Who are we making work for?
- Convenor:
- Kayleigh Cottam
- Attendees:
- Theresa Collins, Chris Gunter, Raidenne Carter, Nisha Modhwadia, James Pogson, Mike Tweedle, Mann Kumar
- Description:
Are we looking to improve the quality of audience’s experience of theatre, or our own positions within theatre? Clear that different practitioners will consider their audience at a much earlier stage than others. An audience must be considered, but at what stage in the process? Can an audience’s proclivities be used as a starting point to creating work, and if so, Is it ‘indulgent’ to create work in an artistic experimental fortress looking inwards upon itself?
How should we source what our audience wants? How can we tell? How should we negotiate/ modify their desires with our own artistic yearnings.
As artists we want to create more experimental work free from the fettered and clammy grasp of the large overfamiliar hands of consumerism. AS venue managers we want bums on seats, and this is no bad thing, buying our ticket is the greatest endorsement of a creative product.Commercial venues always consider want an audience want to see, they want to sell ticktes, theatre makers should look to current programming trends and never divorce their artistic practice from popular culture (unless they are Grotowski).
People buy expected experience. As artists we want to challenge expectations. We are like a cartoon cat chasing a smarmy little mouse.
What right do we have to assume what our audiences want or need?
In the first instance emerging theatre companies create work which is of interest to them, expressing themselves, but if they work in this way they must locate a target audience to sustain themselves financially and move towards a reciprocal dialogue with an audience base. Venues, however arbitrarily, have target audiences, usually according to genre/ form, frustrating as this maybe to the theatre maker, they can use these groups to their advantage eg.. physical theatre attendees, oh they’ll like this show….
Let us please use the phrase ‘West Midlands theatre’, not’ ‘Birmingham theatre’, what of our other West Midlands locales?Part of making work for people involves making assumptions, we enter the arena of social bracketing.
Theatre companies need identities due to marketing systems. Marketing systems are about reaching audiences. In this relationship we work out who are making work for.
Some theatre makers appreciate the freedom to discover, over time, who they are making work for, these guys also believe it can be dangerous to decide too early… stifles creativity?
Other believe this is nonsense- ie work being produced in commission in response to key social targets.
Events like First-Bite today unrepresentative of society- we are not a cross-section, these groups are a reflection of what they think their consumer base want. The expertise of people present at these events know best how to brand what already exists. Its not about what society wants/ needs, but how best to brand, and therefore, sell, what already exists.
We have to be very specific, the law of consumer choice dictates a precise impression of the experience a consumer is about to buy.
So, starting a theatre company/ new idea- we show it to our immediate community/ mates, associates etc…, a rippling effect ensues, word of mouth takes over….. the buzz defines the nugget. Then producers and all the funders etc get involved, further branding/ targeting…. But we recognize importance to keep rooted in our own community.
We all want to develop new audiences, but:
#why do we assume people want to go to the theatre
#why should it be funded?
#why should we make a living, if you’re making a living you must be a bit shit
#who funds you?Theatre doesn’t have to mean high-art, red wine drinking, houmous eating Chekov live art, lets all occupy the same space and have a spiritual experience theatre, what of comedy?
We know if comedy works because people laugh, how do we know if its working theatre?
Subjectivity…………… it can be hard to categorize.We don’t just want to create for people who want to be entertained,,, but for everyone.
Context!!!!!!
Different cultural sectors hold different criteria:#popular- easy dialogue, the mass audience, appealing to audience WANTS
#sub-culture, working against expectations/ contrary to what an audience wants/ needs
#Socio=political culture, community arts etc….. taking what arts council/ govt/ local councils identify ads audience’s NEEDS.We recognize the danger of losing our souls as we market.
How will someone have balsamic dressing on their hot dog if they’ve only ever had tomato sauce (do we just trick them)
Should we include thos who don’t want to be included?
Case of \RSC, some good stuff, some crap- but good stuff is all about how you do it, eg Kneehigh ‘ A Brief encounter’- working with expectations to introduce increasingly experimental theatre language.
Mrketing on screen, youtube etc, very good idea (although changes nature of performance), more of this please. Internt must support arts in W Midlnds, W. Midlands very good at this.
Work should be solid before marketing attempts to define it.
Problem of theatre making being very separate from communities who could most benefit by reflection/ communication/ seeing things from different perspectives, having dominant modes of behavior challenged.
It’s a negotiation- example of anti-Polish racism, these people clearly mustn’t be pandered to by having a play made which endorses anti-polish violence- however, can work with attitudes, interrogated through theatre to chjallenge view- ie……. Is a site of NEGOTIATION.But here there is still an act of facism from our morality diown to theirs, we are regarding their behavious as wrong, what qualifies us to do this… is it a question of class? Or education?
Question of who assesses what is right to be seen, esp for young kids- The GATE KEEPERS, teachers, parents.
The right to censor?
Theatre as act of catharsis?,,,,,, theatre can be the place wher you say things that you can’t elsewhere, and if you don’t like it… fuck you. Is this valid? (Phillip Ridley, Howard Barker)
Interesting commissioning work for specifc social purposes, addressing issues- v impt, is it possible to do this without relegation to the ‘Community theatre division’. Quality in this
And yes, it’s a question of class..
Social utility vs Artistic ‘excellence’. The war continues.