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Early last week, my attention was drawn to two separate blogs about arts audiences, one extremely current, the other some 10 months old. Our friend the Internet is not always a linear purveyor of information, but I am not a linear consumer either. The recent blog, by Barry Hessenius on the website of the Western States Arts Federation, concerned the issue of whether we should be “cultivating connoisseurship” in our arts audiences. It was provoked by a fascinating monologue by the author Fran Leibowitz, captured by Martin Scorsese for the HBO documentary Public Speaking, which I highly recommend for its subject’s incredible insight and wit. The particular statement discussed the devastating loss of high culture audiences due to the scourge of AIDS, and how the loss of passionate, devoted, educated audiences had an impact on the many organizations they had patronized. The older blog coincidentally turned up on my radar at about the same time, via the invaluable 2 AM Theatre site. In it, Tricia Mead wrote about “curating audiences,” so that shows are received by the public most likely and best equipped to appreciate them. Each piece is provocative and together they’re irresistible in the intellectual challenge they pose to those concerned about and dedicated to theatre audiences. Ironically, however, as much as I appreciated both of them, I actually take a contrary position, not because I fear charges of elitism, but because I am at heart a populist. I really don’t understand why theatre isn’t considered part of popular culture, since it sits alongside Star Trek, runaway train movies, Stieg Larsson novels, The Beatles andEntertainment Weekly in the jumbled warehouse of my worldview. Yet, my copious consumption of popular culture aside, I am, to most, a theatre connoisseur. Though I am not formally trained in theatre, and have no academic underpinning to my enthusiasm or career, I have at this point in my life easily seen several thousand productions and I can recall them, discuss them and debate them with the same passion that sports fans have for their team’s achievements. Much as I wish to be, I am not the average theatergoer, nor will I ever be again. But I am a firm believer that our greatest efforts must be spent on cultivating new audiences, and so Hessenius’ extrapolation from Leibowitz’s comments strikes me as unnecessary. I believe that connoisseurs are self-made, possibly even genetically coded. We can expose audiences to theatre (or any of the arts), but so long as their early exposure is at a minimally proficient level of quality, it is something within them that ignites and makes them (to use the marketing term) “avids,” which then leads them to consume the arts with ever-greater frequency, seeking out more knowledge of the discipline and more like-minded individuals, ultimately arriving at the level of “connoisseur.” I can only use myself as an example, but if exposure and knowledge were sufficient, I would be an opera buff, but as I have confessed before, I am unmoved at that form of musical drama. Also, despite a memory that easily recalls who did the special effects for the flop Broadway Frankenstein in 1981, I am unable to discerns most pieces of classical musical from each other, despite many trips to the symphony. Fundamentally, I believe connoisseurs are either hard-wired or self-made, not created; I also think we have to remember that there is a fine line between the true connoisseur and the aesthetic boor, so we must be careful that we don’t lead people over that line. As for Trisha Mead’s musings on “curating audiences,” I think she has taken the language of connoisseurship and used it to elevate the work that every marketing department, every p.r. department is doing every day; if there’s a target audience for a certain piece, they’d better be going after it, or they’re derelict in their jobs. Her admittedly appealing fantasy of an “audience designer,” notwithstanding, shrewd promoters are forever curating audiences, but that language is what brings me up short, not the actual effort. “Curation,” like “connoisseur” carries a dose of elitism that must forever be guarded against, except on those rare occasions where we are truly toiling in the fields of rarified culture. Our ability to truly curate audience lies in direct proportion to the singularity of our organization’s artistic vision, and the availability of alternative visions in the same market. If your company is in a major city with a variety of established and diverse theatre companies, your artistic director is free to “narrowcast” in their program, just as the marketing team (and the development team, for that matter) then have the latitude to seek a select audience to see and support that work. But if you are one of the very few choices in your market, you cannot afford to be precious or exclusive about the audiences you seek. Both of these theories are fundamentally based in the actual artistic work of the company, and must not be pursued simply for the sake of marketing ingenuity. But the bottom line is that in order to find the true aficionados, in order to draw in the idealized audience for each work presented, you must be working from the largest base possible, and that returns us to my argument for populism. Let’s face it, unless your work is profoundly narrow and specialized, you need to cast a wide net for each and every outing. That’s not to say that when you have work that may be of particular interest to a particular group, you should not pursue it with every tool in your arsenal, but to focus on such a defined constituency to the exclusion of all others is suicide. The connoisseurs are simply one such constituency, and the wide net will not only drag in the next generation of connoisseurs, but in many cases, the next generation of artists as well. We are long past the era of Danny Newman’s call to “Subscribe Now,” the basis of most every arts organization’s long running efforts to find audiences who would commit to a season of programming up front. We have watched arts subscriptions, overall, drop from their levels of the 70s and 80s, and single ticket sales, as a result, are a renewed and redoubled focus in order to fill the seats left vacant by departed subscribers. So the job is to find audiences of every stripe: novice, casual fan, avid and connoisseur. But that simply follows the pattern that every arts organization needs: single ticket buyer, repeat ticket buyer, subscriber, donor, major donor. We must focus on the early steps – the first time attendee and how we get them back a second time – or else we’ll never find those who will be our greatest fans and supporters.
This post originally appeared on the American Theatre Wing website. |
Curating, Connoisseurs and Consumers
December 20th, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink
The Daily Pennsylvanian: “From Amadeus to D.H. Lawrence”
October 22nd, 1981 § 0 comments § permalink
The following article was my first effort at writing journalism and the first celebrity interview I ever conducted; I reproduce it intact, save for addressing some non-existent copy editing and failed proofing. After trying to break into writing for the entertainment magazine at my university’s newspaper throughout my freshman year, I was given this assignment early in my sophomore year by the entertainment editor because, in his words, “We’ve been offered an interview with Ian McKellen and nobody here knows who he is.” Obviously that is unimaginable now, but this was 1981, years before The Lord of The Rings and the X-Men films. Given the path of my theatrical career in the 30 years that followed, there’s tremendous irony in many of my subject’s comments in the first part of the interview; I had completely forgotten them. The thrill of this interview came full circle in 2010, when I recorded an hour-long podcast with Sir Ian in London, even referencing this interview during that conversation.
“As an actor I certainly learn as much from bad acting as I do from good acting, perhaps rather more. It’s easier to see what’s gone wrong when it’s bad,” muses Ian McKellen, discussing the Broadway season which he dominated with his performance in Amadeus. He pauses, thinking. “There must’ve been something I really enjoyed…I think it was a rather lean year and it’s difficult to recommend for most of the people. It seems as usual that as far as plays go, Off-Broadway is more productive than Broadway.” So how does McKellen react to the fame he garnered through his Best Actor in a Play Tony Award for Amadeus while aware of his lack of competition?
“Well, it’s very nice, isn’t it? I try not to believe it,” chuckles McKellen, “because it doesn’t really make any sense. The best dressed man, the most beautiful baby, the most glamorous grandmother…The Best Actor. There is such determination that through The Tony Awards, seen by 250 million people throughout the world, that New York should be advertising its pre-eminence in the show biz stakes. It is a sort of publicity event to publicize New York. And as New York’s fortunes have dipped in the past few years, so the Tonys’ have come up. When one understands that one is caught up in that, it’s easier to keep a sense of proportion.”
Countering this critical view, McKellen continues, “However, everyone is so pleased on your behalf, in England, in the press, the people I meet in the streets. Everyone in New York concerned with getting on seems to see Broadway and anyone who’s on Broadway as a symbol of their own success. It’s wonderful; they’re terribly pleased for you. They’re not envious, they just want to come shake your hand. I think it sort of confirms that they’re on the right lines, that the American Dream won’t die if you work hard enough and, with a bit of luck, you’ll make it.”
McKellen can afford such ideals. A six-year fixture in the Royal Shakespeare Company, a Broadway star in Amadeus and now a film star in Priest of Love (portraying novelist D.H. Lawrence), it would seem that McKellen could well be the next Olivier or Scofield. But he retains a certain humility, casually observing the newfound glitter in his life and the actions of others in the same situation.
“I was backstage with Elizabeth Taylor at The Tony Awards and she was drinking a glass of champagne. She was the only person there who was and I asked her for a sip and she said, ‘You’re going to share a glass with a loser?’ She felt she had lost. It really won’t do if you’re in the business.”
McKellen, coming from a mining town in northern England, began his love of theatre early, acting in amateur productions and going to all the shows he could. But English Lit at Cambridge interfered and McKellen avoided Drama out of insecurity. “I’d seen far too many good actors and I didn’t think I was good enough to be a pro. But one or two people said I was, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. And I’m still whirling.”
That whirling spun McKellen into the Royal Shakespeare Company and then into the London production of Bent, originating the role of Max, the homosexual concentration camp victim made famous in the U.S. by Richard Gere. From Bent he whirled in Amadeus. As Antonio Salieri, the embittered rival of Wolfgang Mozart, McKellen carved a theatrical figure which remains permanently etched on one’s memory. And yet, “It’s the kind of performance which at home I’ve really tried to stop giving,” he notes. Elaborating, McKellen compares the part to 19thcentury British drama where “reality was more displayed. It was safe to say,” and he bellows, “’The bells, the bells, the bells!’ It was absolutely alright. You know, ‘God’s in his heaven and he’s an Englishman.’ Now we’re not quite so certain about things. It’s a bit more neurotic.” And McKellen prefers the latter style, “this other level of reality.”
This reality is easier to portray in films and that is McKellen’s new direction. Though no plans or contracts are on the horizon, he hopes to work more in movies, since Priest of Love is his first film in 13 years and his first starring role.
“It was a bit unnerving to get up each morning, touch up the beard, dye the hair red, put on the 1920s clothes, look in the mirror and say, ‘Well, good morning D.H. Lawrence.’ But it also feels quite good to walk onto a set and people refer to you as Lawrence rather than as Ian. It’s a bit of a compliment.”
Clearly enamored of the character of D.H. Lawrence, McKellen expresses many views on Lawrence’s life, his portrayal and his own life.
“I can understand all the constrictions which he felt in that small northern community. The puritanicalism which he kept throughout his life, which I’ve got inside of me, which I keep measuring myself up against.”
“There was another strand of his character that was very appealing to me, for me to be understandable of course, is that he loved acting. He loved the music hall, the red-nosed comics, vaudeville. He was obviously often aware of the effect he was having. He wasn’t the retired little actor.”
“There was evidence that Lawrence’s heterosexuality wasn’t as secure as he presented it. There were many young men in his life that he was obviously attracted by, not saying that he slept with them. I don’t think he ever admitted to himself that he could be a homosexual, but I think he was. Or maybe bisexual, but not practicing.” More personally, he adds, “I don’t see much difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality. They seem to be about the same. If you’re in love, you’re in love. If you’re having sex, you’re having sex.”
Despite his fame and brilliance, Ian McKellen remains personable and direct. In discussing Lawrence’s attraction to his wife and hers to him, he remarks, eyes sparkling, “Oh well, maybe they just liked fucking.”
