The Christian Science Monitor offers a short article on Broadway’s attempt to woo the next generation of theater goers. Not surprisingly, the tactics include deep discounts, hip marketing (temporary tattoos, anyone?), and an emphasis on family-friendly content. Says the article:
”The movement is more toward producing material that will appeal to a wider age range,” says Margo Lion, a ”Hairspray” producer whose next project is a stage version of ”The Wedding Singer.” ”Our job is to make sure that this population is exposed as much as we can to the experience of going to the theater.”….When they do produce works with ideas that appeal to hip audiences, sometimes the problem is in the marketing. Broadway, for example, is still ”antediluvian” when it comes to getting the word out, but it is utilizing the Internet more, Ms. Lion says. Still, the 20-something crowd isn’t always getting the message from theaters in general, particularly in New York.
Of course, you could also argue that a vital approach to engaging younger people in theater would be to actually engage them. Fluffier and safer theater may just serve to make the experience that much more irrelevant to their lives. These kids are perhaps the most visually sophisticated generation to ever walk this earth. Instead of staying on the shallow end, perhaps we could plumb the depths of what that means for them.
(NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: any time you need to put a real word in quotes — like ‘antediluvian’ — it’s time to put down the thesaurus. You don’t want to scare off the young folks.)
