Swing Joined: 1/14/20
HOW TO REVIVE AMERICAN THEATRE
FREE THINKING: It is a very challenging undertaking that demands innovative, inspired strategies. A successful business strategy must solve two major problems: 1) Today, people are fearful of traveling to a city such as Chicago or N.Y. to see a show because of all the crime. It is a safety issue. 2) Technology has given consumers the opportunity to buy and place huge televisions in their homes for watching sports and films, in total comfort, over networks like Tubi, HBO, etc.
Also, it does seem that a successful strategy must provide sufficient financial return for talented actors, directors, playwrights. Producing a new play for 50 or 100 people in a live theater setting is not financially rewarding for all involved. You do all that work and walk away feeling apathetic. Imagine a highly talented actor who memorizes and performs hundreds of lines of dialog, and he/she has no chance of reaching thousands of people. None.
So – 1) Produce plays that are exciting, entertaining, inventive, make people forget the dreariness in their life for 2 hours or so. Forget politics or social engineering. 2) Contract with a national TV broadcasting network like HBO or Showtime to broadcast the live premiere of a new play. Or create a network to do the same. BROADCAST THE PLAY NO MORE THAN THREE DATES. 3) IF THE PLAY IS ENJOYABLE TO PREMIERE AUDIENCES, contract with the network or a film production company, to fund a low budget film [not as a stage play] for distribution in theatres across the country or over HBO or Showtime. Now, huge audiences can watch the play story on film at a motion picture theatre or at home over their 65-inch TVs. Humongous televisions have taken over in America. They are the future.
There has to be some variation of this strategy that has potential for introducing new, exciting works to American audiences, nationally.
KeithfrromQueens said: "Today, people are fearful of traveling to a city such as Chicago or N.Y. to see a show because of all the crime. It is a safety issue. "
BALDERDASH
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