Mind you, there’s only so much one can squeeze into a TV spot, but the ad I just watched managed the following in its voiceover: 1) play title; 2) key award nominations; 3) names of three lead actors; and 4) quotes from reviews. The name of the playwright, and the director, photos of the stars (not in costume), the logo for the not-for-profit theatre that produced it, and ticket ordering information appeared on screen. The piece runs only 15 seconds.

Now this is a Broadway show and it’s Tony season, so I could simply chalk this ad up to awards fever. But it’s just another in a long line of theatre marketing tools that I see which constantly manage to skirt what strikes me as a rather important element in theatrical communication: the plot.  TV time is precious, but that’s not the case in brochures, press releases and even radio spots, which are far more likely to be deployed by the majority of theatres in the country. Yet sometimes the plot is nowhere to be found.

Theatres skip over plots for one of two reasons: a) their show is a revival of a famous classic work and it’s assumed that everyone likely to be interested already knows what it’s about, or b) the theatre doesn’t actually want to say what it’s about, even if the play has never been seen before. In both cases, the decision is ill-advised.

For a classic, it may well be true that a significant portion of the likely ticket buyers already know not only the plot but the ending of Othello, A Doll’s House or Death of a Salesman. But cloaking the show solely in its author’s name and adjectives about its greatness leaves out anyone who happens to have not seen it before, and may be looking for clues as to whether it will interest them. Indeed, we forget that the great works of literature may be daunting to the uninitiated, so by bypassing even a bit of plot description, we skip the opportunity to cultivate new patrons or place the seemingly archaic work within a context that might appeal to a modern audience.

It also pays to remember that this applies to relatively recent works as well. For example, Children of a Lesser God won the 1980 Tony Award for Best Play and the lead actress in the film version won an Oscar in 1986, but how many 25 year olds know the piece? We must always be thinking of new patrons – whatever their age – not just endlessly mining the so-called “avids.”

As for avoiding the plot, the motivations can be varied. Perhaps the actual storyline could be seen as off-putting (deranged barber murders customers and his landlady bakes their remains into pies; boy blinds horses) or vague (two hobos wait endlessly for someone to show up). But skilled copy writing can put those stories into a larger and perhaps more enticing context without ever being untrue or misleading. It’s when we employ only adjectives that we’re dropping the ball; plays (and all stories) are rooted in nouns and verbs, that is to say people and action.

Even when the work in question is brand new, and there’s concern about revealing too much, it’s a mistake to say nothing; your gaggle of adjectives will less effective, since there’s no outside affirmation (as might eventually come from reviews), there’s just you trying to tell potential patrons what they’re going to think of the show if they come. (I refer you to my guides to clichéd marketing-speak and the true meanings behind it in Decoder and Decoder II.)

I’m not advocating lengthy recountings and I recognize that very often, a cursory précis of a story can be reductive; I’ve seen many authors (and artistic staffs) bridle at simplifications. But marketing and communications are not reviews or dramaturgy or literary criticism; they should be as accurate and appealing as possible, but they can’t be all-encompassing. And they must appear. The play may be the thing wherein we’ll catch the king’s conscience, but we’ve got to get him into the theatre first.

Not a musical.

Let’s be honest.  If you didn’t follow documentary filmmaking or live and die by theatre news, Hands on a Hardbody would sound like something that might play late at night on Cinemax. Those of a certain age might think it was a belated sequel to the 1984 teen sexploitation comedy Hardbodies (think Porky’s, with less class). But the fact is, that title was very likely a deterrent to audiences, even with “a new musical” appended to it, which is seemingly de rigeur these days, despite having been brilliantly parodied years ago by The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!).

It’s not my habit to write critiques of shows, and I’m not about to break that practice, but with Hands on a Hardbody now closed, I feel a bit freer to engage in analysis of the show’s marketing. In my outsider assessment, it didn’t manage to sufficiently surmount the challenges inherent in the show, attested to by the consistently low grosses throughout previews and the four weeks of the regular run. Hardbody built up no head of steam, no significant name recognition and apparently no advance sales, despite the usual potpourri of discounts. Frankly, if it came up in any of my discussions, I couldn’t make it sound inherently appealing either.

“Hands on a Hardbody,” a new musical

If, as some suggest, the theatergoing audience is finite, and fragmented by the welter of openings each spring, then Hardbody was starting at a disadvantage. Though it was based on a well-received documentary, it didn’t come with name recognition, since the film is 17 years old and grossed less than a half-million dollars; though its creative credentials were impressive, how many new musicals are sold solely on the strength of their writing team nowadays; it had a talented cast with several names well-known to theatre audiences (particularly Keith Carradine and Hunter Foster), but there was no Tom Hanks, Bette Midler or Alec Baldwin to tap into the celebrity buzz machine.

Mind you, I don’t mention the foregoing to say that they are absolute necessities for Broadway success. How many people really knew Once the movie before the show opened (with the benefit of starting at New York Theatre Workshop)? Were Jonathan Groff and Lea Michele big names before Spring Awakening? Who on earth was Lin-Manuel Miranda or Quiara Alegria Hudes in the public imagination before In The Heights?

This could be looked at as Monday morning quarterbacking, but the title must have suggested a challenge to the creative and producing teams up front. There was a change made from the documentary name, merging what had been “Hard Body” into “Hardbody.” Perhaps this means something to those who are truck aficionados, but in the steep canyons of New York (and let’s remember that new Broadway shows don’t often reach the tourist market right away), I fear this ultrafine distinction was lost.

Going back to my earlier comparison to late-night cable, I’m not sure whether “hard body” or “hardbody” is an important distinction; I also wonder about some of the glistening bodybuilders who beckon from magazine covers on the newsstand when those words are deployed. In any event, the title didn’t bring any marketing recognition to the table; perhaps it deserved something that would have moved us into the realm of the mythic, rather than grounding us, enigmatically, in the truck at the center of the show. Sometimes, being too loyal to source material can be counterproductive.

TV ads I saw seemed to be on the right track, emphasizing the spirit of competition. To be sure, playing up to TV’s countless reality contests wasn’t a bad strategy. I just wonder whether they went far enough, or – once again – were clear enough. You could (pardon the expression) drive a truck through the space between winning a motor vehicle and a better life. The campaign needed to express something between a pickup with a foreign brand name and a nebulous American dream. Unfortunately, few shows could have mounted the series of ads that might have prompted audiences to feel they had a stake too.

Poster or infographic?

Where I really worried for the show was in its big three-sheet in Shubert Alley, long considered prime display space for Broadway shows, much sought after and fought over. I’ve reproduced it here so you can see exactly how eye-catching it wasn’t. Frankly, it could be compared to everything from a flow chart to a child’s board game to assembly instructions, and it required a close read for it to register at all. In trying to do everything, it did almost nothing, and even marred by amateur photography here, it sure remains one of the most confusing images I’ve ever seen put to use in advertising a Broadway show, or any form of entertainment, for that matter. If this was also used in print ads I can’t say, having shifted to almost exclusively digital readership; it might have worked if you were holding it in your hands, but it still would have been quite the jumble compared to the simplicity of The Phantom’s mask or the Jersey Boys in lights.

You can debate the pros and cons of the show among yourselves, but the failure for Hardbody to gain even initial traction is evidence of a communications strategy that couldn’t pump up any meaningful interest, leaving the show in the hands of the critics and an uninformed base of ticket buyers at the most Darwinian time of the year. Ironically, in preparing this piece, I found the cover of a home video release of the documentary and it had a rather intriguing tagline that might have been provocative and helpful to the show: “You lose the contest when you lose your mind.” Turned around so that it didn’t harp on losing (negatives are, funny enough, not positive in advertising), there was still something there: a sense of mental toughness, of endurance, even of the potential for madness. And if reality TV has taught us nothing, those are qualities people like to watch.

So I mourn the closing of the possibly misunderstood Hands On A Hardbody both because it was a show that dared to not fit some standard Broadway formula and because its closing probably scared producers and investors for future projects that don’t fit the mold. I hope that’s not the case.

But I’ve found a great new opening night gift for the brave souls who dare to take on Broadway with new material in particular: “You lose the contest when you lose your mind.”

It is not, to my mind, a particularly current phrase. In fact, I think of it as something a couple of decades old, like “Where’s the beef?” or “Whasss-uuuup?” The decidedly selective Wikipedia entry for the saying traces it back to at least 1968, and the song “Time of the Season” by The Zombies, while citing widespread acceptance in the late 1980s. There is a 2004 direct to video comedy that took it as its name.

So when I walked by a subway poster emblazoned with the words “Who’s Your Daddy?” emblazoned over a photo of Annie star Anthony Warlow, sporting the trademark bald pate of Oliver Warbucks, I did a double take. For me, the association between “Who’s Your Daddy?” and “Daddy” Warbucks was immediate, being a theatre guy, but there was also some immediate cognitive dissonance. This shopworn saying, which once had a slight modicum of hip attached to it, seemed out of place juxtaposed with a figure from a beloved family musical.

And I laughed.

Now I’ve already seen the new production of Annie that the poster advertised (my 10 year old niece and I had a lovely evening out for it), so I wasn’t moved to run to the box office, which happened to be just overhead. But I have to say that I admired the poster for breaking through the clutter of advertising that assaults us everyday. It was the rare theatre ad that didn’t take itself very seriously and I’m not likely to forget it soon. Naturally I wanted to analyze it.

So I turned to the expert focus group that is my pool of Twitter followers, linked a photo of the ad, and asked for opinions.  Some shared my surprise and described similar reactions to my own. They told me of other posters I hadn’t yet seen that were part of the same campaign. Others were more succinct in their reactions.

“Ick.” “Ugh.” “Oh, dear.” “Perverse.” “Terrible.”

I understand the response of this latter group. It flitted across my consciousness as well before I laughed. That’s the dissonance I spoke of. And for that reason, I’d like to take a closer look at the campaign.

Annie is now 37 years old, having premiered in 1976 at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut (where I was – full disclosure – general manager from 1994 to 1998 and where I still intermittently consult). Based on the venerable comic strip Little Orphan Annie, it remains a standard in the musical theatre catalogue. Though the strip is gone, the characters and story remain a part of children’s lives for successive generations thanks to the show. The current revival is Annie’s third Broadway stint.

With other family friendly shows on Broadway now (the new Cinderella and Matilda; the long-running The Lion King), many have questioned whether there’s actually too much available for families and whether the audience will be split up, in favor of what’s newest. Although the current Annie is a new production, that’s a distinction the average theatergoer might not make, and even though the show is from the 70s, it’s set in the 30s, replete with jokes about The New Deal and Harold Ickes.

So the new ads, which also feature the phrases “Best In Show” and “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” are an attempt to blow some dust off of this perennial middle school musical, but it’s worth noting that they’re not using references to the Kardashians or the Harlem Shake. Those would probably send potential ticket buyers, namely parents, fleeing. What they do is take phrases that are all too familiar to people in their 30s, 40s and 50s (I repeat: parents) and match them with images that will immediately be recognized by anyone who has ever read the Annie comic or seen the musical, on stage or in one of its two film versions. They push the envelope ever so slightly, because we don’t expect these phrases with the images deployed, but they don’t take such a wholehearted leap into pop culture – in my opinion – as to descend into complete incongruity or tackiness. They remind an earlier generation of their own love of Annie without playing directly upon nostalgia (even though foreknowledge is required). That’s what I like about them.

I do have some questions, though. If someone actually doesn’t know Annie, the ads are probably mystifying. Yes, I suspect it would be pretty hard to find Americans who don’t know the character or show, but not impossible, and I do wonder whether these ads leave out foreign tourists, who are an important slice of Broadway sales.  I also wonder about the diminution of the show logo itself, which is unusually small in relation to the image and slogan, and in subway ads, somewhere around waist level – or is this a brilliant scheme for tykes to read  the word “Annie” while the adults get their pop culture chuckle. Do those who immediately expressed a dislike of the ads when I shared them mirror a portion of the ticket buying audience, or are they musical theatre purists who dislike the co-opting of pop catchphrases – but weren’t going to buy tickets anyway? With a new musical from Cyndi Lauper opening shortly, will “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” actually serve to sell some tickets to Kinky Boots?

As someone who is constantly advocating for theatre communications to break out of boring patterns, I’m going to keep an eye on this campaign, to see how long it lasts, to see how the show fares at the box office in the coming weeks and months. I’m not suggesting this irreverent approach, even if successful, will become widespread, or can even be replicated by other shows. But it’s an interesting case study for the moment.

I’m curious to hear more reactions. But you’ll forgive me if I tell those who want to declaratively say I’m out of my gourd for my response to the Annie campaign to, if you please, talk to the hand.

*   *   *

Update: Less than an hour after I posted this piece, the press office for Annie provided me with original images for the ad campaign (replacing photos taken in the subway), which also showed me the fourth in the series. Regrettably, it has a much more standard slogan than the other three, and I can’t help but think of it as a missed opportunity. Any suggestions of a pop culture catchphrase, song lyric, or snippet of dialogue that might make the image to the left more fun?

I get your e-mails constantly: “Look at the just-released video for our next world premiere.” “See our artistic director talk about our upcoming holiday show.” “Watch our cast of Marat/Sade lip sync to Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’.”

Aside from the last example, I need to understand why I want to watch your video. Frankly, unless you have a cast of LOLcats performing Cats, the novelty has worn off. I am sinking in the internet video glut.

Let’s be honest: you’re asking me to take time to watch your commercial. My usual practice, when watching television via my DVR, is to fast-forward through commercials. So if you’re going to ask me to take the time to willingly watch your advertisement – oh, I’m sorry, your “trailer” – it had better be pretty compelling.

May I interest you in Eau de Chatte Chaud?

But that’s no excuse for asking me to spend my time watching a series of still photos with voiceover narration. If I want to watch a slideshow, I can haul out my old Kodak carousel projector and narrate them myself.  Even Broadway shows are using still images on video to sell a live, active art, due to financial constraints, and they’ve got more to spend than you do. Yet inexplicably, some look like perfume ads — and I have yet to see one singing child or live dog this season.

Your audience doesn’t know your limitations, and competing forms of entertainment are likely outshining you. You have to do better.

Why is your video low-res, or in a single take? I realize that minimal quality may hold sway in home-made YouTube novelties and on “Americas Funniest Home Videos,” but the work on your stage is so sophisticated. Your videos should reflect that quality. And even your phone can shoot in HD.

But here’s the challenge. It stands to reason that your theatre is filled with people who know how to make great theatre, but do they necessarily know how to make compelling videos? Yes, programs like iMovie have given the average nine-year-old the ability to assemble footage with great ease. At that age, Spielberg was cutting Super 8 film on his mom’s kitchen table with an Exacto knife. But software is not enough.

“Inge, from Lancome…because life is no picnic.”

Let me digress for a corollary story. In the mid-1980s, when I started working professionally, every company heard that they needed to get into “desktop publishing,” a means by which they could create all kinds of printed materials without resorting to waxing machines, t-squares and razor blades to create print-ready mechanicals. All they needed was one of those snazzy new Macintosh computers (PCs were woefully behind in this area) and a piece of software called Pagemaker. The result was, for a few years, a rash of the worst-designed documents you’ve ever seen. What no one seemed to catch on to was that desktop publishing was simply a new set of tools – you still needed a designer to operate it.

That’s where I feel theatres, and other arts organizations, are with video. The price point for the necessary tools is quite low, but your filmic expertise may be too. Do you actually have someone in-house with the skill to represent what you do well? Is there someone inventive on your staff who can create, with a modest budget, a piece so compelling that we may not realize we haven’t seen a single moment of your show in action and, better still, want to share it with others? Don’t confuse web design with video production – the same person may not be skilled at both.

If you don’t have resources that rival commercial ad production, or images of the work itself, do what theatre has always done: turn your limitations into an asset. Brainstorm creative concepts throughout your building. Find out if someone on staff, but possibly outside the marketing office, has film or video training. Don’t be afraid of humor. Whatever you can use, keep it moving. Remember, as a generalization, the stage is a verbal medium, but film and video are visual. Oh yes, and remember that most people will watch what you create in a screen window of only a few inches in dimension. Don’t make Cinemascope video for smartphone screens.

It’s been years since arts groups got wise to the value of professional and often sophisticated graphic design. It’s time to apply that to video as well.

Oh yes, and if you manage to produce a video of LOLcats performing Marat/Sade Gangnam style, I predict you’re going to go viral.

The word “reboot” came into common usage as a term for restarting a computer, often after it had mysteriously seized up and ceased responding to you every whim. While one might simply be rebooting in order to allow software installation to complete its process, it’s the former definition that has stuck, and been adopted by Hollywood.

Now, reboot is used rather profligately to refer to any version of a previously told tale which varies in any way from the orthodoxy or iconography of the original version. It’s a restart, a new beginning. On TV, 1313 Mockingbird Lane was a reboot of The Munsters; Buffy the Vampire Slayer  was a reboot of the failed film of the same name. In film, we are awash in reboots, with one failed attempt to reboot the Chris Reeve Superman films  already forgotten and yet a new version in the works, while Batman has been rebooted twice: by Tim Burton and by Christopher Nolan. Burton wiped away the camp while indulging his own dark and flamboyant predilections; Nolan drained the stories of color and humor as he stripped them down to nihilistic, vengeful basics.

Reboot is a new marketing buzzword as well, swallowed whole by the entertainment press. In succession, the past few James Bonds  (Dalton, Brosnan, Craig) were rolled out as reboots of the venerable tentpole movie series. We were even sold the idea that Skyfall was a reboot, simply so the producers could distance themselves from the debacle that was Quantum of Solace, the disappointing follow-up to the bracing Casino Royale. Fittingly for the Bond films, “reboot” is code for “forget the old, this is new,” even when the changes aren’t always that radical.

Despite the penchant for the reboot, which implies a fresh take, Hollywood marketing seems to be a startlingly imitative practice, and we constantly see posters and even trailers that seem to mimic others. Romantic comedies all look a certain way, so it really doesn’t matter whether we know the difference between Jessica Alba or Jessica Biel; action movies typically fetishize outsized weapons for obvious and Freudian reasons.

Which brings me to today’s whirlwind of comment about how much the newly released Star Trek Into Darkness poster resembles the art of posters from the Dark Knight series. I will leave it to others to do the comparative breakdown (here’s The Atlantic), but this appropriation of iconography strikes me, at least for now, as seriously wrongheaded.

As I’ve said, and as anyone who has seen the films knows, the Nolan Batman is a tortured soul meting out harsh justice in a city gone to seed. He’s a lone wolf, violent and alone. Now while James T. Kirk may be a hothead and at times reckless, he’s also the leader of a familial team, and even though the Star Trek template began in the 1960s, it has remained essentially unchanged through five TV series and a spate of films (of varying quality). While both Kirk and Bruce Wayne may live by the motto, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” Wayne took that as a call to solitude and self-denial, while for Kirk and his successors (Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer) it’s a motto to instill in others, a higher calling.

So the new Star Trek poster is provoking massive cognitive dissonance, not just because it seems to be a copycat, but because it has substituted one set of values, that of the (wildly commercially successful) newest Batman, in place of an entirely different ethos, the deeply humane roots of Star Trek.

I don’t think anyone is particularly fooled about the craven marketing ploy, but for me at least, seems a misstep. The previous Star Trek film, which didn’t so much as reboot the story as provide the origin tale we’d been denied, managed to merge up-to-date pacing and techniques with the core messages that drove Gene Roddenberry a half century ago. I wouldn’t call it a reboot, but merely a refreshing, and it was superb entertainment that found favor with audiences old and new; I was certainly among them.

So the new poster, instead of starting the drumbeat of excitement for the next installment, raises only doubt; the film’s title is complicit in this as well. At best, I can hope that the poster is merely the work of imitative hacks who think art from one successful series can simply be pasted onto another; at worst, I worry that Star Trek, which I have embraced from its earliest days and love even when it’s at its cheesiest, has gone over to the dark side. If I want dark, I can watch The Walking Dead or Breaking Bad (I’ve never watched either).

When it comes to the Star Trek brand, I don’t mind innovation, but I don’t want it wholly reinvented. I can accept new actors. I welcome brave new worlds. But leave the characters and the spirit alone. They’re what keep me coming back for more, literally decade after decade.

And so I wait with trepidation. My shields are up.

Sanjay at Froghammer must be so proud. You remember Froghammer, the firm brought in by the New Burbage Festival to shake up its advertising and audiences, to cast off their stodgy image. So bold, so vibrant. Oh yes, and (spoiler alert) in that scenario, a fraud.

It’s hard not to recall this fictional scenario, from the ever-brilliant Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows, as the venerable Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada drops the middle word from its name…again, having jettisoned it in the 1970s and restored it in 2007. In the words of Stratford’s new artistic director Antoni Cimolino, who assumed his new post officially today, the name “is simple and direct, it resonates with people and it carries our legacy of quality and success.” It also eradicates the name of Shakespeare in the general promotion of the festival. How that plays out on its stages, and its materials, will be seen in the seasons to come.

Stratford is hardly the first theatre to diminish The Bard’s name. Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival began to transition as its Lafayette Street home became prominent and rose to co-billing in the portmanteau Joseph Papp’s The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, which later gave way simply to The Public Theater (which still produces Shakespeare in the Park, a catch-all that has included Comden & Green and Bernstein, Sondheim, and Ragni, Rado & McDermott in more recent summers).

Even the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut, as it drew its last breaths in the late 1980s, rebranded as the American Festival Theatre, as generic a company identity as one could ask for but hey, doesn’t everybody love a festival? It left in its wake an assortment of Shakespearean named businesses around it, which survived for years, despite the closure of the town’s major claim to the name.

Professionally, for these companies, the rebranding is rooted in solid marketing theory. In the case of the two going concerns, they have grown beyond being solely Shakespearean companies, though it’s worth noting that the Shaw Festival has not yet renounced old G.B., even as it has expanded its own repertoire. If Shakespeare is less prominent on the stage, perhaps it is best to not fly him as the company banner, especially since conventional wisdom holds that many people find the works of the playwright to be difficult and off-putting, a perception aided by years of dull literature teachers in secondary schools. If your name is a misrepresentation or worse a deterrent, business sense dictates that you remove the obstruction; when I was executive director of The O’Neill Theater Center, I quickly moved to rework the company’s logo after multiple people told me stories about its caricature of Eugene being frequently mistaken for Hitler.

While these demotions of old Will are extremely prominent, he’s not about to disappear from the North American consciousness. His works are omnipresent thanks to their eternal brilliance, as well as the added bonus of their being in the public domain, free from royalties or restrictive heirs. Every summer, Shakespeare in the Parks blossom as far as the eye can see, not only in New York’s Central Park, especially his most arboreal works like A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It. And of course we need only look to England where his works, and tributes to it, are a perpetual Shakespearean festival of which they are justly proud.

But there’s no missing the fact that the companies perhaps most credited with popularizing and sustaining Shakespeare in North America in the latter half of the 20^th century have shrugged off their inspiration and their mascot, in the interest of sustaining themselves as centers of theatrical creativity. It’s hard to argue with that latter goal.  After all, when theatre is restricted, or beholden to a limited, outdated artistic palette, it atrophies and dies.

But for all the business sense it makes, I can’t help feeling a pang of loss as Shakespeare’s name gets excised. Once a befuddled high schooler, who came to love Shakespeare as I saw ever-better productions following a dire Julius Caesar in 9^th or 10^th grade, it seems a small but significant chip away at Bill’s rep in The New World. For the theatres, it’s crucial re-branding. For The Shakespeare Brand, it’s a crucial loss.

Another round to Sanjay. Fortunately, after 400 years, I think Shakespeare’s still ahead. For now.

[Update 11/2/12: This post has been updated to reflect that the Stratford Festival has now dropped Shakespeare from its name twice in its history, which was not clearly reflected in the initial press reports that prompted this post.]

A famous cover from the early days of The National Lampon — which did in fact sell magazines.

“Unless business improves,” potential audiences were told, “we will have to close.”  Let’s parse that for a moment, this phrase that has popped up in ads and press releases a couple of times lately.

“Unless business improves” means that business is lousy. A honest admission to be sure, but when used in connection with entertainment, it also can say, “No one is coming to our show.” And if no one is going to a show, isn’t that a self-perpetuating situation? After all, who wants to go to a show that no one is going to? There must be something wrong with it, or else people would be going.

“We will have to close” is a statement of simple fact, since in theatre, if no one is going, you can’t generate enough income to sustain the run by at least meeting your weekly operating expenses. This seems rather self evident, given the first half-of the phrase. It’s amazing that news stories actually carry this phrasing straight from the press release, since it’s not news.

Taken together, there’s a somewhat larger meaning, namely that if you (yes, I mean you) don’t do your part, some unnamed ‘we’ will suffer. The unnamed we, if you think about it with a sensitivity to the people who make theatre, can mean that actors, crew and house staff will be unemployed. No one likes putting people out of work. But the we can also refer to the people who make the decision to close, namely the show’s producer(s). Without meaning to imply anything, I suggest that there is probably more sympathy among the public for actors than producers.

But that’s what is being played on – our sympathy, or looked at another way, our guilt. This message says it’s up to us to keep the show in question going, and if the show closes, then its our fault. Now perhaps we already saw the show. Therefore, we’ve done our bit and can’t be reasonably expected to go again just to keep the show alive. Maybe we’ve always been curious to see the show, in which case we either have to get a move on, or come to the realization that we’re just not going to get there. Or maybe we were never interested in the first place, and this sort of please means we can start gloating early.

Guilt, in general, is not a good sales tool in the arts. Being forced to eat broccoli doesn’t make it taste any better, and guilt isn’t going to make us want to see a show we’ve chosen not to see.

There’s a new variant of this. “Final weeks? Book and keep the conversation going.” Again with the guilt. There’s hope, this ploy says, but only if you act now, to co-opt the words of a thousand infomercials. Coupled with an ongoing campaign in which this same show constantly tells us about the celebrities who’ve seen the show, we’re made to feel like we’re losing out and we’re the ones dropping the ball. We’re not cool.

I haven’t named specific shows because they’re hardly the first, although you may well know of the ones that have deployed this maneuver of late. It’s a tactic of longstanding, yet I’ve never even heard an apocryphal story about a show that pulled this particular arrow out of their quiver and provoked a change in fortune. Might they have managed an extra week or two? Perhaps. But I’m unfamiliar with a turnaround. (Yes, Dreamgirls ran for months while advertising “final weeks,” but at some point, that devolved into a claim that no one actually believed. As many know from raising children, threats are only effective if you’re prepared to follow through on them.) This is a tactic of last resort, used when you can’t think of anything new to say or show about your show in order to sustain flagging interest. It’s a creatively bankrupt marketing campaign and death knell all in one.

At this time of year, when Broadway and Off-Broadway shows are closing in the seasonal culling of the herd, most merely announce their final date and hope that those who have yet to attend, or those who wish to attend once again, will be motivated by finality, and do what they’re able to do. The productions march stolidly to their final day, sometimes building sales as the end draws nigh, sometimes finding they’re really already gone. But telling us it’s our fault, that we should, that we’ll miss out? To me, that’s like ordering me to eat my broccoli. And you know what? I never have.

Anton Chekhov

George Carlin

You needn’t be an English major to recognize that one of the words in my title is out of place. The second word is a verb, therefore unless theatrical texts have become anthropomorphized and begun getting it on with each other, the word is inappropriately used. You likely recognize that the word “fornicating” is a substitution for a common vulgarity, for which it is technically a synonym. Said vulgarity is fairly all-purpose, and is often used as a negative adjective. You will therefore accuse me of bowdlerizing my speech, perhaps to avoid offending some perceived notion of community or even professional standards. You would not be wrong. However, for the remainder of this post, I will abandon all euphemisms and employ, as appropriate, language from which I have heretofore abstained from in my internet and social media discourse. You are thusly warned. Those of delicate sensibilities may excuse themselves.

So…

This morning, Playbill wrote about Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s 2012-13 season of five plays, one of which is a world premiere adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull, by Aaron Posner, evocatively titled Stupid Fucking Bird. I know nothing about this particular version, but the title gives me the sense that it will perhaps be updated, and use a more colloquial patois than that usually associated with the master dramatist. Certainly anyone making a decision about whether to see the show will be unable to claim, should the language of the script echo that of the title, that they were caught unawares.

Of course, that decision-making may be impaired by media coverage announcing, featuring or reviewing that play because, in all likelihood, a number of media outlets will refrain from ever using the actual title. Some may drop the second word entirely, others may opt to print only “F——,” as if they’re fooling anyone. The theatre will face challenges in advertising the play, resorting to their own euphemisms if they desire to promote the work in compliance with the standards and practices of print and electronic media. On the other hand, they’ll likely get other coverage precisely because of this conundrum, though it will likely speak more of Carlin (George) and less of Chekhov (Anton).

This is hardly the first title to break the profanity barrier. English playwright Mark Ravenhill confronted us with Shopping and Fucking a number of years ago; Stephen Adly Guirgis confounded copy editors everywhere with The Motherfucker with the Hat just a couple of seasons back on Broadway. Dashes and asterisks got a workout with each of them, as did an entire range of smirks and jokes from on-air personalities. In some cases, advertising campaigns were altered midstream in a capitulation to public mores.

So-called profanity isn’t the only category of language that creates challenges for theatres and for those that cover it. The website address “cockfightplay.com” takes you to the current Off-Broadway hit Cock, since the title alone would apparently evoke undesirable connotations for some, the presence of a rooster silhouette notwithstanding. A number of years ago, a play by the late African-American writer John Henry Redwood, No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs, caused an uproar for the Philadelphia Theatre Company, which premiered it. We may be a country founded on free speech, but our ongoing inability to define pornography and obscenity creates a grey area; inflammatory words employed knowingly for artistic and cultural reasons are verboten.

Now I’m not advocating that every play (or musical) should begin using (and advertising) titles that may run afoul of prevailing sensibilities. But I’m also not one to deny any artist the right to express themselves as they see fit, although they should be aware of the possible consequences that may befall them and their work, no matter how much a producer or theatre company may seek to support them.  We’ve seen the phenomenon of ever more outrageous titles and topics being deployed in fringe festivals, but in that case it’s to help stand out from a mass of work and attract attention for brief runs in small venues. I don’t think Ravenhill, Posner, Redwood, or Cock’s Mike Bartlett were naïve in their title choices, they may have wished to shock, but I sort of doubt that marketing was their primary motivation.

Last night, on basic cable, the reboot of Dallas deployed “asshole” as an epithet, and I feel certain that I’ve heard it on various cop shows over the years. While Cock cannot be a title, “vagina” has become a ready punchline on network comedies, as has “penis”; perhaps it is the slang which makes it dirty? South Park, famously, had its characters say “shit” some 175 times in a single episode. I’m not talking about premium channels here; I’m talking about basic cable and broadcast. Frankly, often tuning in for The Daily Show a few minutes early every night, I can’t even believe some of what’s said on Comedy Central’s scripted series.

If we are not quite at a double standard, we are on a collision course when broadly accessible entertainment can be, to use a quaint old term, potty-mouthed, while the relatively narrow field of the arts are precluded from using the names they deem appropriate. Apparently, many fear unsuspecting 6-year-olds will stumble upon a newly profane New York Times Arts section, provoking uncomfortable conversations.  Once upon a time, theatre was allowed greater latitude than movies and TV in what could be said or portrayed; the tables are now almost completely turned. Surely if children can be warned nightly about the dangers of a four-hour erection, “shocking” titles for plays aren’t going to do much harm.

I contemplated titling this piece “On The Objectification of Theatre Artists,” but decided against it for two primary reasons. First, because it is not my graduate thesis, and second, because people might choose to approach it more seriously than it perhaps deserves.  I will say that I do not fundamentally support the idolization of men or women for their physical appearance, however as one who works in entertainment (with a particular background in marketing and public relations), I know that for all of the enlightenment our society has achieved over the years, we are still drawn in by attractiveness — it is both celebrated and idealized throughout the media. Lecture over.

Among the deluge of tweets, updates and posts I see every day, I have been amused, and at times startled, by the comments of two young women who communicate under the unified nom de plume of The Craptacular. They are avid theatergoers, but they express their enthusiasm most emphatically when they see what I can only refer to as “a hot guy”; they deploy much more colorful expressions, I assure you. I find their slang rhapsodizing over a variety of stage heartthrobs distinctive because, for the most part, what I see otherwise are die-hard fans debating the artistic skills of various performers, say comparing and contrasting various divas (including some long dead), rather than ever speaking of earthier appeals.  Save for the ad campaign for Chicago, which has long celebrated the forms and figures of the countless performers who have done that show, I rarely see Broadway, or any theatrical production, for that matter, relying on something that we have been told, ever since the Mad Men era, is a surefire marketing tool: sex.

This certainly contrasts with the movies, which in so many cases are all about appearance. For decades, people have become screen stars based first and foremost on their physical attributes. In film and television, the emphasis on attractiveness can be a curse (I should be so stricken): actors like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Michelle Pfeiffer and Angelina Jolie and many others have had to work extra-hard to prove that they are more than just pretty faces and bodies. But in the theatre, talent almost without fail comes first; attractiveness is sometimes the bonus. I generalize, of course, but you get the idea.

That’s why I think the women at The Craptacular are on to something (I so want to call them gals, but I’m walking on eggshells here). Maybe theatre shouldn’t be afraid of flaunting it now and again, especially if we genuinely seek to be part of the mainstream of entertainment and not relegated to the backwater known as “the arts.” The fact is, whether you are male or female, gay or straight, theatre is not just a feast for your mind and your ears, but for your eyes as well. In theatre, talent can make the unconventional unexpectedly attractive, just as it endows more conventional beauty with more depth than your average movie ingénue.

There have been a few occasions when theatre folks, usually because of their work in other mediums, have drifted into the range of media that emphasize physical appeal. I recall Kristin Chenoweth’s FHM appearance and Laura Benanti’s Playboy showcase in particular, because a) I know both women and b) I never believed I’d ever know women who appeared on the covers of those sorts of magazines.  I suspect theatre-centric actors have similarly graced female-oriented publications, but my gaze tends not to linger on that part of the newsstand; I leave it to you to recall examples that support me. Kristin and Laura may not have been chosen for these platforms primarily because of their remarkable skills as performers, but once they are put upon a pedestal, they reflect the spotlight back on the stage.

Jerry Mitchell tapped into the sex and Broadway link years ago when he created “Broadway Bares” for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS; he took an underused asset – the sexiness of so many performers – and put it to great use, raising money for an essential cause. It has become a tradition within the community; it’s frankly a shame that the annual extravaganza can’t last for more than a handful of shows and reach more of the general public, harking back to The Ziegfeld Follies, yet conceived for the age of Maxim. Certainly if Ben Brantley is to be believed, the runaway success of Hugh Jackman’s recent Broadway stand had less to do with the guy’s overwhelming talent and charm and more with his status as a figure in countless sexual fantasies.

I’m not proposing that theatre aspire to burlesque (even as that particular form of entertainment makes a comeback). All I’m suggesting is that in our relentless effort to court those attuned to higher aspirations of art and talent, we may be burying a valuable asset that was once unashamedly part of theatre’s fabric. Theatre is where the devil’s assistant Lola gets what she wants through “feminine wiles”, where Adelaide endlessly fronts a girlie show until she can settle down into domestic bliss, where Gypsy emerges from the chrysalis of Louise Hovick – and where the women who play those roles become stars. As I ponder this, I regret that the male characters who are physical ideals are all comic figures, villains or both: Miles Gloriosus, Gaston, even Kodaly. What’s up with that? Maybe some form of envy by their creators?

Sex sells, sexiness sells, beauty sells and theatre’s got all of that. Just as Las Vegas learned a lesson when it tried to rebrand itself as a family friendly destination, maybe theatre, and Broadway in particular, needs a makeover, needs to rough up its image, needs more leather and lace — just like Sandy at the end of the movie Grease.

I have opined in the past about the dark arts of theatrical billing, marketing and publicity in such posts as This Blog is Prior to Broadway and Blurb. Now, as the holidays approach, I have decided to give you a special gift.

You no longer need to try to parse that brochure, that post card, that press item as just another member of the uninformed masses. No, you can read between the lines by converting shopworn phrases that fill ads, direct mail and online solicitations by using this handy-dandy list, which will surely have me drummed out of the American Academy of Arts Euphemists, a secret society of which you will find no other evidence (we’re that good). Read and learn.

1. Comedy = it’s funny, or intends to be.

2.  Drama = it’s not funny, or doesn’t intend to be.

3. Comedy-drama = there are laughs, but it’s serious minded.

4.  Dark comedy = there are laughs, but it’s really sort of creepy.

5. Black comedy = a) it’s funny, but you wouldn’t bring your mother, or b) it’s really not funny, but we don’t want to admit that and call it a drama.

6.  “It’s about the human condition” = a) we don’t understand it at all, or b) if we told you what it’s actually about, you wouldn’t come.

7.  Play with music = there may be a few songs, but don’t get too excited or expect a cast album.

8.  Musical = it has a bunch of songs and dance.

9.  Musical drama = it has songs, but it’s serious and there’s probably not much dancing.

10.  Music theatre = it’s serious, likely has no hummable tunes, and has movement.

11.  Movement = there’s sort of some dance-like stuff, but don’t expect a production number. (See also, “subliminal choreography,” coined by Ben Brantley in New York Times review of Once.)

12.  Annual tradition = it pays the bills.

13. New version of our annual tradition, A Christmas Carol = a) the royalties on this script are lower than the old one or, b) our artistic director didn’t see why the theatre has to pay someone else royalties for an edit of a public domain novel.

14.  New holiday favorite = a) we’re tired of doing A Christmas Carol but we have to pay the bills so you’re getting this instead, or b) why did Dickens have to use so many characters? This has just one elf. (See also, “One-man Christmas Carol.”)(See also “One-man Christmas Carol adapted and directed by our artistic director.”) (See also, “One-man Christmas Carol adapted by, directed by and featuring our artistic director.”

15.  Crowd-pleasing = the critics won’t or don’t like it. (See also, “281 shows. 281 standing ovations.”)

16.  Heart-warming = tear-jerking.

17.  Brechtian = not heart-warming.

18.  Classic of world literature = a) you should like this because smarter people than you say it’s good, and/or b) didn’t you read this in school?

19.  Rediscovered gem = no one has produced this in decades, maybe centuries, and you never read it in school.

20.  “In the tradition of…” = it’s reminiscent of these other plays that were hits, but isn’t as good as them.

21.  Updated = standard script of a well-known classic lightly sprinkled with jarring references to the Geico gecko, Twitter, and current political candidates, with no one credited for said emendations.

22.  Hip = we dare you to say you don’t understand and/or like it.

23.  Current = people swear.

24. Daring = people swear a lot.

25.  “In the tradition of David Mamet” = people swear constantly.

26.  Family friendly = no one swears.

27.  Family drama = everyone harbors resentments which emerge during birthday/holiday/vacation.

28.  Regional premiere = it’s been done in many other theatres, just not in the immediate area, which may only be a 60 mile radius of the theatre.

29.  Broadway premiere = it’s been done almost everywhere, possibly for years, just not in a Broadway-designated theatre.

30.  New York hit = it was produced somewhere in Manhattan.

31.  New York actor = they live in New York, but aren’t very well-known there.

32.  Broadway actor = they were once in a Broadway show.

33.  Newcomer = just graduated.

34.  Broadway star = terrific actor, but not necessarily a household name or guaranteed box office draw.

35.  Film and/or TV star = may or may not have stage skills or even experience, but everyone knows who they are and wants to see them in the flesh.

36.  Produced in association with [commercial producer] = they gave us a lot of money.

37.  Suggested by Shakespeare’s _____________ = this ain’t Shakespeare. Purists likely to be miserable.

38.  Translated by = this person actually speaks the language used in the original script.

39.  Adapted by = a) this person doesn’t speak the original language in which the play was written or b) this person had made some tweaks to original play, but it’s still pretty much the play you remember.

40.  Freely adapted = you may have trouble recognizing the original play, often because it is now hip or daring.

41.  With a new book = we’ve kept the score, but a) have made significant changes to the story, including removing all of the casual racism that was common in musicals from the 20s and 30s, and b) convinced the family of the original bookwriter that their parent’s work really wasn’t any good and stood in the way of the score ever being heard on stage again.

42.  Two-piano orchestration = You think we can afford all of these actors and an orchestra? Just be happy you’re getting a musical you’ve heard of.

43.  Chamber musical = One piano, maybe a violin, and you’ve never heard of the show. Might be music theater.

44.  Concert-style presentation of a play = scripts on music stands and no one has memorized it, but you’re still paying full price. Cast may be dressed formally, despite actual setting of the piece.

45.  Originally conceived by = if not named in any other credit, this person had an idea but didn’t actually create any part of what’s on stage, is no longer speaking to anyone with billing and may be bringing, or has already brought, legal action (see also: “based on an idea by”).

46.  $30 under 30 = a discount predicated upon our average audience member’s age being at least twice this number.

47.  “__________.com raves” = no print, TV or radio critic liked it.

48.  Limited seating available = we’re selling pretty well, but not so well that we can afford to stop advertising.

49.  Final weeks = a) non-profit meaning: it was always a limited run, but we’ve got lots of tickets left to sell so please buy them, or b) commercial meaning: if you don’t start buying tickets soon, these will be our final weeks.

50.  Extended by popular demand = a) we left extra space in the production schedule because we thought you’d like this one, and b) this is going to help us close our projected deficit for the season.

Have you been bamboozled by, or guilty of obfuscating through, promotional euphemisms? I hope you’ll share other examples below, for the sake of theatergoing humanity.