Mike Lew - Playwright
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Six Actionable Steps for the Theater #5: Specialized Co-Pros

4/24/2013

1 Comment

 
Recently there's been a lot of movement towards co-productions, mostly between two smaller-sized companies. But a place where co-productions might be particularly effective is between large institutional theaters and theaters that serve a specialized audience. In NYC I'm thinking particularly of what would happen if theaters like The Public or Second Stage paired up with theaters like Ma-Yi or New Georges, under either a co-producer or associate producer arrangement.

At first it seems like the benefits of such an arrangement would be all on the small theater's side: increased resources, increased visibility, the ability to take on stories of larger scope and to reach a larger audience. But the benefits to the larger theater are palpable too: an influx of new audience members, increased artist diversity, and more efficient use of the space (since theaters that own a building don't always fill it).

But perhaps the greatest benefit to the big theater would be the expertise that the small theater brings to serving their particular audience. Increasingly I find that when big theaters try to do plays that are set in a specific cultural milieu they fall flat on their face and end up having to do big mea culpa talkbacks and apologetic press releases. This kind of arrangement might help avoid that.

These partnerships will take a lot of ego suppression and some flexibility in adapting to each other's working methods. And they can't just be financial in nature (i.e., "Yeah we'll do your whatever show; just give us $150,000.") But the long term goal here is audience development. On both sides of the equation, if theaters keep going to the same pool of subscribers year in and year out, we're not (pardon the expression) diversifying our holdings. Which is bad for the long-term viability of this art form.

Institutions large and small can therefore benefit from sharing resources and expertise (and , and in the process broaden the art we present and the people who see it.
1 Comment
Chad Beckim
4/24/2013 04:43:10 am

Great idea, and one that we've considered (we consider ourselves a small company, while our proposed co-pro partnerships were with mid-sized theaters) BUT in our few attempts to make something like this happen, realized that:
a) Most of the risk and little of the reward would come our way, meaning if we staged a play under the model proposed to us received positive reviews, we'd be largely forgotten about in the press; on the flip side, if the co-pro got negative reviews, guess who's name goes in the top billing? (know it sounds nuts, but I've seen it happen to other small companies more than once.)
b) Most of the arrangements we've heard of, sadly, fall under your, "Yeah this sounds great just give us $150,000...AND your entire email list and mailing list."
c) We attempted to share audiences with a larger sized company before and never really received similar consideration. Which really sucked.

Again, I'm speaking from a very small sample size, so perhaps others have glowing reports on their experiences. I just know that our experiences and the accounts of other companies of our ilk in our community scared us off and left a bad taste in our mouth.

But I would LOVE to hear some success stories, as I'm sure they're out there!

Finally...I look forward to your future thoughts on this, as I've come to witness (and sadly, believe) that the model is largely dysfunctional and/or altogether broken.

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