The chapter is all about public outreach--the ways in which a theatre company engages with the public outside of the normal audience/storyteller relationship. There's a lot that goes into keeping a theatre
afloat, and a big part of that is building and maintaining relationships with the community, as some of you
learned while doing your personnel paper research.
For your chapter response this week, I want you to look at the marketing Theatre Exile, a local theatre company, did for their recent production of On the Exhale (Links to an external site.), a show you are now familiar with. Once you're done your research, do a one-page profile/summary of the work that theatre did to
promote the show when they offered it. When working on this summary, look for:
• Information on the theatre's website.
o Not just info about the show, but info about the groups the theatre partnered with if the theatre did partner with someone. For example, the chapter mentions a show once that involved dogs, so the theatre partnered with a local shelter, giving both the theatre and the shelter higher visibility. Did Exile have any similar partnerships?
• Press releases from the theatre.
• The theatre's social media -- Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
• Ads the theatre ran in newspapers or on blogs.
• Videos the theatre posted to YouTube or similar.
Once you've found this or similar information, determine who the theatre's audience is and whether or not their marketing materials are a good fit for that audience.
(When I say audience, I mean demographics. Does the theatre seem to cater specifically to older people from the suburbs? Does it cater to young people from the city? Does it cater to both, or neither, or something different? Theatre marketing materials never come out and plainly say who their audience is.
You'll have to take a guess based on all of the material you'll be looking through.)
To summarize, you have two tasks: research Exile's outreach around On the Exhale and then determine whether or not that marketing is a good fit for whoever you perceive to be Exile's primary audience.
Google will be your friend for this assignment. Press releases, social media posts, etc., are all out there to be found, so long as you search.
Sample Solution