Beyond the Virginia Shakespeare Festival and Into the New World...

As I mentioned in my previous post, The College of William and Mary announced they were taking the Virginia Shakespeare Festival dark. According to them, the Festival had lost 56% of its audience since 2009 and suffered an incredible 23% decline in attendance last season. This is grievous news indeed, but not surprising considering broad audience trends away from theatre and away from arts in general.

When I began my service as Interim Producing Artistic Director in 2012 for the 2013 season, I saw the writing on the wall. Although I had only been given financial reports and audience figures for one previous season, it was still abundantly clear to me that the Festival was in long-term decline. One had only to survey the half-full houses of previous seasons to see the vast majority of the Festival's audience was over 65. Unless something were done to invigorate future attendance, the Festival had few season's left, and, as a proud alumnus of VSF, I was determined to do everything I could to reverse the Festival's impending demise.

In examining VSF's circumstances, I decided on a three-pronged approach. First I would raise the Festival's profile and enhance it's reputation in order to make it "too big to fail". Second, I would attract younger audiences. Third, I would attract audiences who were not traditional Shakespeare attendees. Even if I were only successful in one of these areas, I hoped it might provide an injection of new life into a waning audience population. I realized my goals were ambitious, but believed they were within my reach.

When researching a means by which I might achieve making VSF "too big to fail", I discovered that the Virginia Assembly had designated many things "official", from the "official state folk dance" to the "official motor sports museum". There was no official Shakespeare Festival, however, which served my purpose admirably. I determined that having VSF declared "official" by the Virginia Legislative Assembly was about as far as I could reasonably go toward "too big to fail" over the course of my one year's tenure.

To attract youth to the Festival, I researched the most popular Shakespeare play done in schools that year, which turned out (not surprisingly) to be A Midsummer Night's Dream. Armed with that fact, I selected Midsummer to run as the first show of the 2013 season in hopes it would attract kids and, consequently, their parents. If they enjoyed a special Midsummer Night's Dream, then perhaps they might be encouraged to attend the rest of the Festival. To direct the show, I chose long-time colleague Mark Lerman - an adventuresome theatre artist whose work has always proven that theatre can be "fun". When I discussed the show with Mark, I challenged him to find ways to make it attractive to young audiences. Much to my delight, Mark proposed a Midsummer around the concept of the Faeries being vampires and werewolves ala Twilight. I was equally delighted when he proposed to work in concert with the local performing arts schools, in a collaborative training effort, to create a large ensemble of kids who would play small Faerie roles and supernumeraries. Associate Artistic Director Victoria Keenan-Zelt and I then devised ways to leverage Mark's ensemble to dramatically expand our youth Shakespeare camps that had, in previous years, been limited in scope. Finally, I worked with VSF's graphic designer to create a look for the season's promotional materials that had a younger appeal.

To find new adult audiences, I cast my eye on history buffs. English history is big in our area, and I saw a natural affinity between Shakespeare's history plays and the interests of local history hobbyists. There had been quiet, but significant, buzz in the press recently about the Looking for Richard Project, who believed they might know where King Richard III was buried. Thus, I chose Richard III as the second show of the season. I hoped to be able to leverage the press about the Project, and the possibility of an historic find, to attract history buffs who might not normally attend Shakespeare plays. Finally, I worked with a company that produces renaissance festivals in an attempt to mount a renaissance festival on VSF's grounds during the run of the season. This, I hoped, might attract reenactors and fantasy gamers to our shows.

All three prongs of my strategy were successful to some degree. With the assistance of VSF's Shakespeare Guild, I convinced State Delegate Mike Watson and State Senator Tommy Norment to sponsor a bill designating VSF the "Official Shakespeare Festival of Virginia". After a rigorous debate on the floor of the House, and overcoming emphatic objections from other Virginia Shakespeare companies, the bill passed. The resulting press was voluminous. Our youth initiative, as reported by the VSF box office, brought an historically high attendance of young people and our youth Shakespeare camp attendance nearly tripled.  Miraculously, Richard III's body was discovered underneath a parking lot in Leicester, England that year, and suddenly international press was focused on the history surrounding King Richard III. During the Festival, our lobby was abuzz with audience talking of the disinterred Richard. Whether the choice of Richard III brought in non-traditional audiences cannot be proven empirically, but anecdotal evidence suggests it had, at least, moderate success. The only part of the plan that didn't work out was the renaissance festival. After 6 months of careful preparation, it became clear that, because VSF is housed on the campus of a state university, obtaining the necessary permits for period weapons, open fire,overnight camping etc. was a red-tape process too unwieldy to be undertaken in the course of a single year.  As a result of this three-pronged strategy, our 2013 press coverage overwhelmed coverage from previous years, young people were coming into our theatre and our audiences gained a new appreciation for Shakespeare's connection to history. Sadly, none of these successes, achieved within the short term of a year, would reverse the inevitable trend of market forces.

The 2013 Festival was certainly a critical success, receiving 20 standing ovations out of 27 performances and tremendously positive reviews. Thanks to careful controls by the production team, expenses were under budget as well. But audiences still weren't there. VSF 2013 lost revenue - at the box office, on souvenir sales and concessions, and in individual donations. Audiences continued a declining trend, as recently announced by VSF, that was in place since 2009, if not earlier.

In its announcement of closing, VSF states: "This may well be part of a larger shift in overall audience interests that has seen the closure of the main Shakespeare festivals in Georgia and North Carolina in the past 5 years." But the trend runs deeper than Shakespeare Festivals. A 2011 Study Commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts concludes: "The Surveys of Public Participation in the Arts, conducted for the National Endowment for the Arts, have shown a steady decline in the rates of adult attendance at most “benchmark” arts events — specifically, classical music and jazz concerts, musical and non-musical plays, opera, and ballet performances — as well as declines in other forms of adult arts participation, including personal creation or performance of art and adult arts education — since 1982."

This is a trend that needs to be reversed if the arts are to survive in America. For us in theatre, this means rethinking, retooling and revitalizing how we create theatre in order to meet the needs of our audience. We artists can cast blame for poor attendance on social issues, new technologies, globalization and the rise of the information age, but theatre has survived many huge changes like these from the days of cave men, through the development of radio, movies and television to the advent of space travel. Most certainly it is within our grasp to find a way forward and bring back both audiences and Shakespeare. This will be the subject of my continuing posts.

Anon...

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