Skip to main content

Theater in the Age of Netflix

I read a great article in the December issue of Fast Company titled "Retail in the Age of Amazon." Long-time readers know of my penchant for following retail conversations and seeing how they are applicable to the theater world and this article was no different.

(New readers: hello! do you think retail and theater overlap, too?)

I sat down to write notes on all the topics and details from the article that I wanted to flesh out on for theaters. I thought it would be 4 or 5, since the article itself had 4 sections to it.

Instead, I had TWENTY-TWO points to hit. To flesh out each of those points, even a paragraph a piece, seems a tad much for a blog post.

Some of them I've written about before, like defining success on your terms and using heretical ideas.

A lot of them are about how going back to basics and focusing on differentiation rather than competing at the same game can help retail businesses survive and thrive in the age of click-and-buy.

This is my point about live theater: when it's easiest to click-and-buy entertainment in your pjs on your couch, you can't treat your theater business like it's another Netflix. Nor can you exasperatedly declare "there's nothing I can do!" about declining audiences and lackluster seasons. There are plenty of things you can do. Twenty-two things by this count.

So I'll be tackling this list, giving each point the focus it deserves. I hope to even find real-world examples of theater companies and people who are doing these things already. Nothing beats reading another's story for inspiration and checklist-creation.

Carr wrote: "Retailers don't need to chase a futuristic version of themselves that they might never attain; they first need to remember what made them special in the first place." I'd say the same is true for theaters, too.

Comments

  1. cherylFebruary 3, 2018 at 2:45 PM

    I'll look forward to checking out those 22 points, Devra! Yes!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Devra ThomasFebruary 3, 2018 at 2:50 PM

    Thanks, cheryl! The plan is every two weeks, taking us through the year! Wow!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

High Art vs Low Art

“The masses seek distraction whereas art demands concentration from the spectator.” - -The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin, 1936 Is there any more contentious question in the art world than the concept of “high” versus “low” I like venn diagrams. And shouldn't art really be in the middle?  art? Who gets to judge? What are the parameters in which to judge? There is no standard definition for either concept and personal explanations range from simple to incredibly complex. One common theory about how to explain the difference is high art is “popular” and low art is “unpopular”, that is, appealing (or not) to many people. This also links to another version of the difference: that high art fosters the widest connection between people while a smaller subsection enjoys low art. This is in direct contradiction, though, to the idea of low art being part of mass culture (raising yet another question of “is art culture” or merely a com
Post a Comment
Read more

Death & The Theater

I was listening to a recent episode of the Tim Ferris podcast and the guest, happiness scholar Arthur C. Brooks, was discussing death meditations. And the little lightbulb in my brain turned on with the thought, "We need to talk more about death in theaters." I know, I know, that seems like an illogical statement because it feels like we're always talking about the death of theater. This whole summer has been filled with articles and op-eds from across the country about how large regional theaters are dying in major cities. But that's not the kind of death Brooks was talking about, and in reality, it isn't death these articles are complaining about, either: they are trying to stay alive in a “E’s just resting” fashion, to find some kind of life-support for the theaters, to keep them going, receive new money from new audiences or donors, new shows, new gimmicks to draw more or different people in the door. Anything to keep from dying. We don't talk about death
Post a Comment
Read more

Pass the Collection Plate, Please.

Various sizes of buildings, with some sort of seating arranged in rows, facing a slightly raised platform. may have curtains around the platform. people --primarily men-- take the platform to orate to the audience seated before them. A plea for donations is made at some point, either before or after the show, which may have music and will definitely have directives masked as stories on how to be a human in this day-and-age. children will be seen, maybe, but definitely not heard. the men in charge will believe they have been given a special gift for leading this particular group of people. and the people, for whatever reason, will also believe this. and this group of people will believe that their building and person and each other are completely different and somehow better than all the other exact same groups around their town/city/county/state/nation. If theater wants to be treated as church and church as theater, then both are getting exactly what they have been setting up for the p
Post a Comment
Read more