Bringing teens to the theatre
Alright, it’s a good thing we’re getting this discussion rolling. But I’m a little concerned about some the ideas being passed along here by Matthew A Sprosty because he seems to imply that theatre might be better attended by a younger audience if it were more like film and television. Sorry to burst your bubble, but theatre-imitating-film will never be as good as the real thing. Several misguided “playwrights” are so influenced by cinema culture that they have little idea how to write effectively for the stage, which is why we end up with the badly-written melodrama that appears in stage theatres now. Contemporary films have the budget and technology and editing capabilities that theatre will never have, and there is absolutely no point in fighting fire with a spark plug.
But theatre does have its advantages: it has the capacity to be entirely different from film! If you are writing shows for a very young audience (3-12 years, perhaps), you have the freedom to include audience interaction, and have discussions with the children afterwards to find out what they thought of the play. Experiment with modern fairytales. Make them colourful and magical, something these children have never seen before.
Same with adolescents. I fully believe that theatre practitioners should be in tune with what’s important in mainstream media. But then they should consider what pop culture is not providing, and make the best use of these findings. What can teenagers experience onstage that they haven’t already experienced in film? They like shows that address adult subject matter, that challenge them to learn and become mature individuals. They don’t like to be treated as the stereotypical airhead adolescent; they find that insulting and inaccurate. At the risk of sounding crude, one of the things that I found attractive about going to the theatre as a teenager was in-your-face nudity. I found it fascinating (as long as it followed logically with the storyline, of course), and not necessarily sexual. For me, it was an innocent form of exploration and one that allowed me to see that live theatre could offer me more practical learning than I’d originally thought.
Teenagers also like shows that bring them back to their childhood. Believe it or not, teens are already longing for the carefree days of youth. That means they will probably find some delight in those magical art forms like commedia dell’arte (with masks and easy-to-follow storylines) or adult puppetry, which again addresses mature issues but in the guise of a mystical form. This seemingly contradictory combination perfectly describes exactly what teenagers are going through: torn between their childhood and adulthood, they are yearning for a safe hold. Within the theatre’s intimate quarters, these young audience members have the opportunity to feel fully involved with the action occurring onstage. And at a time when a teenager is so unsure of her place in the world, that can be really important.
September 4, 2008 at 12:28 am
“Theatre-imitating-film will never be as good as the real thing”
Theatre, to be the “real thing,” only needs to have three things- an open stage, a series of passing scenes, and an audience.
“Several misguided ‘playwrights’ are so influenced by cinema culture that they have little idea how to write effectively for the stage, which is why we end up with the badly-written melodrama that appears in stage theatres now.”
It was theatre that developed melodrama (being the most popular form of theatre in the 19th century,) so you can’t rightly blame film for that. If anything, “badly-written melodrama” is simply film-educated playwrights copying bad theatre…
“Contemporary films have the budget and technology and editing capabilities that theatre will never have…”
Independent films, though, have the exact budget that theatre has. Take away the budget for publicity and film equipment, and you are left with the skeleton that theatres have to work with. My “letter” was from the view of a playwright to be used as one theory for writers before they started their plays– where money should be the furthest thing from their minds, obviously.
“But theatre does have its advantages: it has the capacity to be entirely different from film! If you are writing shows for a very young audience (3-12 years, perhaps), you have the freedom to include audience interaction, and have discussions with the children afterwards to find out what they thought of the play. Experiment with modern fairytales. Make them colourful and magical, something these children have never seen before.”
I agree full-heartedly, and applaud your suggestions. Unfortunately, obtaining an audience of 3-12 year olds only helps your outreach funds. It isn’t these 3-12 year olds that are buying your tickets to help keep your theatre running.
“What can teenagers experience onstage that they haven’t already experienced in film? They like shows that address adult subject matter, that challenge them to learn and become mature individuals.”
Interesting… If you can expound on this more than you already have, I would love to hear it.
As far as your suggestion of “nudity” is concerned, I know that it would be next-near impossible to pull off getting adolescents in Cleveland to the theatre without their parents having a problem with it. And obviously, you can’t publicize nudity without publicizing how you are going to keep youngsters out of your theatre.
The biggest thing I was trying to convey to the people artists in Cleveland was that the “high-art” attitude of the theatre in this city is what will eventually lead to it’s downfall. We must be willing to evolve to what our audience like in order to obtain new audiences into the theatre. Never has any business been successful churning out a product that the consumer is shying away from.
I do agree with you that film and theatre should be on two different levels.
My apologies about the “misplaced propositions.” I wrote the “letter” as a personal statement late at night to my friends in the Cleveland, Ohio theatre community. I really have no idea how it crossed state lines. Rather embarrassing, but… ah, well. C’est la vie.
September 4, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Actually, that note about the grammar was rather unprofessional of me. You actually write very well. I suppose I favoured style over journalistic integrity when I wrote that. My bad.
And now I suppose I have to provide a rebuttal for your comments. Ah, what fun!
- I know the melodrama was a popular 19th century art form. But I think the term “melodramatic” has evolved in contemporary times to suggest something over-acted, overdone, and overwrought. Some theatre I’ve seen seems to be influenced by soap operas, sitcoms, and Hollywood comedies; but its success on screen does not transfer to the stage. I suppose we could blame theatre for bad film, but theatre came first, so there’s no escaping that.
- I agree that independent film probably has the same budget as a local theatre company. But we’re talking about appealing to teenagers, and I’m guessing that most teenagers are going to cinemas featuring big-budget mainstream commercial films. And I assume those were the subjects you suggested playwrights look to for research. Then, that is a generalization about teenagers’ film interests and could easily be debated.
-The nudity thing was just an example. During my high school years in Ottawa, I would attend the Great Canadian Theatre Company that – at the time – was producing some rather controversial plays. Our teachers encouraged us to attend these plays and be critical about what we saw. I felt very grown up watching these intelligent, thought-provoking, sometimes risque plays, instead of some drawing room farce (although those can also be fun).
- I do wonder what you mean by “high art.” Do you mean those classical playwrights from ancient Greece, from the Renaissance, from the Restoration? True, they can be a bit daunting. And some are rather out-dated. But Shakespeare is as popular as ever, and countless companies are struggling to prove that his work is accessible to all types of people. What about Harold Pinter? His work is complex, and you would probably walk out from a Pinter production feeling a bit boggled – but is there anything wrong with that?
For what kind of art exactly should we be striving? I always ask myself that question when I see the list of shows theatre companies have chosen for their season. Is it more important to have a widespread appeal, or it is more important to produce revolutionary theatre? Is it possible to do both?
Thanks for writing.
September 5, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Very interesting discussion!
I think this is part of a general trend, though. We have a certain group of thinkers out there who think that we have to doctor everything into a some form of SMS texting in order for it to appeal to a younger generation. We’re supposed to start relaxing spelling rules so that the growing number of people that can’t spell don’t feel discouraged, and we’re supposed to recognize that books are entirely unconquerable by this generation and that they have to be reduced to things with lots of pictures in between short slabs of text — assuming that presenting them with 300 pages of straight text means that they will have no interest and won’t be able to comprehend it, apparently.
So, this could have a broader impact. Obviously, movies and music targeted at this demographic have already been dumbed down significantly but these are the artforms that most depend on this demographic for their vast funding requirements. But it could also happen to theatre, as you’ve suggested, and literature, too.
Personally, just the atmosphere of the theatre is enough for me. The fact that it’s not on a soundstage and that voices have a natural quality and that you can subtly feel the air move when the actors talk and move onstage is enough for me. Plays in studio theatres are particularly appealing, I think because of the closeness and use of the aisles as part of the stage. I wonder: do schools still take their students to see live theatre as a general rule?
September 5, 2008 at 1:28 pm
When I was in high school, we went on only 2 class outings to see a stage play. One in French; one in English. The English one was Hamlet at the National Arts Centre, and a handful of students threw handfuls of skittles onstage. At Hamlet.