I would need to see more data to be certain. But, let's consider what we likely know to be true.
Is the US population contracting? Yes. We have less consumers. And each new generation will depart from the past generation's style, genre or technology-delivery of entertainment habits. (So Smart phone viewing replaces LCD TV, etc.)
Is the economic purchasing power shifting in the US marketplace? We are losing the middle class, so a greater disparity is growing between those who can afford entertainment and those who can't - and by what leisure dollars they have available. If a greater percentage of Americans are losing their purchasing power, as they struggle to maintain the minimal standard of living, while they may desire more escapism (to forget their troubles) they are less able to afford it. I suspect that to maintain that minimal standard (which includes home ownership) they will work harder, for less buying power and prioritize their leisure dollar spending more than ever. (Simply put, the rich and the corporations get richer. Household incomes and the buying power of the dollar continue to weaken. A growing number of people are failing.)
And theater, if we may go back to that subject for a moment, seems completely unaware of how with the graying of their audience so goes the dying buying power of their household incomes (fixed) contending with inflation. They can less and less afford the growing cost of their once-favored live entertainment. The baby-boomers who love theater, can no longer afford to attend it - the financial reality of aging is stealing away their ability to support the stage arts. A husband and wife to see a regional theater production in most major cities, will spend $85 to $140 for that one, two-hour entertainment. (That's the price of a month of DSL plus Netflix and Disney+.)
So, yes, Scott, I suspect consumers are watching less. From the 1960s to the 2020s we've matriculated from households where radio and TV entertainment were free (OTA broadcast) to nearly exclusive entertainment delivery at ever-increasing annual costs. The growing cost (inflation, lower wages and salaries) of essential living combined with a graying set of consumers with fixed or reduced incomes (baby-boomer retirees) are going to squeeze consumers at both ends right out of the entertainment market. Add the contraction in national population and there are lots of natural reasons for this reduction in entertainment consumption.
In summary, it is not merely a shell game, where the new technology robs consumers from the older, established suppliers. After a while, the empty promises are revealed, the expectation of unlimited new entertainment is found wanting, tastes change and consumer interests seek out something new. Always something new, because familiarity breeds contempt (in a fashion.)
And if there is a slowly contracting number of entertainment consumers in the US, then suppliers must look to the global markets to develop new consumers and increase their brand share.
If we look at the what the current on-line entertainment suppliers are doing, we can see some evidence that they know this to be true as well. With a finite marketplace in the US, many of the bigger producers (Netflix, Amazon, Disney) are developing products which will be licensed and sold simultaneously in foreign markets. (Why simultaneously? Word of mouth can kill a delayed opening.) And in reverse, they finance products in Spain, France, Italy, Sweden, etc. - for consumption in their specific markets first - for simultaneous release to the US market. Strictly speaking then, these producers aren't counting on just the US market to buy their product, but are spending dollars globally in order to route that product globally and increase their sales in all markets, not merely the US. It makes sense. Why create for a single and also limited market?
I concur. Even Broadway is a form of regional (community) theater.
As you know from a private email sent, I also agree that theater companies need to operate more like a true "for-profit" business run by MBAs and not a playground for MFAs to exploit for self-expression at the cost of spending with impunity, lavishing themselves with publicly financed benefits and ignoring the interests of their community audiences. A theatrical company may be founded by parties with an artistic vision and collective statement, but it thrives by satisfying the needs of it's community. It's success stems on the support of that community. I do not think artists are good business people, most do not put financial stability ahead of their egotistical insistence on self-expression and want of adulation. Theater has been losing audience (share of the entertainment market) for years. Technology is largely the cause, although the art form itself is slow to evolve and excite new generations in it's lack of evolution. Like elsewhere in the entertainment industry, theater is losing it's long decaying market share, becoming an expensive leisure activity for most. It needs to continuously reinforce it's image as a viable alternative to scores of other contemporaneous entertainments seeking the limited attention span and leisure budgets of each new generation.
And specific to catering to the local marketplace, here's an interesting artistic business question. I just attended a theater production of The Marvelous Wonderettes - a jukebox musical revue. The work has been around a long time, proven to be a success for many years. It is a revue, a collection of 50s and early 60s female pop songs presented in two acts with a simple situation - a girl group performing at their graduation and 10 year reunion. It is not a musical play, carries no plot of any kind, there is no drama with comic or tragic resolution. (But, discussion of that construction is not the subject here.)
The artistic selection to produce the work and the expectation of it's market success is the question.
Who does this nostalgic evening of songs engage emotionally? Honestly, who sits in that audience and relives the effect these songs had on them? Who relates to the situations described in the lyrics on a empathic level? Who is lured to attend at the advertisement of an evening filled with memorable songs from that era?
I sat there in an audience of 200 people who's average age had to 78 years old. I looked out at a sea of white, thinning hair, hunched backs and severely-challenged mobility (not to mention flatulence) as they had a grand time reminiscing. And I asked myself why this theater company, knowing it is suffering from an aging membership that is dying off, is producing a work that will not draw new audiences, new memberships or even excite new generations to experience live theater. No. The target market for this show were these old people. (And I am not prejudice here. This is within ten years of my own age.)
I had to wonder, is that in the best interest of the community or the theater company? Is regional theater going to survive another decade catering to a dying audience with an 8 week run of this? It felt like it was pandering. And I really don't know whether word of mouth among 78 year olds is going to guaranty ticket sales let alone an increase in membership sales. But, I would be gravely worried that theatrical reputations can be affected by such programming - digging the demise of another company one foot deeper. The younger generations, the future economic supporters of local theater, who need to be recruited and converted into theater followers, are not going to come see this product.
To be fair, several companies around here mount one or more such revues every year and they do provide some economic benefit (cheap to produce as a season filler) - they cater to the aging membership that underwrite each company. It's possible that a balance of this, with new and more provocative fare provide the proper balance of nurturing, education and satisfaction their community requires of the company. I really don't know. But, I do know that the expense of catering to one aged segment of a community will likely be at the loss of losing the interest of younger segments of the market.
Ah, well. It might feel like a digression. But, if we are to properly run a theater business as a local art form, and hope to financially survive for years to come, these are the kind of decisions that seem profitable in the now, but seem equally damaging in the hereafter. Is anyone with a business sense considering this?
Interesting. I would love to hear (or read) some real thought on that.
At first I was certain this was inaccurate. But, it does occur to me that there are some, I am one, who want to hear other thoughts, ideas and of other experiences so as to better refine their own opinions, ideas and expression of same. In fact, I seek out the intelligent discourse of others to help me grow and improve. So at that level, I suppose I do want to hear the world through other's eyes. However, I never thought of it as something that is intrinsic in written works for the stage. Do I long to see the world of SIX through the eyes of the authors of that musical? Not really. I am familiar with the history of Henry and his wives. And nothing about the project sounds like a study of those events in some uniquely informative way. (it sounds like a bitch fest.) Did I long to see the comic fantasy world of Shakespeare in SOMETHING ROTTEN through the eyes of those authors? I don't really know. I think I was merely interested in seeing what kind of conflict and resolution would occur when wannabes try to write to the successful level of the Bard. I had no other expectations. I learned nothing, but was thoroughly entertained.
You know what? It’s not about wanting to see something from another perspective, for me. It’s about wanting to see the creative way a proposed conflict is resolved by the author(s.) If the conflict sounds intriguing, if I can imagine the course of that resolution being clever, unique, funny or emotionally riveting, I am intrigued enough to want to see it. I apologize if this sounds very rudimentary or not very stimulating, but it is the way my mind works when it comes to assessing my interest in being audience to that event.
That requires a perspective that is outside the crass, profit-obsessed culture that has come into being in our country. That requires vision. ...........
Well. Hhhmmm. I had to think about this for awhile, before writing what comes next. Ultimately, I think these are mutually exclusive things and are merely often melded into one for all sorts of mundane reasons (laziness, stupidity, avarice, etc.) Creativity need not be held in check by the checkbook. In fact, I would think that pure creativity, the flight of our imaginations, cannot be restrained by economics. The realty of producing that creative idea requires limitations and, more to the specific point about the success of a theater company, the sales success of that production controls the destiny of the company itself. I do not want to belabor this point, but there is even value being creative within the economic limitations presented by budget.
Honestly, I do not think the limited imagination of most producers is singularly guided by their need for profit. They simply do not have the capacity to accurately judge the critical and financial success of a new idea and so they invest in the "safe bet." And that means a lot of very banal sameness - the simple-mindedness of "it's worked ten times before, so why not again….and again….and again?"
Like you, I believe in a for-profit model, that of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, of which Shakespeare was a part. The 8 to 12 members of that company all bought shares, and they split the income accordingly.......
Oh, I love this. It's a "cooperative" in modern terms. Each partner receives whatever reward is collectively earned by their collective effort. But, oh my, I know an awful lot of artists that see themselves solely as one thing (lead actor, costumer, stage director) and would not work beneath their imagined title to sell tickets or scrub bathroom floors. I immediately doubt that the egos that run rampant in theater would ever agree to such equality. I could see some trying to buy their way out of work or buy into a specific role. I can see a lot more using excuses to fail to share the burden of responsibility. That’s what theater egos like about the current companies: they get to float in to perform the role they seek while avoiding anything that they feel is beneath them.
Ha ha ha. Most theater artists don’t want to have to do anything as crude as building sets or using a phone tree to solicit annual memberships, etc. The more I think about this, the more I fear this cannot change till the system fails sufficient to force theater artists to share in all theater tasks and not simply take the jobs that satisfy their ego.
I seek a business model that puts theater back in the hands of artists who care about art, not USING art to make money.........
Okay. I will certainly direct my thoughts and writing efforts toward brainstorming something like this. It's tricky, in that I do not immediately see an easy way to restructure existing companies into something like this. Their lease debts (theater building) and accumulated assets, all decisions of the past, create a lot of financial burden on a new company. Let me gnaw on this for a bit. And I see lots of challenges to face, if one were producing musicals (which is my writing background), as the musician talent and music costs add another operation and expense layer on this cooperative that can quickly make it a company of 30-40 and not merely 12-20.
But, most of all, I know way too many talented theater people who do not want to take on the equal responsibility of managing and operating a company. They simply want be selected over all other candidates, come perform their elected task, obtain as much accolade and recognition as will be laid before their ego and then disappear without concern for financial success or failure or even whether the latrine is clean. Collective enterprise is simply beneath them until there is no other alternative.
This has been gnawing at me for several days. I promised I would give it more thought and, true to my expectation, it has been on my mind a lot.
I cannot get my head around seeing the present theater artists, motivated to express themselves singularly in whatever expression makes them most satisfied and safe, agreeing to collectively share the burden of all the disciplines and tasks needed to successfully operate a theater company. It is merely a matter of ego. Too few want to do anything more than what feeds their need to express themselves in their selected craft and receive in return the appreciation for their efforts in same. They simply will not perform any mundane task they categorize is beneath them. That won't change in our lifetime, if ever.
The second problem I foresee in a return to this artistic cooperative is simply that not all members will have the personal skills, education or experience to take on some tasks that are wholly unrelated to their dedicated interest in theater. Few BA/MFA yielding actors or directors take a minor in business accounting and administration. Hardly any students of the theater department (and here I know I am treading on thin ice, knowing your background as an educator) desire to focus their creative energy on PR, marketing, advertising - and most of all - sales of memberships and tickets. The vast majority of theater artists want no part in sales and have no interest in the economic success of a production (let alone the successful operation of a company as it relates to non-production activities.) The success of that company balances on the very diverse (some non-theater grads) education and skills of it's members.
Simply put, the late 16th-early 17th century model appears (but I would need to read much more about it to be certain) a result of the attitudes and abilities of the times. There was less a specialty of trade within the theater community - there were no stagehands guild and musicians guild and actors guild and writers guild, etc. Our present system has intentionally diversified these tasks so that each is unique and separate and requires the most talented and able person trained in same to assume that role within the company.
It is, in fact, very likely that the failure of present regional companies is in part directly related to doing exactly what you seek.
If I were to parse the background of every salaried employee at a large regional theater company, I am certain I will find that 80% of those employees took paid positions in that company outside of their original study, training and experience. They take what paid jobs they can get within the industry while waiting for the opportunity to express themselves in their chosen area of art. I know actors who provide a variety of clerical jobs for a company, while awaiting the opportunity to be cast there or elsewhere in the community. It isn't that theater draws the best talent in graphics, ad-copy writing, web design, accounting, personnel administration, sales and marketing from outside it's industry - it simply promotes people drawn to theater who take on any role they can to be closer to the industry itself.
Check it out for yourself. I have. I can look at the key leaders of PCS (Portland) and OSF (Ashland) and none come from outside the industry with a direct education or background in the work they do. They are almost all theater students, underemployed post grads, who matriculated into these roles in order to have some relevance in an industry they obsess over rather than struggle to prove themselves as artists. Simply put, there are far too many dreaming of theatrical success in an industry that has no work for them. As this reality sets in, those most desperate to be relevant, take what jobs they can get and learn how to do it once employed. Consequently, among the AD and ED careers, we generally see these MFA students eventually taking adjunct, post grad courses to help inform them in their new assignments.
And this remains the chronic problem, Scott, as I see it. The theater students should not all be managing the company. Perhaps this is where we will fundamentally disagree. Where I love your desire to let the artists run the company (what I keep calling the inmates running the asylum), I don't think they can do this. I think we are seeing the results of their failures. And, from my look at the financial statements and operations of a few of these companies, what I see are two glaring problems: 1) many companies operate on the need for excessive annual grants and gifts to balance their operating losses (almost an earnings ratio 50% sales and 50% gifts - an appalling business model as any business major would tell you) and 2) a proclivity to spend without controls to protect against unforeseen shortages (including spending on staff and staff benefits like diversity training) while the company produces no income and is shuttered.
Now that I write this, Scott, I am reminded that in the late 16th century, very few people desired becoming an actor - they were still considered mountebanks and charlatans - there wasn't yet a cultural shift in that society that made this a noble or even desired trade. In fact, as you well know, the Puritan-inspired Cromwell and his Roundheads shuttered the industry for 20 odd years - so was their intolerance of the industry.
I will not attempt to put my finger on the era where the true shift occurred, but certainly in America, with the advent of stage and movie marketing, of movie fan magazines of the 20s and 30s, the theatrical arts were glorified - even legitimized in a fashion (as the movie moguls fabricated the luxury, wealth, moral turpitude, etc. of their stock actors.) The desire to be famous and rich, characterized by the Hollywood press corp, created the massive shift in interest in what had once been an ignoble profession. The point is not when this shift occurred, but simply that there were few trained and skilled artists seeking theatrical employment in the late 16th century and now there are far too many wannabe students of the theater arts who have no hope of finding full-time, long term employment in an industry that cannot begin to employ them all.
Thus, the cooperative needs and abilities of a company of theater folk in that period would be radically different from the limited opportunities available to the giant onslaught of wannabes in present day America. If the Portland metro area has 10 active theater companies (only one is a full professional troupe), performing 6 productions annually, with an average cast of 10; were that each role was a different actor, only 600 actors would get one acting assignment per year. And yet, the last time I checked the PATA actors list (in 2010) there were close to 4,000 people listed. The vast majority never get any work, a few get a little work and a fewer number may work several times a year. None make a living wage as actors in theater alone. A scant few may survive with additional voice talent or on-camera work. Count these on 1-2 hands at most. At established companies, the costume, set and lighting designers, builders are either resident salaried talent or contractors seeking as many jobs annually as possible. The latter rarely make enough to survive on annually and most have roommates or spouses to share the cost of living burden.
So where are all these wannabes going, the ones desperate to remain relevant in theater but unable to hold living wage jobs as actors, designers, directors etc? You know the answer; they take on other jobs in the company - jobs they were never trained to do, jobs that force them to give up their aspirational job for the opportunity to have a steady income.
After much consideration, I am sorry to conclude that I don't see the past cooperative model solving the managerial problems of regional theater.
On the other hand, I suspect that your goal was not merely that, but also addressing the need to move the production selection process out of the hands of untalented, non-artistic, for-profit types and return it to the dedicated artists. I will address that separately.
You always write something that surprises me, makes me think about something I hadn't thought about before. And I am humbled by your practice of quoting others. I am either too unread or too self-absorbed to make those connections.
I like Jason. I like his writing, though I was barely able to get through the 2nd season of Ted Lasso and have not watched the 3rd. Then again, that is a project of several writers and the direction they've taken it after season 1 is certainly with his blessing, but likely reflects what they have to say probably more than what he has to say. (Which really has nothing to do with his always writing with an opinion. I digress.)
But, I am struggling with accepting this ideology completely. And it's just me and my peculiar quirks. I tend to very quickly rally against anyone's attempt to thrust their opinion on me. Particularly those disguised, in a fashion, as art or entertainment. I am a host of contradictions on this.
I have never been a Brecht. Blitzstein or Harold Rome fan for this very reason. Their story-telling and drama thinly disguising political or social commentary doesn't much work for me., And yet, I adore Terry Southern and hold film satires of the 70s and 80s in very high esteem. (Network, In Justice For All, Dr. Strangelove, etc.) So isn't it strange that I don't want to see opinion dramatized, but I am fanatically drawn to opinion as mocking satire?
For this same reason I am repulsed by angry entertainments that shed light on oppression, intolerance, injustice and prejudice, all these repulsive traits that exemplify how base we are as animals. I do not embrace these things and attempt to live a life avoiding such personal thoughts and expressions. And I do fundamentally believe that humans need to be reminded to shed themselves of these evil traits. And yet, I rally against being preached at or chastised in a darkened theater - for what? For allowing it to occur in the past? For being a passive observer? For not joining an angry collective and actively rallying against such evil people? I find no entertainment in watching evil people, do evil things that ends in tragedy - when they or their evil way of life does not change. More to the point, I don't think direct confrontation, via the dramatic work, is going to change these evil doers. The best it can do is tip the scales of public opinion - as we've seen it do over and over since the 60s. So on the one hand, I appreciate that these dramatic efforts help shift public opinion, but find that the effort, as entertainment, is wasted on me - I am already long-ago shifted.
Specific to dramatic writing, while I dislike social and political opinion theater, I do fundamentally embrace the importance of the writer having a point of view. (Point of view and opinion being synonymous here.) We audiences sit in a dark theater and watch a story unfold. Early in the process, before we are empathetically connected to certain protagonist characters, before we become fully engaged and begin living vicariously through those roles, in the process of introduction and backstory we try to understand what these characters want and why - they are expressing a point of view that directs their actions. And so, in turn, we are looking for that in the author's work.
I am a final first-year student of Lehman Engel, the creator of the BMI Musical Theater Workshop. In his many books on the subject he made it plainly clear that as authors (of adaptations) we must have a point of view, we must mean to bring some new idea or expression of an idea, that the original work did not have - that which will elevate it, or more to the musical theater point - to give it a reason to be transformed with musical language. He adamantly believed; if you cannot improve the work it should not be adapted. (i.e. My Favorite Year, A Christmas Story, New York-New York, etc.) If one, as I do, embraces this, then here again, the writer better have a firm a opinion about what they are discoursing on.
And then, finally, there is opinion as criticism. Again, I come from a process where critical commentary is key to improving a work (or realizing it's not salvageable.) So, again, I do embrace the need for opinion to be a part of the writing process. But, here, it is not about the author's opinion, but the opinion of the audience. I have sadly learned over way too many years that I am easily and constantly self-deluded as a writer. I assume that all my intentions are clearly on the page and I meticulously rationalize how each flawless decision was made. Then I test the work in front of an audience and suddenly realize that what they are seeing and what was in my head, are never quite the same. Sometimes to my horror and sometimes to my amusement. But, I have learned the blame is on me, not on them. Sometimes my opinion (well, mostly assumption) was dead wrong and their opinion is the correct one. So, yes, in this regard, opinion is a key necessity if one hopes to become an able writer.
Pathetically, I will forever be hopelessly conflicted on this matter. For now, I will insist that it's too complicated an issue to have one right answer. If that decision works for Jason, and it improves his creativity, than his faith in it is all that matters. I am not gonna question his faith.
While I find your ideas about the film situation interesting, I completely disagree with your characterization of artists and their abilities. Broadway is a scene entirely run by business people.........,
My apology for creating that confusion. I was not referring to Broadway, but to regional theater. When I look at the management of regional theaters, they are largely MFAs, mostly former stage directors perhaps once artistic directors Peter Principled into executive directorships? Some have taken business courses post certificate; some might even have a minor in administration (which is not the nuts and bolts of financial management, but often people management.)
Broadway is a disaster of lack of imagination and cynicism........
Agreed. But, to be fair, having spent 40 years writing and having learned so much from my work being critiqued in the process of refinement, I have come to the conclusion that it's an extremely rare and unique ability to see the market potential in new works. The vast majority of those who have put themselves in the power seat to drive such producing decisions, owing that they have money, have access to money, and are wildly passionate for the industry, are not the least bit able to instinctively know a success from a failure. Most have virtually no experience writing, failing and rewriting to succeed, so have no understanding of the constant common mistakes practiced by new playwrights (and subsequently, their composers and lyricist partners.) Consequently the producers tend to gravitate towards the show genres that appear to be financially successful at the moment. The end result is they, like their film counterparts, gravitate towards the same clichés that have worked in the past. They don't know how to judge the market value (the audience response) to new ideas. So they chase the same past successful writers (and restrict their access to new writers) while producing the same jukebox, catalog revue or pop-laced book musical with no integration of song function into the dramatic structure of the work. The craft is appalling, the result theatrically banal, even as show concept excites the fans of the songs themselves. If the producer can't see fundamental flaws of construction, they are not likely to be imbued with the ability to pick creatively successful projects.
And too, I would not know how to differentiate the abilities and backgrounds between those producers dedicated to finding new work of outstanding craftsmanship and audience engagement and those that invest simply to be seen and be able to claim they are Broadway producers. (I know the latter exists. Does the former?) Ken Davenport co-wrote a revue, parlayed the success of that into a producing organization that develops far more unsuccessful projects then successful ones. As the book writer, he completely destroyed an adaptation of SOMEWHERE IN TIME - a project that could have, should have been a successful musical. The man had no idea how to integrate song into the dramatic structure of a theatrical play and the pace of the plot. Did he learn from his mistakes and rewrite the work? Nope. He gave up. (I have no idea why, but rejecting criticism to save face and keep an inflated ego intact are likely culprits.) And yet, he now coaches others on how to do it.
Jukebox musicals are an excellent example of the depths to which we've sunk........
In a strange way, as revues go, I would say they have their place in the history of the musical theater. But, they are a cliché now and they run thin. (And yet more are coming to Broadway. The egos of the fading songwriter knows no limitations.) They can really only draw audiences that are desperate for that nostalgia - to remember their past’s specific to the songs of their youth. Failing to be integrated into a dramatic plot, that's really all they are good for. I wish they'd move these to arenas and music venues and leave the theaters alone. Then again, lots of theaters are just real estate in search of a lease that will not be defaulted on. I do understand why theater owners take these revues in, they need to stay rented.
You may poo-poo the idea of artistic vision, but without it you've got a vending machine.......
No. I am sorry if I gave you that impression. I believe theater companies need artistic vision. But, I do think that the business side of that company needs to be run by someone that is not a theatrical artist. The artistic director and the executive director should be separate people, with separate responsibilities. I simply believe the artistic director should not have final say on how the finances are managed. And I believe the ED should not have a background in the arts. Unfortunately, many regional companies have given this power over to the AD or defer to the AD in such ED matters. I won't share it here, but I have written specifically about what I believe are core requirements of an AD in regional theater - they have responsibilities to their community and the community relies on their knowledge and creative ideas to keep local theater alive. Amen, brother.
People want to be surprised, inspired, engaged, and provoked.......
Yes. Agreed.
They want to think thoughts they've never had before, .........
Possibly. Then again, there are plenty who have no thoughts and don't pursue them and simply want mindless entertainment to distract them. You and I may be the exceptions and not the average consumer.
As all industries do, the film industry obscures the facts regarding their market, by focusing on domestic grosses, rather than tickets sold. For anyone who wants a moderately clear picture of what is going on, let the raw numbers tell the story. Here are the gross domestic number of movie theater tickets sold each year
2002 1.576bil
2003 1.524bil
2004 1.495bil
2005 1.373bil
2006 1.401bil
2007 1.420bil
2008 1.358bil
2009 1.419bil
2010 1.329bil
2011 1.283bil
2012 1.383bil
2013 1.339bil
2014 1.257bil
2015 1.323bil
2016 1.302bil
2017 1.225bil
2018 1.311bil
2019 1.228bil
2020 211mil
2021 434mil
2022 711mil
The gross ticket sales have been in decline from 2002-2006 and finally dropping to the low 1.3bil to 1.225bil in the last few years before COVID. No surprise, from 2020, the gross has dropped and recovered over the last 3 years, to about 50% of it's former sales.
Production reflected some of this, wisely avoiding creating more product than the current market would consume. From 2014-2019, domestic film releases averaged between 850-990 titles a year. 2020-2022, the same averages were 440-500 titles. Production released to the movie theater boxes dropped 50%.
I won't attempt to draw big conclusions from this, but clearly, domestic releases are down in production and market demand. And while regaining some ticket sales after the theater closures of 2020, it has neither returned to the averages post pandemic nor shows any evidence of the actual continuing fall of ticket sales which has been occurring over the last few decades.
Technology has certainly intended to move the box movie theater entertainment to the home. It improves audio and video quality to provide theater like experiences and consumers driven by same have increased their home viewing habits in exchange for trips to the collective experience in a giant public room. Add that streaming and broadcast content providers continue to offer increasing market options, from new content premieres to giant library access to endless subdivision of subject genres - the goal is certainly to sell entertainment to the at-home consumer.
So, yes, domestic movie production for distribution to concrete theaters is suffering. And we should continue to expect to see that retail industry contract. Meanwhile, the major streaming packagers, having spent lavishly in the initial roll out of their brand, are now having to contend with slower sales and fighting for viewership just as the TV broadcast market did in past generations. Branded streaming servers, far more than TV broadcast or film, are the in-home suppliers of content and have simply redirected talent consumption (writers, directors, actors, etc.) into these markets. New technologies will continue, as it always has, to change the market and consumer patterns in the entertainment industry. The actors and writers on strike need to be constantly seeing that they get a fair piece of the new and emerging market sales. Thew old ones will die off soon enough - just as VHS and now DVD sales continue to shrink.
A mindful question.
I would need to see more data to be certain. But, let's consider what we likely know to be true.
Is the US population contracting? Yes. We have less consumers. And each new generation will depart from the past generation's style, genre or technology-delivery of entertainment habits. (So Smart phone viewing replaces LCD TV, etc.)
Is the economic purchasing power shifting in the US marketplace? We are losing the middle class, so a greater disparity is growing between those who can afford entertainment and those who can't - and by what leisure dollars they have available. If a greater percentage of Americans are losing their purchasing power, as they struggle to maintain the minimal standard of living, while they may desire more escapism (to forget their troubles) they are less able to afford it. I suspect that to maintain that minimal standard (which includes home ownership) they will work harder, for less buying power and prioritize their leisure dollar spending more than ever. (Simply put, the rich and the corporations get richer. Household incomes and the buying power of the dollar continue to weaken. A growing number of people are failing.)
And theater, if we may go back to that subject for a moment, seems completely unaware of how with the graying of their audience so goes the dying buying power of their household incomes (fixed) contending with inflation. They can less and less afford the growing cost of their once-favored live entertainment. The baby-boomers who love theater, can no longer afford to attend it - the financial reality of aging is stealing away their ability to support the stage arts. A husband and wife to see a regional theater production in most major cities, will spend $85 to $140 for that one, two-hour entertainment. (That's the price of a month of DSL plus Netflix and Disney+.)
So, yes, Scott, I suspect consumers are watching less. From the 1960s to the 2020s we've matriculated from households where radio and TV entertainment were free (OTA broadcast) to nearly exclusive entertainment delivery at ever-increasing annual costs. The growing cost (inflation, lower wages and salaries) of essential living combined with a graying set of consumers with fixed or reduced incomes (baby-boomer retirees) are going to squeeze consumers at both ends right out of the entertainment market. Add the contraction in national population and there are lots of natural reasons for this reduction in entertainment consumption.
In summary, it is not merely a shell game, where the new technology robs consumers from the older, established suppliers. After a while, the empty promises are revealed, the expectation of unlimited new entertainment is found wanting, tastes change and consumer interests seek out something new. Always something new, because familiarity breeds contempt (in a fashion.)
And if there is a slowly contracting number of entertainment consumers in the US, then suppliers must look to the global markets to develop new consumers and increase their brand share.
If we look at the what the current on-line entertainment suppliers are doing, we can see some evidence that they know this to be true as well. With a finite marketplace in the US, many of the bigger producers (Netflix, Amazon, Disney) are developing products which will be licensed and sold simultaneously in foreign markets. (Why simultaneously? Word of mouth can kill a delayed opening.) And in reverse, they finance products in Spain, France, Italy, Sweden, etc. - for consumption in their specific markets first - for simultaneous release to the US market. Strictly speaking then, these producers aren't counting on just the US market to buy their product, but are spending dollars globally in order to route that product globally and increase their sales in all markets, not merely the US. It makes sense. Why create for a single and also limited market?
I concur. Even Broadway is a form of regional (community) theater.
As you know from a private email sent, I also agree that theater companies need to operate more like a true "for-profit" business run by MBAs and not a playground for MFAs to exploit for self-expression at the cost of spending with impunity, lavishing themselves with publicly financed benefits and ignoring the interests of their community audiences. A theatrical company may be founded by parties with an artistic vision and collective statement, but it thrives by satisfying the needs of it's community. It's success stems on the support of that community. I do not think artists are good business people, most do not put financial stability ahead of their egotistical insistence on self-expression and want of adulation. Theater has been losing audience (share of the entertainment market) for years. Technology is largely the cause, although the art form itself is slow to evolve and excite new generations in it's lack of evolution. Like elsewhere in the entertainment industry, theater is losing it's long decaying market share, becoming an expensive leisure activity for most. It needs to continuously reinforce it's image as a viable alternative to scores of other contemporaneous entertainments seeking the limited attention span and leisure budgets of each new generation.
And specific to catering to the local marketplace, here's an interesting artistic business question. I just attended a theater production of The Marvelous Wonderettes - a jukebox musical revue. The work has been around a long time, proven to be a success for many years. It is a revue, a collection of 50s and early 60s female pop songs presented in two acts with a simple situation - a girl group performing at their graduation and 10 year reunion. It is not a musical play, carries no plot of any kind, there is no drama with comic or tragic resolution. (But, discussion of that construction is not the subject here.)
The artistic selection to produce the work and the expectation of it's market success is the question.
Who does this nostalgic evening of songs engage emotionally? Honestly, who sits in that audience and relives the effect these songs had on them? Who relates to the situations described in the lyrics on a empathic level? Who is lured to attend at the advertisement of an evening filled with memorable songs from that era?
I sat there in an audience of 200 people who's average age had to 78 years old. I looked out at a sea of white, thinning hair, hunched backs and severely-challenged mobility (not to mention flatulence) as they had a grand time reminiscing. And I asked myself why this theater company, knowing it is suffering from an aging membership that is dying off, is producing a work that will not draw new audiences, new memberships or even excite new generations to experience live theater. No. The target market for this show were these old people. (And I am not prejudice here. This is within ten years of my own age.)
I had to wonder, is that in the best interest of the community or the theater company? Is regional theater going to survive another decade catering to a dying audience with an 8 week run of this? It felt like it was pandering. And I really don't know whether word of mouth among 78 year olds is going to guaranty ticket sales let alone an increase in membership sales. But, I would be gravely worried that theatrical reputations can be affected by such programming - digging the demise of another company one foot deeper. The younger generations, the future economic supporters of local theater, who need to be recruited and converted into theater followers, are not going to come see this product.
To be fair, several companies around here mount one or more such revues every year and they do provide some economic benefit (cheap to produce as a season filler) - they cater to the aging membership that underwrite each company. It's possible that a balance of this, with new and more provocative fare provide the proper balance of nurturing, education and satisfaction their community requires of the company. I really don't know. But, I do know that the expense of catering to one aged segment of a community will likely be at the loss of losing the interest of younger segments of the market.
Ah, well. It might feel like a digression. But, if we are to properly run a theater business as a local art form, and hope to financially survive for years to come, these are the kind of decisions that seem profitable in the now, but seem equally damaging in the hereafter. Is anyone with a business sense considering this?
Seeing things through the authors eyes……
Interesting. I would love to hear (or read) some real thought on that.
At first I was certain this was inaccurate. But, it does occur to me that there are some, I am one, who want to hear other thoughts, ideas and of other experiences so as to better refine their own opinions, ideas and expression of same. In fact, I seek out the intelligent discourse of others to help me grow and improve. So at that level, I suppose I do want to hear the world through other's eyes. However, I never thought of it as something that is intrinsic in written works for the stage. Do I long to see the world of SIX through the eyes of the authors of that musical? Not really. I am familiar with the history of Henry and his wives. And nothing about the project sounds like a study of those events in some uniquely informative way. (it sounds like a bitch fest.) Did I long to see the comic fantasy world of Shakespeare in SOMETHING ROTTEN through the eyes of those authors? I don't really know. I think I was merely interested in seeing what kind of conflict and resolution would occur when wannabes try to write to the successful level of the Bard. I had no other expectations. I learned nothing, but was thoroughly entertained.
You know what? It’s not about wanting to see something from another perspective, for me. It’s about wanting to see the creative way a proposed conflict is resolved by the author(s.) If the conflict sounds intriguing, if I can imagine the course of that resolution being clever, unique, funny or emotionally riveting, I am intrigued enough to want to see it. I apologize if this sounds very rudimentary or not very stimulating, but it is the way my mind works when it comes to assessing my interest in being audience to that event.
That requires a perspective that is outside the crass, profit-obsessed culture that has come into being in our country. That requires vision. ...........
Well. Hhhmmm. I had to think about this for awhile, before writing what comes next. Ultimately, I think these are mutually exclusive things and are merely often melded into one for all sorts of mundane reasons (laziness, stupidity, avarice, etc.) Creativity need not be held in check by the checkbook. In fact, I would think that pure creativity, the flight of our imaginations, cannot be restrained by economics. The realty of producing that creative idea requires limitations and, more to the specific point about the success of a theater company, the sales success of that production controls the destiny of the company itself. I do not want to belabor this point, but there is even value being creative within the economic limitations presented by budget.
Honestly, I do not think the limited imagination of most producers is singularly guided by their need for profit. They simply do not have the capacity to accurately judge the critical and financial success of a new idea and so they invest in the "safe bet." And that means a lot of very banal sameness - the simple-mindedness of "it's worked ten times before, so why not again….and again….and again?"
Like you, I believe in a for-profit model, that of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, of which Shakespeare was a part. The 8 to 12 members of that company all bought shares, and they split the income accordingly.......
Oh, I love this. It's a "cooperative" in modern terms. Each partner receives whatever reward is collectively earned by their collective effort. But, oh my, I know an awful lot of artists that see themselves solely as one thing (lead actor, costumer, stage director) and would not work beneath their imagined title to sell tickets or scrub bathroom floors. I immediately doubt that the egos that run rampant in theater would ever agree to such equality. I could see some trying to buy their way out of work or buy into a specific role. I can see a lot more using excuses to fail to share the burden of responsibility. That’s what theater egos like about the current companies: they get to float in to perform the role they seek while avoiding anything that they feel is beneath them.
Ha ha ha. Most theater artists don’t want to have to do anything as crude as building sets or using a phone tree to solicit annual memberships, etc. The more I think about this, the more I fear this cannot change till the system fails sufficient to force theater artists to share in all theater tasks and not simply take the jobs that satisfy their ego.
I seek a business model that puts theater back in the hands of artists who care about art, not USING art to make money.........
Okay. I will certainly direct my thoughts and writing efforts toward brainstorming something like this. It's tricky, in that I do not immediately see an easy way to restructure existing companies into something like this. Their lease debts (theater building) and accumulated assets, all decisions of the past, create a lot of financial burden on a new company. Let me gnaw on this for a bit. And I see lots of challenges to face, if one were producing musicals (which is my writing background), as the musician talent and music costs add another operation and expense layer on this cooperative that can quickly make it a company of 30-40 and not merely 12-20.
But, most of all, I know way too many talented theater people who do not want to take on the equal responsibility of managing and operating a company. They simply want be selected over all other candidates, come perform their elected task, obtain as much accolade and recognition as will be laid before their ego and then disappear without concern for financial success or failure or even whether the latrine is clean. Collective enterprise is simply beneath them until there is no other alternative.
Ha ha ha. Shares? I love it.
This has been gnawing at me for several days. I promised I would give it more thought and, true to my expectation, it has been on my mind a lot.
I cannot get my head around seeing the present theater artists, motivated to express themselves singularly in whatever expression makes them most satisfied and safe, agreeing to collectively share the burden of all the disciplines and tasks needed to successfully operate a theater company. It is merely a matter of ego. Too few want to do anything more than what feeds their need to express themselves in their selected craft and receive in return the appreciation for their efforts in same. They simply will not perform any mundane task they categorize is beneath them. That won't change in our lifetime, if ever.
The second problem I foresee in a return to this artistic cooperative is simply that not all members will have the personal skills, education or experience to take on some tasks that are wholly unrelated to their dedicated interest in theater. Few BA/MFA yielding actors or directors take a minor in business accounting and administration. Hardly any students of the theater department (and here I know I am treading on thin ice, knowing your background as an educator) desire to focus their creative energy on PR, marketing, advertising - and most of all - sales of memberships and tickets. The vast majority of theater artists want no part in sales and have no interest in the economic success of a production (let alone the successful operation of a company as it relates to non-production activities.) The success of that company balances on the very diverse (some non-theater grads) education and skills of it's members.
Simply put, the late 16th-early 17th century model appears (but I would need to read much more about it to be certain) a result of the attitudes and abilities of the times. There was less a specialty of trade within the theater community - there were no stagehands guild and musicians guild and actors guild and writers guild, etc. Our present system has intentionally diversified these tasks so that each is unique and separate and requires the most talented and able person trained in same to assume that role within the company.
It is, in fact, very likely that the failure of present regional companies is in part directly related to doing exactly what you seek.
If I were to parse the background of every salaried employee at a large regional theater company, I am certain I will find that 80% of those employees took paid positions in that company outside of their original study, training and experience. They take what paid jobs they can get within the industry while waiting for the opportunity to express themselves in their chosen area of art. I know actors who provide a variety of clerical jobs for a company, while awaiting the opportunity to be cast there or elsewhere in the community. It isn't that theater draws the best talent in graphics, ad-copy writing, web design, accounting, personnel administration, sales and marketing from outside it's industry - it simply promotes people drawn to theater who take on any role they can to be closer to the industry itself.
Check it out for yourself. I have. I can look at the key leaders of PCS (Portland) and OSF (Ashland) and none come from outside the industry with a direct education or background in the work they do. They are almost all theater students, underemployed post grads, who matriculated into these roles in order to have some relevance in an industry they obsess over rather than struggle to prove themselves as artists. Simply put, there are far too many dreaming of theatrical success in an industry that has no work for them. As this reality sets in, those most desperate to be relevant, take what jobs they can get and learn how to do it once employed. Consequently, among the AD and ED careers, we generally see these MFA students eventually taking adjunct, post grad courses to help inform them in their new assignments.
And this remains the chronic problem, Scott, as I see it. The theater students should not all be managing the company. Perhaps this is where we will fundamentally disagree. Where I love your desire to let the artists run the company (what I keep calling the inmates running the asylum), I don't think they can do this. I think we are seeing the results of their failures. And, from my look at the financial statements and operations of a few of these companies, what I see are two glaring problems: 1) many companies operate on the need for excessive annual grants and gifts to balance their operating losses (almost an earnings ratio 50% sales and 50% gifts - an appalling business model as any business major would tell you) and 2) a proclivity to spend without controls to protect against unforeseen shortages (including spending on staff and staff benefits like diversity training) while the company produces no income and is shuttered.
Now that I write this, Scott, I am reminded that in the late 16th century, very few people desired becoming an actor - they were still considered mountebanks and charlatans - there wasn't yet a cultural shift in that society that made this a noble or even desired trade. In fact, as you well know, the Puritan-inspired Cromwell and his Roundheads shuttered the industry for 20 odd years - so was their intolerance of the industry.
I will not attempt to put my finger on the era where the true shift occurred, but certainly in America, with the advent of stage and movie marketing, of movie fan magazines of the 20s and 30s, the theatrical arts were glorified - even legitimized in a fashion (as the movie moguls fabricated the luxury, wealth, moral turpitude, etc. of their stock actors.) The desire to be famous and rich, characterized by the Hollywood press corp, created the massive shift in interest in what had once been an ignoble profession. The point is not when this shift occurred, but simply that there were few trained and skilled artists seeking theatrical employment in the late 16th century and now there are far too many wannabe students of the theater arts who have no hope of finding full-time, long term employment in an industry that cannot begin to employ them all.
Thus, the cooperative needs and abilities of a company of theater folk in that period would be radically different from the limited opportunities available to the giant onslaught of wannabes in present day America. If the Portland metro area has 10 active theater companies (only one is a full professional troupe), performing 6 productions annually, with an average cast of 10; were that each role was a different actor, only 600 actors would get one acting assignment per year. And yet, the last time I checked the PATA actors list (in 2010) there were close to 4,000 people listed. The vast majority never get any work, a few get a little work and a fewer number may work several times a year. None make a living wage as actors in theater alone. A scant few may survive with additional voice talent or on-camera work. Count these on 1-2 hands at most. At established companies, the costume, set and lighting designers, builders are either resident salaried talent or contractors seeking as many jobs annually as possible. The latter rarely make enough to survive on annually and most have roommates or spouses to share the cost of living burden.
So where are all these wannabes going, the ones desperate to remain relevant in theater but unable to hold living wage jobs as actors, designers, directors etc? You know the answer; they take on other jobs in the company - jobs they were never trained to do, jobs that force them to give up their aspirational job for the opportunity to have a steady income.
After much consideration, I am sorry to conclude that I don't see the past cooperative model solving the managerial problems of regional theater.
On the other hand, I suspect that your goal was not merely that, but also addressing the need to move the production selection process out of the hands of untalented, non-artistic, for-profit types and return it to the dedicated artists. I will address that separately.
You always write something that surprises me, makes me think about something I hadn't thought about before. And I am humbled by your practice of quoting others. I am either too unread or too self-absorbed to make those connections.
I like Jason. I like his writing, though I was barely able to get through the 2nd season of Ted Lasso and have not watched the 3rd. Then again, that is a project of several writers and the direction they've taken it after season 1 is certainly with his blessing, but likely reflects what they have to say probably more than what he has to say. (Which really has nothing to do with his always writing with an opinion. I digress.)
But, I am struggling with accepting this ideology completely. And it's just me and my peculiar quirks. I tend to very quickly rally against anyone's attempt to thrust their opinion on me. Particularly those disguised, in a fashion, as art or entertainment. I am a host of contradictions on this.
I have never been a Brecht. Blitzstein or Harold Rome fan for this very reason. Their story-telling and drama thinly disguising political or social commentary doesn't much work for me., And yet, I adore Terry Southern and hold film satires of the 70s and 80s in very high esteem. (Network, In Justice For All, Dr. Strangelove, etc.) So isn't it strange that I don't want to see opinion dramatized, but I am fanatically drawn to opinion as mocking satire?
For this same reason I am repulsed by angry entertainments that shed light on oppression, intolerance, injustice and prejudice, all these repulsive traits that exemplify how base we are as animals. I do not embrace these things and attempt to live a life avoiding such personal thoughts and expressions. And I do fundamentally believe that humans need to be reminded to shed themselves of these evil traits. And yet, I rally against being preached at or chastised in a darkened theater - for what? For allowing it to occur in the past? For being a passive observer? For not joining an angry collective and actively rallying against such evil people? I find no entertainment in watching evil people, do evil things that ends in tragedy - when they or their evil way of life does not change. More to the point, I don't think direct confrontation, via the dramatic work, is going to change these evil doers. The best it can do is tip the scales of public opinion - as we've seen it do over and over since the 60s. So on the one hand, I appreciate that these dramatic efforts help shift public opinion, but find that the effort, as entertainment, is wasted on me - I am already long-ago shifted.
Specific to dramatic writing, while I dislike social and political opinion theater, I do fundamentally embrace the importance of the writer having a point of view. (Point of view and opinion being synonymous here.) We audiences sit in a dark theater and watch a story unfold. Early in the process, before we are empathetically connected to certain protagonist characters, before we become fully engaged and begin living vicariously through those roles, in the process of introduction and backstory we try to understand what these characters want and why - they are expressing a point of view that directs their actions. And so, in turn, we are looking for that in the author's work.
I am a final first-year student of Lehman Engel, the creator of the BMI Musical Theater Workshop. In his many books on the subject he made it plainly clear that as authors (of adaptations) we must have a point of view, we must mean to bring some new idea or expression of an idea, that the original work did not have - that which will elevate it, or more to the musical theater point - to give it a reason to be transformed with musical language. He adamantly believed; if you cannot improve the work it should not be adapted. (i.e. My Favorite Year, A Christmas Story, New York-New York, etc.) If one, as I do, embraces this, then here again, the writer better have a firm a opinion about what they are discoursing on.
And then, finally, there is opinion as criticism. Again, I come from a process where critical commentary is key to improving a work (or realizing it's not salvageable.) So, again, I do embrace the need for opinion to be a part of the writing process. But, here, it is not about the author's opinion, but the opinion of the audience. I have sadly learned over way too many years that I am easily and constantly self-deluded as a writer. I assume that all my intentions are clearly on the page and I meticulously rationalize how each flawless decision was made. Then I test the work in front of an audience and suddenly realize that what they are seeing and what was in my head, are never quite the same. Sometimes to my horror and sometimes to my amusement. But, I have learned the blame is on me, not on them. Sometimes my opinion (well, mostly assumption) was dead wrong and their opinion is the correct one. So, yes, in this regard, opinion is a key necessity if one hopes to become an able writer.
Pathetically, I will forever be hopelessly conflicted on this matter. For now, I will insist that it's too complicated an issue to have one right answer. If that decision works for Jason, and it improves his creativity, than his faith in it is all that matters. I am not gonna question his faith.
While I find your ideas about the film situation interesting, I completely disagree with your characterization of artists and their abilities. Broadway is a scene entirely run by business people.........,
My apology for creating that confusion. I was not referring to Broadway, but to regional theater. When I look at the management of regional theaters, they are largely MFAs, mostly former stage directors perhaps once artistic directors Peter Principled into executive directorships? Some have taken business courses post certificate; some might even have a minor in administration (which is not the nuts and bolts of financial management, but often people management.)
Broadway is a disaster of lack of imagination and cynicism........
Agreed. But, to be fair, having spent 40 years writing and having learned so much from my work being critiqued in the process of refinement, I have come to the conclusion that it's an extremely rare and unique ability to see the market potential in new works. The vast majority of those who have put themselves in the power seat to drive such producing decisions, owing that they have money, have access to money, and are wildly passionate for the industry, are not the least bit able to instinctively know a success from a failure. Most have virtually no experience writing, failing and rewriting to succeed, so have no understanding of the constant common mistakes practiced by new playwrights (and subsequently, their composers and lyricist partners.) Consequently the producers tend to gravitate towards the show genres that appear to be financially successful at the moment. The end result is they, like their film counterparts, gravitate towards the same clichés that have worked in the past. They don't know how to judge the market value (the audience response) to new ideas. So they chase the same past successful writers (and restrict their access to new writers) while producing the same jukebox, catalog revue or pop-laced book musical with no integration of song function into the dramatic structure of the work. The craft is appalling, the result theatrically banal, even as show concept excites the fans of the songs themselves. If the producer can't see fundamental flaws of construction, they are not likely to be imbued with the ability to pick creatively successful projects.
And too, I would not know how to differentiate the abilities and backgrounds between those producers dedicated to finding new work of outstanding craftsmanship and audience engagement and those that invest simply to be seen and be able to claim they are Broadway producers. (I know the latter exists. Does the former?) Ken Davenport co-wrote a revue, parlayed the success of that into a producing organization that develops far more unsuccessful projects then successful ones. As the book writer, he completely destroyed an adaptation of SOMEWHERE IN TIME - a project that could have, should have been a successful musical. The man had no idea how to integrate song into the dramatic structure of a theatrical play and the pace of the plot. Did he learn from his mistakes and rewrite the work? Nope. He gave up. (I have no idea why, but rejecting criticism to save face and keep an inflated ego intact are likely culprits.) And yet, he now coaches others on how to do it.
Jukebox musicals are an excellent example of the depths to which we've sunk........
In a strange way, as revues go, I would say they have their place in the history of the musical theater. But, they are a cliché now and they run thin. (And yet more are coming to Broadway. The egos of the fading songwriter knows no limitations.) They can really only draw audiences that are desperate for that nostalgia - to remember their past’s specific to the songs of their youth. Failing to be integrated into a dramatic plot, that's really all they are good for. I wish they'd move these to arenas and music venues and leave the theaters alone. Then again, lots of theaters are just real estate in search of a lease that will not be defaulted on. I do understand why theater owners take these revues in, they need to stay rented.
You may poo-poo the idea of artistic vision, but without it you've got a vending machine.......
No. I am sorry if I gave you that impression. I believe theater companies need artistic vision. But, I do think that the business side of that company needs to be run by someone that is not a theatrical artist. The artistic director and the executive director should be separate people, with separate responsibilities. I simply believe the artistic director should not have final say on how the finances are managed. And I believe the ED should not have a background in the arts. Unfortunately, many regional companies have given this power over to the AD or defer to the AD in such ED matters. I won't share it here, but I have written specifically about what I believe are core requirements of an AD in regional theater - they have responsibilities to their community and the community relies on their knowledge and creative ideas to keep local theater alive. Amen, brother.
People want to be surprised, inspired, engaged, and provoked.......
Yes. Agreed.
They want to think thoughts they've never had before, .........
Possibly. Then again, there are plenty who have no thoughts and don't pursue them and simply want mindless entertainment to distract them. You and I may be the exceptions and not the average consumer.
and see the world through eyes not their own.
As all industries do, the film industry obscures the facts regarding their market, by focusing on domestic grosses, rather than tickets sold. For anyone who wants a moderately clear picture of what is going on, let the raw numbers tell the story. Here are the gross domestic number of movie theater tickets sold each year
2002 1.576bil
2003 1.524bil
2004 1.495bil
2005 1.373bil
2006 1.401bil
2007 1.420bil
2008 1.358bil
2009 1.419bil
2010 1.329bil
2011 1.283bil
2012 1.383bil
2013 1.339bil
2014 1.257bil
2015 1.323bil
2016 1.302bil
2017 1.225bil
2018 1.311bil
2019 1.228bil
2020 211mil
2021 434mil
2022 711mil
The gross ticket sales have been in decline from 2002-2006 and finally dropping to the low 1.3bil to 1.225bil in the last few years before COVID. No surprise, from 2020, the gross has dropped and recovered over the last 3 years, to about 50% of it's former sales.
Production reflected some of this, wisely avoiding creating more product than the current market would consume. From 2014-2019, domestic film releases averaged between 850-990 titles a year. 2020-2022, the same averages were 440-500 titles. Production released to the movie theater boxes dropped 50%.
I won't attempt to draw big conclusions from this, but clearly, domestic releases are down in production and market demand. And while regaining some ticket sales after the theater closures of 2020, it has neither returned to the averages post pandemic nor shows any evidence of the actual continuing fall of ticket sales which has been occurring over the last few decades.
Technology has certainly intended to move the box movie theater entertainment to the home. It improves audio and video quality to provide theater like experiences and consumers driven by same have increased their home viewing habits in exchange for trips to the collective experience in a giant public room. Add that streaming and broadcast content providers continue to offer increasing market options, from new content premieres to giant library access to endless subdivision of subject genres - the goal is certainly to sell entertainment to the at-home consumer.
So, yes, domestic movie production for distribution to concrete theaters is suffering. And we should continue to expect to see that retail industry contract. Meanwhile, the major streaming packagers, having spent lavishly in the initial roll out of their brand, are now having to contend with slower sales and fighting for viewership just as the TV broadcast market did in past generations. Branded streaming servers, far more than TV broadcast or film, are the in-home suppliers of content and have simply redirected talent consumption (writers, directors, actors, etc.) into these markets. New technologies will continue, as it always has, to change the market and consumer patterns in the entertainment industry. The actors and writers on strike need to be constantly seeing that they get a fair piece of the new and emerging market sales. Thew old ones will die off soon enough - just as VHS and now DVD sales continue to shrink.