Off Stage Conversations

Happy Wednesday After the Election Everyone!

This is Andie Arthur, Executive Director of the South Florida Theatre League, with Off Stage Conversations, bringing you interesting articles about from the national and international theatre community. This afternoon, I was a panelist for the South Florida Press Club luncheon, along with Christine Dolen and Mary Damiano. In her keynote speech, Christine noted ten theatre companies that have come up in the past few years doing fantastic work. This isn’t an article, but we focus so much on the losses sometimes, that we need to remember all the great new stuff that is coming up. It’s easy for me to be in a place of gratitude today, but there is so much good here.

Now onto the conversations…

SOCIAL MEDIA TONE

This article is about national brands on their really awful social media outreach during and after Hurricane Sandy, but even small non-profit brands can take the lessons to heart. If a major disaster happens, that isn’t the time to link it to half-price tickets to your show. Tone and sincerity are so important in social media, which is demonstrated here.

AUDIENCES ARE LIKE THE ELECTORATE

Both I and Butts in Seats wrote articles this week comparing the electorate to audiences. I wrote for 2amtheatre on my experiences early voting and how it should be a parable for audience development. Butts in Seats wrote about voting in Hawaii and how it should be a parable for audience development.

One of my ideas for the South Florida Theatre League is to bring in a campaign strategist to talk with our theatre companies on what they do and how it could translate to our own marketing and fundraising. The Obama campaign clearly had fundraising targets down to a science – asking some people for $3 and some for $100. (I assume the Romney campaign had similar metrics as well.) While a small arts organization doesn’t have the same resources as a national campaign, what can we do to encourage the $5 and $10 donor? And in terms of demographics, how can we do better research to really know who our audience is so that we don’t have the problem that I mentioned in my 2amtheatre piece?

And if you are having election cycle withdrawl already, tomorrow; HowlRound will be doing their weekly Howl on politics in theatre.

DEFINITIONS OF SUCCESS

Lindsey Price has a fantastic article for HowlRound on definition of a successful career as an artist. She’s a playwright who writes for children, but I think this would speak to any artist.

That’s it for this week. Don’t forget that The Naked Stage’s 24 Hour Theatre Project is Monday November 12th! I will be one of the playwrights again this year. It’s such a great community building experience and I hope you can come out.