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Web Exclusive

The First Step Is the Biggest
By Blake Yelavich

Since the story about the unlikely success of my underdog Austin theater Arts On Real ran in the January / February issue of DramaBiz Magazine, I have been inundated with emails and calls from desperate people with the same thing in mind – “How?!”

My initial response would be: “Creating a successful theater is much more about uncovering and delivering the wants and needs of the audience instead of the needs of the actors. Never ever ever put on a show for YOUR benefit.”

Then comes the reply: “But how?”

I’d rephrase the same mantra. “Throw out the well-worn idea that you must create the theater for the artists on hand and instead focus your effort to satisfying the entire audience each and every time.”

I could go on – and have – until I realized: these desperate folks are asking for something much more base, much more literal: “How?”

The callers want to know the steps, the 1-2-3 a-b-c’s of it all — and there is nothing out there to tell them. There is no IDIOT’S GUIDE TO OPENING A THEATER (WITHOUT BEING AN IDIOT.) No instruction manual has been written on the subject with up-to-date how-to advice. There is plenty of Arts Management material – all a bit lofty and not exactly written for the people who are working with $10,000 versus $10 million. What these readers want to know is “How to they GET to square one?”

Let’s face it — many if not most if not just-shy-of-all theater companies want (and think they deserve) their own space. This is probably a large portion of the readers who have written or called me. The readers were touched by my gumption, my candor, my lay-it-on-the-line attitude; it gave them inspiration and a renewed sense of ambition. They want a theater too.

Well, frankly, the candor which they appreciated so well in the article might hurt some of their feelings in the next sentence, but: Not all of them deserve or are ready for their own space.

I certainly do not intend to deflate anyone’s balloon, and truly, who am I to dissuade any one of you from your dream — but I do want to continue with the candor and no-bs, no sugar-coating, no high-gloss when addressing the reality of the situation:

Having a theater transforms the idea of “putting on a show” from enjoyment and self-expression to commitment and public consumption. It’s odd that my mind goes to this analogy, but “you’re hooked up to the milking machine.”

There is no room for experimental artistic whimsy — at least not over the long term, especially if you expect to pay the bills. There is no room for clashes of ego and extemporaneous backstage drama. Not everyone wants to see Aunt Betty in every play (or even Bernadette Peters, for that matter.) And someone has to clean public toilets every day.

And yet the milking machine will keep pumping, demanding a show, week after week. In the reader’s personal experience, do they know of many theater troupes capable of that kind of dedication? For 90 percent of the troupes out there, they are better off performing twice a year and walking away after the strike of the set.

Still, if a reader believes their group is resolved and within that remaining 10 percent, I’d have them ask themselves the following questions:

1. Do they have an existing solid reputation in town that will not be increased by renting for one more year?

2. What is their core median age? Is it beyond the first years out of college? Is it beyond dating and marriage and (big one) babies? Is it beyond weekend, or weeknight, partying?

3. Has everyone come to terms with his and the rest of the troupe’s “shuns?” (Occupation, habitation, orientation, transportation, education, and addictions?)

4. Does the group work with drinks, beer, cigarettes or joints in their hands? Would they be able to work — and would they REALLY — without them?

5. Can at least three of them get additional credit in an emergency, and would they? Does their personal livelihood and their “shuns” depend on that emergency credit? Would the group be doing them an injustice by taking that from them?

6. Is this group comprised solely of members of another larger group who simply enjoy each other (from college, church, childhood friends, neighbors, social circle) and do they have — and would they honestly accept — decision-making influences outside their existing realm?

Taking that first step from troupe to theater-owners begins with asking more questions than is both easy or comfortable, but it is the best way I can answer the question “How?” The answers to “How?” lie in “Why?” “Who?” and “What?” and must be pulled from past and present to make a wise choice for the future. There is no reason to attempt to fly across those uncharted waters in a half-filled balloon. Make certain your troupe’s hopes and dreams are inflated with the wisest, most honest self-awareness. That must be step one.

Blake Yelavich is the general manager of Arts On Real Theater in Austin, Texas. To read about his quest to build his own theatre his way, visit http://www.dramabiz.com/news.php?pk=184&mode=article .

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