What’s (still) wrong with crowdfunding for indie theatre?

by Phil RickabyArts, Crowdfunding, TheatrePosted on No Comments

Years ago I wrote a blog post a pet peeve I had where crowdfunding campaigns for theatre projects are concerned, and how a lot of theatre crowdfunding campaigns entirely miss the mark when it comes to creating successful campaigns. Sadly very little has changed.

The issue is this: most crowdfunding campaigns for theatre do a terrible job at generating excitement. A crowdfunding campaign is a way to generate buzz for your project, but one of the most important tools a successful campaign had in actually raising funds are clever and well planned perks for backers. Perks are incentives for people to back the project, and as such should be attractive to a potential backer. When I have backed campaigns in the past, it has been primarily because I wanted one of the perks on offer. It was the perk, that drew me to the project, and encouraged me to back it. And I am not alone.

And yet, most theatre crowdfunding campaigns have a perk structure that goes something like this:

$10: Social Media shout out
$40: Thanks on our website
$75: Thanks in our program
$100: A letter of thanks, signed by the cast.
$125: A ticket to the show.

I see this pretty frequently. Even after eight years. So why is this ineffective?

Well, looking at the perks above, which of these do you feel you really want? My answer, is none. None of these makes me want them, there’s nothing here to want. And the problem with this is that without perks that someone would want, is that the only people who are going to back your campaign are people in your network. With these perks you will never be able to get your campaign to people outside of your personal network. You are essentially just asking your friends for money. And if you are doing this, why are you even bothering to run a crowdfunding campaign?

A successful crowdfunding campaign needs perks that are smart and relate to the show in some way. Offering thanks for any perks isn’t much of a perk, but if you need to do it, then put all the “thanks” into one perk. Don’t spread them over several perks, because none of those is a draw. A better way to go would be to thank all of your backers anyway. Better perks would be some custom merch, perhaps something exclusive to the campaigns. Stickers, buttons, t-shirts. Maybe there’s a prop that is iconic in the show? Have a replica available for higher levels. There are so many things that could be done that are better than the ones above. It just takes a bit of imagination.

So why do so many theatre crowdfunding campaigns do this? I think it happens because not enough consideration is given to these campaigns, and don’t seem to see that to have a successful campaign takes at least as much planning as their show itself. This leads to half assed campaign perks, and while it may be possible to meet your goal with this, since you are essentially getting funding from your friends and family, you will be limited in any future attempts at crowdfunding.

Theatre artists are creative people. It should be possible to have campaigns that are better than the usual. And we should not be seeing these same lazy campaigns after all this time.

Where is the “popcorn” theatre?

by Phil RickabyArts, TheatrePosted on One Comment

There are a basically two kinds of movies: there’s serious film, and there’s the popcorn movie. Serious films get critical acclaim, film festival attention, award nominations, and are beloved by film buffs. People who aren’t film buffs tend to think that they should see those movies, but don’t as often as they think they should. Popcorn movies don’t get the same kind of attention; the don’t become critical darlings, they are rarely featured at film festivals, and when awards season rolls around, they might be a special effects nomination, but they are seldom up for consideration in any of the “serious categories.” And while they are often disdained by film buffs, the general public is more likely to see these types of movies, and happily pay the ticket price to see the movie, sometimes more than once.

In Canadian theatre we have something similar: we have serious plays; important plays that are produced by most of the mid to large theatre companies (Theatre Passe Muraille, Factory Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, etc). These are plays that have important things to say, and people who go to see those plays are people who describe themselves as theatre goers. These are plays that people who aren’t regular theatre goers might feel like they should go to see, but they don’t for a lot of reasons: maybe they are afraid they are going to be preached at, or its too heavy, or just too expensive to risk going to something they aren’t even sure that they will like. So they just don’t.

What we don’t have at that level is popcorn theatre. Something fun, something in a particular genre, that doesn’t wear its message on its sleeve and doesn’t scream this is important theatre. The kind of thing that draws in those audiences that aren’t regular theatre goers, and gives them a good night out. It might make them think, but it won’t hit them over the head. They came to the theatre to be entertained, and they were.

In Toronto, Mirvish Productions fills that role, presenting musicals and plays that appeal to the masses. But those are expensive tickets, and a lot of people can only afford to go to the one show that really appeals to them, and even then maybe only once every couple of years (perhaps the fact that those are the plays that the mass audience is most likely to see gives rise to the opinion that theatre is an expensive prospect, but that’s a thought for another time).

There are some smaller theatre companies that do this kind of work: present shows that appeal to a mass audience, but they don’t have the budget that those mid to large theatre’s do to be able to advertise and get noticed by a larger audience. 

Once could also argue that there’s plenty of popcorn theatre available at fringe festivals, where the lottery system allows voices that might not be heard at one of the established theatres to be seen.

But outside of Mirvish (and perhaps you could say that the Stratford Festival offers some popcorn theatre in its season as well), there aren’t a lot of opportunities for an audience to see these kinds of plays. 

In the UK and the US, there’s more variety in the types of theatre that’s on offer. The Broadway and the West End scenes offer the kind of popcorn theatre I’m talking about, as well as more serious fare. There’s high art, and low art, and everything in between.

I think there are a few reasons why the more “frivolous” popcorn plays are rare in the Canadian theatre scene:

  • The number of stages. In the US and the UK there are more stages, allowing for more types of plays on those stages. In Canada, there are a comparatively limited number of stages on which to present plays.
  • Grant centric funding. In the UK and the US there is a combination of not-for-profit, grant funded theatres, as well as for-profit theatres. In Canada, there are very few theatres that surivive without grants, and a grant funded theatre tends to produce theatre to fit within what the granting bodies (or at least the adjudicators) want to see. 
  • There may also be a certain amount of preciousness in the theatre. Oh sure, that’s fine for movies, but the theatre is above all that.

I’m not saying that we need to get rid of theatre that says something in favour of empty tripe. Just that we should have more of a balance. We can’t keep complaining that our audiences are disappearing, and yet keep producing plays that the masses don’t want to see. There should be room for serious plays, and raucous comedies, and weird genre plays in a season.

So how do we get there? We can’t magically increase the number of stages that we have. Unless some new form of funding magically opens up that allows more theatre companies to open theatre spaces, the number of stages isn’t going to greatly increase any time soon. Which means that a change needs to happen some place else. It means that companies would need to seek out plays that might seem more frivolous. If granting bodies discourage popcorn theatre, then IMO that needs to change.

Ultimately, for a healthy theatrical future we need theatre that appeals to different audiences: the frivolous and the serious.

I started thinking about this in the midst of the SAG-AFTRA/WGA strikes, when my girlfriend Melanie asked me if I thought that if AI started being used to crank out empty scripts, and doing so caused a dwindling of the attention movies and TV receive, would theatre see a resurgence? And I have been thinking of that since. I think the answer is yes, but not in its current form. Not until theatre gives audiences both the popcorn and the serious. Both, just like the movies.

I struggled to call myself an artist for a long time, and even now I still have to work at it

by Phil RickabyArts, TheatrePosted on One Comment

Identity is a strange thing. For many years in my life, although I was a writer in my spare time and a performer whenever I could find a project, whenever someone would ask what I did, I would describe my day job. Because I felt that since I didn’t wrote or perform full time, that I could not use those titles to describe myself. That I wasn’t enough of an artist to describe myself as one. I no longer feel that way, but getting here was a long journey.

I still feel like an imposter, though. While I write and perform as much as I can, I don’t perform as often as I would like. I have been at the mercy of Fringe lotteries for a long time, which does limit how often I can perform, since those lotteries have seldom been in my favour. So while I have plays that have been written, it’s rare that they get performed. There are grants that I can apply for, but there are certain grants that I feel guilty applying for because I feel like those grants should go to people who need them for subsistence. Writing grants especially. But I do feel like grants are necessary to be taken seriously. But I come back to feeling guilty about taking a grant.

So I wonder if it is possible to be taken seriously as a theatre artist in Canada while working a day job. Is it possible to be taken seriously as a theatre artist without grants?

I guess the real issue is that I am coming to a point when I want to be creating more. It’s an unreliable way to perform, and I am getting too old to wait for the opportunity to put my work out. As the saying goes, I don’t want to leave my music unsung, my stories untold.

I need to find ways to make it happen, to put my work on stage. And I need to find ways to make that happen as much as often as I can. And I need to find ways to do that. I need to figure out if my assumptions about grants have been wrong. Or are there other ways to fund the art?

And I need to figure it out. I have so much to share.

Macbeth: the pro wrestling pay per view match

by Phil RickabyShakespeare, TheatrePosted on No Comments

Quite a few years ago, I went through a phase where I was really into pro wrestling. I was fascinated by the audience manipulation, the spectacle, the way a show seemed like random matches, but somehow managed to culminate in something that tied it all together. And let’s face it, while wrestling had long since given up  pretending it was real,  you had to admit that there was some real athleticism there! I wasn’t obsessed, but for a while I watched a lot of it. 

At the around the same time, I was working on a production of Macbeth, and it was maybe my 3rd time doing that particular Shakespeare play, and that gave me a lot of familiarity with the text, and it was in the after one performance, that I suddenly made a connection. What if you staged Macbeth as a wrestling pay-per-view?

And the more I thought about it, the more it worked.

Because in a wrestling event, you have this format, where someone gets up and monologues, and then someone else comes in and they might say something in response, and then they fight. And surprisingly, that works really well with the text of Macbeth.

I mean, you have this section near the end:


MACBETH
They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,
But, bear-like, I must fight the course. What’s he
That was not born of woman? Such a one
Am I to fear, or none.

Enter YOUNG SIWARD

YOUNG SIWARD
What is thy name?

MACBETH
Thou’lt be afraid to hear it.

YOUNG SIWARD
No; though thou call’st thyself a hotter name
Than any is in hell.

MACBETH
My name’s Macbeth.

YOUNG SIWARD
The devil himself could not pronounce a title
More hateful to mine ear.

MACBETH
No, nor more fearful.

YOUNG SIWARD
Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword
I’ll prove the lie thou speak’st.

Now take whatever image you have of a Shakespeare staging that you have in your mind and toss it away. And replace it with a wrestling ring, lights, pyrotechnics, and guitar driven music, and two guys with microphones. Macbeth is in the ring. The audience is booing him. Young Siward enters (with theme music and pyrotechnics) but he stays near the entrance, at the top of the ramp down to the ring. They have their back and forth, and at the end with his with my sword I’ll prove the lie thou speak’st he runs down the ramp, launches himself into the ring and fights with Macbeth, who defeats him handily, and awaits the next match.

This was the first moment where the wrestling idea occurred to me. But it worked with many other moments, both later (like the final face off between Macbeth and Macduff) or earlier (the Lady Macduff/Murderers scene). And in true wrestling pay-per-view traditon, some scenes would take place backstage, projected onto the jumbotron, with the crowd cheering or booing. It wasn’t hight art, and it was kinda dumb, but it was fun to consider this strange staging.

I was reminded of this old idea hearing about the Pro Wrestlng Rock Musical The Last Match. It turned out, I wasn’t the only one who had considered the merging of theatre and wrestling.

Of course, my idea couldn’t be done. Not really. Its too expensive, with the lights and pyro, and music and ring and arena. And while it is a fun “thought production” its not one that I am really jazzed about  pursuing. But I was really thrilled by the idea of taking Shakespeare out of the theatre, and making it an immersive experience. 

The real immersive Shakespeare experience that I have been mulling over for a few years? I’ll keep that one to myself for now, because that one I really want to make happen.

Canadian Star System

by Phil RickabyTheatrePosted on No Comments

This essay first appeared on the March 1 episode of Stageworthy Podcast.

Have you noticed that we don’t have stars in Canada? Now I don’t mean those people that we all know the names of who’ve gone to the U S or to England to become famous, but we still claim them as our own. No, I mean, we don’t have any home grown and fostered theater stars. By that. I mean, we don’t have names that are a draw. We don’t have actors whose names can go on a poster. And just by being there become a draw in other countries, like in the U S and in the UK, an actor’s name can work as a draw, but in Canada, That’s such a rare thing. And sometimes we don’t even see any actors names on a poster.

Now, a cynical person would think that maybe this is a tactical decision on the part of the producers, because weighing the value of a star. They have to think that perhaps it’s better to pay actors less than to have actors whose name have recognition because a star can make demands. A star has power.

So perhaps the wisdom is to ensure that we have no stars, no names that can be a draw so that we keep everyone just thankful to be working so that no one questions how much they’re paid. And that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. We’ve seen the death of theater, journalism, and arts journalism as a whole, as the media landscape shrinks.

And it becomes harder for theater companies to get media attention, then promoting the actors in the show and pushing them to any media that still pays attention to the theater would not only be a way to keep audiences coming, but an investment in the future because an actor with name recognition is a draw a way to sell tickets.

But of course you can’t do that if you have no recognizable actors and I’m not talking about actors whose names are recognizable within the theater community, we have lots of those. Those names might be well-respected, but they don’t necessarily sell tickets. I’m talking about names that can be recognizable to the general public.

But we can’t have that. If an actor is largely unnamed from show to show, I can’t think of a Canadian theater actor who could star in a play whose name would make the general public want to purchase tickets. Occasionally in the past, there have been productions of shows that have brought in an actor who was legitimately famous.

For example, there was the famous – or was it infamous – production of Hamlet that started Keanu Reeves. And it’s obvious that this was stunt casting and attempt to bring in a movie star to sell tickets. But why does something like that happened with a movie star who I’m sure was paid a lot of money, but there’s no chance of that with a Canadian theater actor who isn’t already a movie star.

The movie star is allowed to be an above the title draw but what other Canadian actor can boast the same? Is the problem the lack of entertainment coverage in Canada? As a member of the media, I am regularly sent press releases for shows, and those press releases always list both the cast and creative team.

Now I’m a weekly podcast with a modest reach, and I try to interview as many people as possible, but I can only get to so many, but with a daily paper, with a large reach, you would get so many more press releases than I do. And often the ones that stand out are the ones with a PR person that the reporter knows.

And in those cases, the PR or public relations person is going to try and get some kind of write-up for the production. And maybe this might’ve been easier years ago when there was more coverage, but there are so few publications doing regular theater coverage. It seems nearly impossible now. So maybe the death of arts coverage is part of the problem, but that isn’t all of it because the problem has existed for longer than the recent deterioration of the media landscape, because we haven’t ever really had theater stars in Canada.

And I know that while there might be good things about a star system, there’s also plenty of bad. Isn’t it? Nice to think that all the actors get this same, that there’s an egalitarianism to being a working actor in Canada, but that’s not quite true because if I have the lead in a show, I do get paid a little more, but I’m not a star. Not really not like in other places.

Of course, anyone who’s spent any time paying attention to the entertainment industry in Canada knows that we don’t have stars. And we don’t really consider anyone a star until they’ve had success elsewhere. And for a while, I thought that was just a part of being Canadian, but on reflection, I don’t think it is.

Maybe it’s more about the entertainment media that we do have spending more time talking about American artists than it does our own home grown talent. Maybe that combined with producers who want actors to just be thankful to be working, keeps the Canadian artists small. But I think that we deserve better.

We deserve to have homegrown talent that stays here and becomes a household name. Canadians need to see themselves on their stages. And that includes seeing Canadian names above the title and celebrated for being a Canadian artist who stayed in Canada rather than leaving for the U S.