Off Stage Conversations

Hi, I'm Andie Arthur, executive director of the South Florida Theatre League and I'm here with Off Stage Conversations, where I take a look at what's being discussed in the national and international theatre community.

Diversity in Administration

Lily Janiak writes an in-depth article for Theatre Bay Area on diversity in hiring practices for regional theatres. It's an incredibly well researched article, hitting up viewpoints from a lot of people in our field. My personal favorite quote is from Mica Cole, "If you’re not tackling this issue, you’re not thinking strategically about how your institution will remain relevant going forward.”

Theatre for Young Audiences Matters

The Guardian has a piece on how we should place more value on theatre for young audiences.

Balance in Style

Nina Simon has a great piece on how museums balance the needs of vastly different constituencies. I think it would be great for South Florida theatres to translate this into their own terms as they think about audience development. How do we reach out to those who may be turned off by the traditional theatrical experience, while not making our long term donors and subscribers feel unwelcome? And what biases do we have about what is the right way to experience theatre?

Something Small That Is Awesome

Foundry Theatre's Production of The Good Person of Szechuan doesn't hand programs to patrons before the show. Instead, they hand specifically printed programs to patrons after the show that include the entire budget for the production. It's a gesture that is so overwhelmingly well tailored for that play that I love it to pieces.

While I doubt South Florida is going to see any Brecht any time soon outside of educational theatre -- I would LOVE to see our theatres tailoring every aspect of their theatrical experience to the play that they are producing.

I'd also be excited to see some Brecht.

QR Codes are Dead

QR Codes were heralded as the next big marketing with smart phones thing. Not anymore.