As some Broadway shows shutter their doors and community theatres across the country go dark, DC’s theatre scene braces for an uncertain future.In today’s economy, potential theatre goers pull their wallets in a little closer and tighten their budgets. In times like these, entertainment and leisure are the first ones to get the pink slip.
Until the economy starts to recover, small non-profit theatres will continue to feel the pinch on all sides. With many theatres already experiencing a lull in attendance, box offices look to lower ticket prices as a way to draw in audiences.
Non-profit theatres will also see a decrease in donations and county and state granting. Bigger profit theatres either close shows early or scale back performances to save money. Often times, small struggling theatres will slash their marketing budget, which ends up in turn killing attendance.
Not so at Adventure Theatre in Glen Echo. Artistic Director, Michael Bobbitt acknowledges the importance of advertising, “Viral marketing is the best way to market period. We have cut back on ads in publications and looked to listservs, Facebook, email blasts, etc.” The internet has become a valuable tool to small non-profit theatres from marketing, to Craigslist casting calls, even prop shopping on Ebay.
Another way theatres look to cut costs is to shy away from big, lavish musicals and turn to smaller shows, with smaller casts and smaller crews. They also move away from edgier shows and look to tried and true standbys. “We pick titles that we know will sell. I call it the Hamlet syndrome,” says Bobbitt. “If you do Hamlet, everyone will come.”
In fact, community theatre just might upstage the down turned economy. As more people stay home and look for outlets to escape life at a bargain, the value of community theatre has the potential to soar.
Community theatres, like Kensington Arts Theatre (KAT), are typically run by a dedicated group of volunteers following their passions, not pensions. They are used to staging their dreams on a shoestring budget.
Jenna Ballard, whose musical production of One Red Flower just opened at KAT, points out that they are not there to make money; they just hope to cover expenses. “We don’t usually make much, but just struggle along from box office to box office.”
It’s a sentiment heard over and over in community theatres reaching from Georgia to Oregon. You can take the glitz out of Broadway, but you can’t take the heart out of theatre. “It gets in your blood,” said Brian Dettling who provided the gun props for Ballard’s production.
Turning Kensington’s Town Hall, where the Theatre Company rents space, into Vietnam and transforming a cast of unpaid twenty-somethings into believable soldiers on a non-profit sized budget was nothing short of amazing. To the dedicated cast and crew committed to their craft, it’s simply, “what we do.”
“I’m really proud of them all for taking it so seriously,” said Ballard of her cast and crew. “Last night Jon [Keeling, who plays Michael in the play] came up to me and said, ‘would it be okay for me to chew Juicy Fruit gum?’ and Brian chimed in that Chicklets would also be okay.”
When asked what they get paid for dedicating all of their free time to authenticating this one performance the actors and crew resounded with a collective, “Nothing!”
“Getting paid is more like icing on the cake than a career goal,” said Dettling.
Wendy Baird, who plays Eleanor in One Red Flower, agreed with her fellow castmates that acting is just what they do. “Sometimes running a business, being a single mom—heck, being a human being—can be stressful, routine, or just plain hard. Singing takes me away from all that; it helps rejuvenate the soul.”
Tim Adams, also in One Red Flower, echoed sentiments of pursuing a personal passion in theatre. “Just knowing you may have helped brighten someone’s day and put a smile on their face is reward enough.”
The DC area’s theatre family is scared of the future, but for now, the show must go on.
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