Keep yer dramaturgy paws off
Had the chance to share a smoke with a dramaturg in from the East Coast for a production at one of the local big houses. We did the usual small talk things. So, been to Seattle before? and such. He had kind things to say about the city and I politely paraphrased and parroted them back.
I mentioned that we have a fairly educated and literate populace here (and before you get all up in arms and start in with words like “provincial,” think about all the other places you could be), and used the marketing of the play he was working on as an example.
“This is the kind of town where you can say a play is a retelling of Medea and people understand what you are talking about.” Fairly innocuous, I thought.
He looked at me as though I had finally let the cat out of the bag, broached a subject he had been dying to get into but wouldn’t bring up himself. Very serious, intense, “yeah-I-been-meaning-to-tell-you” kind of look.
“Yeah, hmm. Actually,” (I hate it when people start sentences with that word) “we weren’t too happy with the way the play was marketed.”
“Oh, really?” Not sure why I would care, why that would be a subject to be gently yet intensely approached. I’m not in the marketing department, I’m just a cage monkey pressing a little button to let people in. But anyway…
“Well, because, it isn’t a retelling of Medea.” Long pause here, as he looks me in the eye. I almost think he expected me to challenge him.
“No?”
“No, because…” And here he launched into a long but, actually, very cogent explanation of the play, and how it relates to the Medea story, and why “retelling” does no service to what the play actually is.
OK, sure. All made sense to me. But, here’s the thing. While I may not be in the marketing department of this particular theater, I am in marketing in general, have a degree in Advertising and everything, and most of my recent marketing experience has been for the arts, and of that mainly theater.
And, while his little speech was interesting, and quite obviously heartfelt, there was nothing in it even remotely useful for the marketing of that play. It was an explanation that works well in person, even perhaps from a podium to a bunch of donors after the show, but is too long and allusive and structured and nuanced to be a marketing message.
Dramaturgs make shitty marketers.
Maybe that isn’t a big surprise to anyone, but I don’t hear it talked about much. Maybe it is that those who do marketing for arts organizations like to pretend they aren’t marketers in front of the artists, try too hard to protect artistic sensibilities from the utilitarian vagaries of marketing.
The hot talk in this arena is always from the artists, bemoaning the fact that marketing departments are making artistic decisions at big Equity houses all over the country. And, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want marketing departments walking into AD offices and saying “Look, to meet projections, I need to do some niche marketing, so I’m gonna need a black play, a chick play, a romantic date play and a big-name-big-star play this season – think we can open with Tom Skerritt in Our Town?”
But, and I say this for having worked with so many lovely people that couldn’t handle this simple point – Keep the dramaturges, or whoever is filling that role, out of marketing and let us do our jobs! What makes your show art doesn’t necessarily make it marketable! Audiences don’t materialize like lovesick moths out of the darkness every time your throw on the light! Your lovely, nuanced description of your reasons for choosing a play and the influences and themes that run throughout does a wonderful job of showing off your MFA, but it isn’t going to fit on the fucking postcard!
There is nothing wrong with having both influences at work. Actors want to make a living, they can either cry that the audiences won’t come running barely bidden, or they can hire people to put asses in seats. Art is often a better product than a draw, ya dig? And having a marketing department doesn’t mean that they get to force a holiday musical into the line-up, but it might mean that they suggest that if you want to do the dark, edgy drama with a downer ending, you consider not opening a mainstage season with it.
They have to understand and respect each other’s worlds. One’s focus is art, the other audience, and this is not a paradox that needs be collapsed, one assigned dominant and the other subordinate roles. Artists make the art and marketers sell it, and they should neither one of them stray into the other’s territory.
I think it is harder for the dramaturges, the backdoor alpha beasts of the artistic rhetoric in arts organizations, to let things go, to keep the mitts off. To them I say, know your limits, and to the marketing departments, bravely protect your turf.
I mentioned that we have a fairly educated and literate populace here (and before you get all up in arms and start in with words like “provincial,” think about all the other places you could be), and used the marketing of the play he was working on as an example.
“This is the kind of town where you can say a play is a retelling of Medea and people understand what you are talking about.” Fairly innocuous, I thought.
He looked at me as though I had finally let the cat out of the bag, broached a subject he had been dying to get into but wouldn’t bring up himself. Very serious, intense, “yeah-I-been-meaning-to-tell-you” kind of look.
“Yeah, hmm. Actually,” (I hate it when people start sentences with that word) “we weren’t too happy with the way the play was marketed.”
“Oh, really?” Not sure why I would care, why that would be a subject to be gently yet intensely approached. I’m not in the marketing department, I’m just a cage monkey pressing a little button to let people in. But anyway…
“Well, because, it isn’t a retelling of Medea.” Long pause here, as he looks me in the eye. I almost think he expected me to challenge him.
“No?”
“No, because…” And here he launched into a long but, actually, very cogent explanation of the play, and how it relates to the Medea story, and why “retelling” does no service to what the play actually is.
OK, sure. All made sense to me. But, here’s the thing. While I may not be in the marketing department of this particular theater, I am in marketing in general, have a degree in Advertising and everything, and most of my recent marketing experience has been for the arts, and of that mainly theater.
And, while his little speech was interesting, and quite obviously heartfelt, there was nothing in it even remotely useful for the marketing of that play. It was an explanation that works well in person, even perhaps from a podium to a bunch of donors after the show, but is too long and allusive and structured and nuanced to be a marketing message.
Dramaturgs make shitty marketers.
Maybe that isn’t a big surprise to anyone, but I don’t hear it talked about much. Maybe it is that those who do marketing for arts organizations like to pretend they aren’t marketers in front of the artists, try too hard to protect artistic sensibilities from the utilitarian vagaries of marketing.
The hot talk in this arena is always from the artists, bemoaning the fact that marketing departments are making artistic decisions at big Equity houses all over the country. And, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want marketing departments walking into AD offices and saying “Look, to meet projections, I need to do some niche marketing, so I’m gonna need a black play, a chick play, a romantic date play and a big-name-big-star play this season – think we can open with Tom Skerritt in Our Town?”
But, and I say this for having worked with so many lovely people that couldn’t handle this simple point – Keep the dramaturges, or whoever is filling that role, out of marketing and let us do our jobs! What makes your show art doesn’t necessarily make it marketable! Audiences don’t materialize like lovesick moths out of the darkness every time your throw on the light! Your lovely, nuanced description of your reasons for choosing a play and the influences and themes that run throughout does a wonderful job of showing off your MFA, but it isn’t going to fit on the fucking postcard!
There is nothing wrong with having both influences at work. Actors want to make a living, they can either cry that the audiences won’t come running barely bidden, or they can hire people to put asses in seats. Art is often a better product than a draw, ya dig? And having a marketing department doesn’t mean that they get to force a holiday musical into the line-up, but it might mean that they suggest that if you want to do the dark, edgy drama with a downer ending, you consider not opening a mainstage season with it.
They have to understand and respect each other’s worlds. One’s focus is art, the other audience, and this is not a paradox that needs be collapsed, one assigned dominant and the other subordinate roles. Artists make the art and marketers sell it, and they should neither one of them stray into the other’s territory.
I think it is harder for the dramaturges, the backdoor alpha beasts of the artistic rhetoric in arts organizations, to let things go, to keep the mitts off. To them I say, know your limits, and to the marketing departments, bravely protect your turf.
posted by JJisafool at 10:03 PM
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