Show business blues

I’ve recently un-retired, taking on work for the theatre producer I was with before I formally retired last year. My task is to research venues for a particular show, and send out show details. The hours spent on websites have revealed an industry in flux. Venues closed or closing, rebranded, renamed, renovating. Names disappear from one venue and pop up in another in a different role. Names of roles change. Community Outreach is Creative Engagement. CEOs have added Artistic Director to their title. One change that has been spreading is now endemic: it’s harder than ever to get through the door. Of approximately 100 emails sent, only 4 or 5 received replies from a human being.

I’ve been ‘in the business’ a long, LONG time. When I started in Box Office at London’s Criterion Theatre, top price tickets were £1.80. I remember the conversation as it inched towards £2.00 – that shows were in danger of pricing themselves out of an audience.

Well, apparently not. The last time I saw a West End show (The Book of Mormon), my ticket cost well over £100, and the theatre was packed.

Back in day, with those who worked behind the scenes in a theatre, there was camaraderie between strangers. Hours sometimes left us free for an afternoon, and we phoned up another box office to ask whether they might let us slip in for a matinee. Often the answer was yes. A perk, but one that came with benefits for the industry – we learned the theatre landscape, and what worked or didn’t on stage, and became self-appointed guides when asked to recommend shows. Immersed in the creativity of others, we became proud of the accomplishments of our industry, and glad to be a part of it, no matter how small a cog we ourselves were.

Those days are gone. Frequently, staff now are prohibited from taking an empty seat for a show even in their own theatre. What remains to move their hearts? What makes them care so deeply about what’s on stage that they are willing to show up for work as the rest of us down tools and are readying for entertainment? Often, these staff have put hours in during the day too, and often they work into the night after audience and performers have left the building.

My efforts to tell programmers about a show we thought would be perfect for their venue received an avalanche of automated replies. Some came with instructions for re-sending details in particular formats. The hours that had gone into putting together an attractive promotional package were not of interest. Send us a one-page Word document instead, with these five headings – in short, put in another hour’s work, just for us.

Some automated replies go on about the venue’s creative vision and programming process, and lauding the venue’s excellence, explaining it, as if a producer might never have heard of the venue and needed educating.

‘Open’ and ‘accessible’ seem to apply more to a venue’s attitude to audiences than to producers. Even with venues where I know the programmer, and with whom in the past I’ve had friendly communications, the return message is an automated ‘I’ll get back to you when I can’.

I have to believe this is of benefit to venues – a time-saver, sorting wheat from the chaff, etc. etc. But saving time comes at the expense of a communal sense of belonging, of shared camaraderie among strangers, of shared excitement at working in an industry that stimulates such so much creativity, non-stop, a flowing, never-ending stream of talent.

Daily, we come across industries building barriers to communication. The chatbots who don’t understand our question. The long waits to speak to a human in Customer Service. The appointment that can only be made online.

It’s the way of the 21^st century, but I can’t help but be sad that theatre has added itself to the list.