How many times have you spent precious months finding a great venue, assembling a competent crew, director, and cast, rehearsing your show, drawing up expensive posters/flyers, blasting announcements on social & traditional media just to play to nearly empty houses each night? If you’re in independent blackbox theatre, this unfortunate scenario plays more often than not.
As we all should know, *promotion* is just as important piece of an overall production as any other. However, I’ve commiserated with my fellow producers over many heavy drinks and cheesecakes at the local restaurant as to just how badly people forget this when they’re part of a show.
I started asking myself, “What reasons would someone have to *NOT* promote their show?” I promote absolutely everything I’m a part of. Perhaps it a lack of shame, pride, or self-respect, but my philosophy is “why be a part of something that showcases my talents just to not let anyone know I’m actually doing so?”
Here are five reasons given to me by multiple sources obtained in a very non-scientific way – crowd-sourcing:
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- “The show’s not very good.”
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- “I’m in a bunch of shows at the moment.”
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- “That’s not my job.”
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- “I’ve only got a small part in the show.”
- “I don’t know how.”
…and here’s my response to each one of them. Let’s go!
This by far is the most common reason I’ve come across (especially amongst actors). It’s difficult to pinpoint just what makes a show “bad”. Perhaps the material isn’t that strong or the director’s difficult to work with or the actor feels the set is subpar and cheap; there are a million reasons as to why a production may not be very good – so – why add to that?
Here’s what I mean.
If you’re in a show that isn’t very good, there are probably others in the production that may feel the same way. Sitting on your heels lamenting its inadequacies isn’t going to make the production any better. You not feeling it’s a good production isn’t going to magically go away especially when *NOBODY* shows up to your show due to your disengagement.
Be a part of the solution. Go up the chain of command and begin making your concerns known. Be constructive. Don’t just list out everything wrong with the show and not have solutions for them. I believe throwing stones at your glass house of a production is only going to send very sharp shards back your way. Be ready to commit yourself to having a successful production not only for that run but for yourself. Those in charge should also be ready to welcome anyone willing to help things better for everyone involved. Make the show better by *being a part of the solution* to make it better.
At this point, you should have no reason to not promote the show. If you’re spending time, money, and energy to be part of an artistic showcase, give yourself a reason to want to make the experience worthwhile to share with the world. Otherwise, you should be honest with yourself, quit immediately, and stop wasting everyone’s time for something your heart’s not into.
There are so many things wrong with this excuse so I apologize if I go a bit on a tangential rant as a take another antacid to soothe my Producer’s Ulcer. This excuse is normally followed up by a variation of “I don’t want my people to get exhausted by seeing so many of my shows and then end up coming to none of them.” What this really means is:
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- “This show is not as important as the other shows I’m in. It’s not worth my time to promote it.”
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- “I’m over-committed and, thus, me promoting the show is too much to be asked for.”
- “I really like to doing dress rehearsals a lot for empty houses. Promoting the show would negate that part of theatre life I enjoy!”
B*TCH!!! IT IS YOUR JOB!
You are part of a unit. You can’t be JUST the stage manager or JUST the director or JUST an actor. If you don’t do it for the greater good of the production, then do it for yourself – because when you actually engage, you’re really always doing it for yourself.
The cliche of “There are no small parts, only small actors” rings true when I hear this. What you’re really saying is “Unless I have a significant role to play in the show, the show itself is not good enough to see on its own merit; so, therefore, I’m not going to waste time on promoting this.”
As most actors should know, even if you have a not-so-featured role in a show, you should try to *ROCK* that part to the fullest. By doing so, sometimes it’s the best, most memorable part of a show! And if you don’t promote the show and people don’t see it, how can you capitalize off it?!!
Don’t miss out on an opportunity to showcase those 3 lines of dialogue. Feel free to add a disclaimer about your involvement in the show to those friends and family you do invite to the show. When marketing to a great audience, no need for disclaimers. Get the butts in the seats so that when you make your cameo entrance, a lot of eyeballs saw that!
You know how to operate a web browser, phone, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, bulletin boards, and the local water cooler but cannot fashion a method to tell anyone about your show?! C’mon…
OK. Let’s say you truly don’t know how to promote a show. Take it upon yourself to ask others how to do so (you’re reading this blog, right?) and begin executing your plan of promotion. If you just give this excuse and have no follow through, it comes off unprofessional and disingenuous to others. Step your promo game up!