatre's no longer for sitcom star parking, completely.
The economic model is sound enough, compared to all the other ways we put on theatre in this country, and it would require managers who'd be seasoned in running bars, serving food, dealing with unions, and getting productions made -- even if we don't have a full crew of those wonder workers, yet, it's better to start somewhere than hope the NEA will ever be funded back to pre-1990 levels.
So, okay, in a reasonable extrapolation of what we have now, we have legions of talented actors/singers/dancers who work their asses off, on the post-OKLAHOMA musical repertoire. Can't we give them an economically-feasible reason to do HEDWIG? PASSION? Feckin' ROCKY HORROR, with full audience participation?
Why not Shakespeare, and, to be blunt, other public domain works? The feeling of taking care of an audience, enough that they're willing to go with you, into difficult places, shouldn't be underestimated.
I love love love this idea.
I've added my thoughts at Theatreforte.
Hey matt.
I sent you an email.
But here is what i have for now.
When did NaPlWriMo , i didn't try to do it on a scale like Nanowrimo. and whie this isn't exactly the same thing, i still feel like it was very successful. why ? 20 people wrote a play !!!
so...
before thinking regional theatre etc...
it seems to me that if you can get people that you deem talented and with connections in all of these areas, to commit to putting on the play and opening it all on the same night ( having the same poster everywhere might be cool and having youtube previews and using all our blogosphere connections to advertise the shows...) , i'd say that could work.
the beauty of 365 plays is that anyone could say, i want in and do it.
it was lovely for that reason.
so if a regional theatre takes it on , say in ny and then in seattle it's me and my dinky production company and in texas it's a semi famous fringe theatre , it's all the same script and we are all working for the same thing. telling the story with the means that we have.
I love love the idea.
I think starting grassroots with it is the way.
Getting people to commit to doing it and taking their word for it.
Yes, some people might fail, yes, some companies might not be able to raise the money and have to drop out, but ultimately if the playwright approves the company that wants to do it in each city, then that should be enough.
of course, there are more logistic things and "marketing" things to figure out but man, it will be difficult to enroll regional theatres without first proving that it works and that it's an interesting idea.
besides, in my opinion, regional theatres are not often where new works get the best productions. just my two cents.
okay... more as i think of it.
can you tell i am excited ?
okay, back to my wedding planning. ha.
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