You’re young and hungry – an up and comer – and you want to create a new theatre company that will actually attract an audience.
So how do you do that?
By offering an exciting product. Something new, something different.
Something we the audience must MUST! have – by any means necessary.
There is no “crisis of the audience”. The audience is smart. And busy. They’re not coming to a lot of traditional theatre because they know damn well how [redacted] boring it is. Watching a moderately poor rendition of play x, y, z sounds to them only slightly more appealing than being dragged behind wild horses over volcanic tuff.
Naked.
With a sun burn.
During mosquito season.
But when there’s something exciting on offer – something the audience wants – BOOM! They appear.
One of the main problems theatres have is their fixed location. As in real estate, it’s all about location. If the theatre is in a bad location or isn’t an evocative space, the audience isn’t that interested.
One way to sidestep that landmine? Have no location. Go rogue.
A great example of a new format that makes theatre exciting again is Seattle Immersive Theatre.
You read and what they’re doing and what they have – it’s pretty darn exciting.
Here’s their next show, DUMP SITE:
“While planning his father’s funeral, washed-up horror novelist Reed Pickering discovers evidence connecting him to the disappearance of a local Seattle teen sometime in the early 80s. With help from his sister Charlotte, he must find a way to separate fact from fiction and confront the grisly truth about their childhood by unearthing the skeletons of their father’s past. Seattle Immersive Theatre invites you and up to fifteen participants to join Reed in this densely-plotted investigation into the nature of obsession set here in the dark heart of the Pacific Northwest.
DUMP SITE performs at an undisclosed, secret location inside Seattle city limits. An address and directions to the venue (free parking available) will be emailed to you following your ticket purchase, one week prior to your scheduled performance.”
WHAAAAAAAAT THHHHHEEEEEE [redacted]!!!
Give me this. Now. Immediately. ASAP.
So get up there sometime during the month of May and check it out.
If it works?
You don’t have to make up something new. Just get a writer and do what they do.
Do this.
