A terrible catastrophe happened not long ago.  An actor and I re-connected after several years of losing touch with each other.  He mentioned a play in which he'd been cast and asked if it was twenty years ago.  I thought, "No!  Impossible!  I'm not old enough to have directed a play 20 years ago!"  The catastrophe was that my friend had done his math correctly, and I had somehow lost 20 years.  (I hasten to add, of course, that I directed that play almost as a child prodigy. <ahem> I digress.)

This writer is of the strange tribe who had no family members in theatre, yet wanted to work in theatre from a very early age.  An early experience was watching an older sister in a high school production of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit.  It just seemed like the most exciting and fun thing – even sitting in a folding chair in a small-town-Iowa gymnasium.  Live theatre seemed like the best thing in the world – an opinion that has remained to this day.

These personal stories go toward thinking about the "graying" of live theatre in the USA today.  What can be done to attract young audiences to the theatre?

High school theatres are largely stuck somewhere in the 1950s. The high schools continue doing shows like South Pacific, My Fair Lady, and Guys and Dolls. High schools mounting these classic American musicals make good sense in one way.  The young folks should be exposed to the "classic" corpus of America's contribution to world culture – in this case the great American musical comedy.  Also, it seems unlikely that Broadway "product" of the past 20 years will find its way into the typical American high school. How many high schools have the dance programs to try Cats?  How many schools are willing to invest in the stage machinery and manpower to mount even a simplistic production of Phantom of the Opera?  So the questions remains, if high schools remain basically in the Eisenhower era, where or how will young people become excited about the possibilities of theatre?  There will be the kids who will want to do theatre, but those performers need audiences.

Where are the plays that will speak to an audience of 20-30 year olds? In terms of money, the desirable demographic is the 18-32 male.  What are we doing to get that man into the theatre?

It's striking, but in the jargon of "lad" magazines (like Maxim and FHM) most plays are like "chick flicks."  They're usually stories about complex personal relationships. Generally one has to go back to Shakespeare for plays with action/adventure plots and stage violence.

The reason to ask the question is that the American theatre – for the most part – plays it safe.  We do plays that remain fairly safely in the mode that will be acceptable to middle-age, middle-class audiences.  This is not to say that audience should not be served.  Rather, we also need to work to find the means of communicating with a new audience.

Broadway is unlikely to provide much help in this search.  For example, the title song from Cabaret serves as the last hit song from Broadway that played as a pop song on the radio.  At this point, the general population of America would only know a tune currently heard on Broadway only if they previously knew Abba or Billy Joel or had seen the Disney film, not because of the tune having originated on Broadway.

Some people might argue that the younger demographic simply doesn't like theatre.  That argument doesn't ring true from my experience, though.  The non-theatre people I know like the idea of theatre, but they think it's long, boring, for old folks, etc.  Audiences aren't stupid, they'll come to shows that speak to them.  Mostly, those of us who work in the theatre haven't done the work of developing the work that speaks to the young audiences of today.

So I end with a request to you who read this column.  Send me news of plays, productions, performances, and/or companies that have found success in bringing in an audience primarily in the 20-32 age group.  (Contact information is at the bottom of this column.)  News about these productions and/or companies will be featured in future columns.

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