What are the arts to me?

by Cate Cammarata | Feb 5, 2016 | Theater

The Relevance of the Arts

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her?

The spring semester has just begun at the university where I teach, and once again I am faced with the issue of the relevance of my profession. To my large roster of non-theatre arts majors, most of whom have signed up for a theatre arts class for that “easy A,” the arts in general, and theatre in particular, are not relevant to their lives. In fact there was a significant percentage of students last week that agreed that “art should be free.”

This is a problem for all of us who create theater. These students are for the most part not going to be artists themselves but our audience; they will be the doctors, engineers and business people who [we hope] will support the arts in the future. But will this happen if they believe that art should be free?

It was a lively discussion in all of my classes this first week. There were art supporters who recognized that artists had to live too, and deserved to be paid for their work; nearly every student had paid for pricey tickets to concerts to see their favorite artists. Music seems to be the most accessible art, which is understandable in this age group. Visual art, symphonies, opera, and theater are for the most part dismissed as irrelevant to their lives and unnecessary.

Okay, no surprise here. Yet it bears repeating – how can we engage new audiences and create relevance to insure our individual and collective survival as artists?

How to Engage and Attract New Audiences

1. Use Video

My friend Ken Davenport has been advocating for video accessibility of theater to create audiences. I’m with him. Bootleg videos of Broadway musicals serve the purpose of acquainting a younger audience with music and plots, and that familiarity can translate into ticket sales.

To create an audience we must go where the audience is. Our audience is online. The danger is, of course, that the push to digitalize will come with a subscriber cost, thus creating another barrier.

2. Engagement and participation is all-important.

Audiences want to be valued (significance in Maslow’s hierarchy). This sometimes means immersive production elements (Sleep No More), but can be simple enough as providing information beforehand so that ticket buyers feel like an “insider” before they even arrive at the theater.

To create that sense of belonging and relevance we must not only surround our audiences where they live, we must also speak their language and show we have something important to say. Diversity of expression, diversity of casting, diversity of theme – when our audiences relate with what happens on stage and believe we have captured the Truth and put it onstage, then we create that social platform of engagement of significance that our audiences will feel reflects their experience and, hopefully, want more.

Theater is collective and participatory. It always has been a social platform to engaging ideas and getting them out there for public discourse.

3. Reconnect the audience with the message of relevance.

Re-vision the classics or create new plays that present current Truths that look and sound like the audience you’re targeting. The classics can be exciting and relevant to this generation, and the discovery that connects classic literature with art can be a powerful tool for changing perspectives.

Now that’s exciting theater for today.

…the play ‘s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

Hamilton: Innovation and Inspiration

by Cate Cammarata | Jan 23, 2016 | Broadway, Hip Hop, Theater

The first gift of 2016 was the unexpected opportunity to see Hamilton on Broadway. (Yes, sometimes the theater gods are very generous!) Even without Lin-Manuel Miranda – Jon Rua gave an outstanding performance as Alexander Hamilton at our matinee – Hamilton embodies the energy and storytelling engagement model for today’s audience. There’s no wonder why everyone who sees it is so excited!

Just to let you know, this is not another Broadway Theater review blog. However, Hamilton provides the most exciting example for us theater-makers of innovative elements that WORK, not just because the show is making millions of dollars (which is nice), but because it communicates visually and textually in the language of our time to give the intended message to the audience of our time. Resonance depends on receptiveness and relevance.

Hamilton’s audiences are astonishingly receptive to its main messages: that hard work and diligence lead to success, that America is a land of opportunity, that New York is the greatest city in the world (shameless plug) and that Alexander Hamilton is a founding father of significance. But this is no dry history lesson; as everyone knows, the receptiveness of the message proceeds from the language of performance. Hamilton works because it engages us in the idioms of our time: rap music and performance, ethnic diversity, hunger and struggle, power plays, politics and love. The show sounds like us, looks like us, and is about people just like us. And we love it.

I saw the show with two thirteen year old boys – a tough audience for musical theater to reach. They were mesmerized and excited. They bought the soundtrack on Itunes and are now listening to it constantly. This has never happened before, at least to these kids. What gives? Is it just the music?

Hip Hop music is a large part of Hamilton’s sung-through score, but not the only style. There are also elements of R&B, jazz, pop and more typical musical theater songs, especially in the second act. But the energy and relevance of the sound from the beginning draws the audience in, forces them to listen carefully to every word so as to not miss a beat. The rhyme and delivery is delightful to hear and exciting to watch. It is a “sung through” musical, and the beat continues to energize and engage us to the very end.

The insistent beat moves the plot along and forces us to keep up. It accelerates the action, along with the lighting and choreography, and cannon “booms” that go right through you. The result is a mind-blowing swirl that immerses you in the action of a war for freedom and helps you understand the cost. The Federalist and Anti-Federalist debates come alive when performed as a rap battle as the new nation deliberates the form our government should take.

If innovation and relevance are the point of this blog – which they are – then Hamilton succeeds artistically in reaching its audience through its excellence in the following elements:

Hip Hop, a major musical genre today, is how many experience music – it’s a “today” sound
Non-stop movement and contemporary choreography keeps the action interesting
Contemporary idioms that sound like street language – the language of the audience
Making history relevant by diverse casting and a text that makes economic struggles and power plays sound contemporary – which is identifiable and relatable.
A musical theater structure that works.

There are many audiences and many ways of performance. Our job is to speak the language of our audience today, wherever they may be. Hamilton succeeds because of its capacity to engage its audience.