There is an element of live theatre that is a business, just like any other. So you might think that theatres must compete with each other for audiences, that there must be winners and losers.
I reject this idea, and not just because I’m having a warm and fuzzy “Kum-by-ah” moment. For starters, I believe that if someone has a good experience at a live stage theatre, it raises their opinion of all live stage theatre. We all benefit, in other words, when we do good work. A satisfied patron is much more likely to see another show because of their positive experience.
Let’s say, however, you don’t buy into my “float all boats” theory. Fair enough. There is a more fundamental reason I reject the notion of competition. Before we as theatres start fighting over pieces of the pie, we need to ask ourselves if the pie is as big as it is capable of being. Is the pool of theatre-goers in the DFW area as large as it can get? I think the answer is clearly “no”. So let’s spend our marketing dollars getting more people comfortable with the idea of an evening at the theatre, ANY theatre. Let’s make it just as viable an option as going to see a movie or a concert.
The history of Pegasus Theatre is rife with examples where we and other theatres have shown our commitment to collaboration. We share costumes, props, set pieces. We share contact information for actors, designers, and crew. But sometimes we get even more organized and we accomplish greater things! Two such examples are Chimera and the Dallas Theatre League.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Pegasus Theatre was a founding member of a group of small theatres collectively called Chimera. (This was not the first effort to organize DFW theatres, just the first one we were involved with.) We had many grand plans, not all of which saw the light of day. But we shared mailing lists so we could do joint marketing. You see, back then, we were limited to the types of marketing techniques that we could implement, so it only saw fit that we used mailing lists to spread the word. These days, you can use White Label SEO Optimization with places like Victorious, as well as updating your website to make it more user-friendly, and even using digital marketing through the likes of social media. The options were limited, so it only made sense that we came together to do joint marketing until our situations improved. And we produced a festival of short plays designed to introduce our audiences to all of the theatres in Chimera. More importantly, we provided another example that theatres could look beyond their own self-interest for a greater good.
So it wasn’t surprising that after a few years, other theatres expressed an interest in collaboration. It was so many theatres, in fact, that we jointly started a new organization called the Dallas Theatre League. I was elected president for the first six years, and with the help of a passionately devoted group of like-minded theatre people, we set about pushing the envelope on collaboration. The result was the Leon Rabin Award for Excellence in Theatre, complete with a time-intensive nomination process, a voting protocol, and a lively awards ceremony where the winners were announced.
Chimera and the Dallas Theatre League had several things in common.
- They broke new ground and proved that theatres could accomplish more if they worked together.
- They were run by passionate people with deeply held beliefs that didn’t always align. Getting agreement was rarely easy!
- They ultimately served their purpose and then faded away when there was no longer driving energy to keep them going.
- They never completely realized all of their dreams.
There is still so much that could be done to collectively benefit theatre in the DFW area. And if it happens, as it has in the past, it will be because yet another group of passionate and committed individuals were willing to look beyond their own specific needs for the sake of a common cause.