I see a lot of theater in Los Angeles and ever since the slow return to stages that began in 2021, it’s felt like the audience has been made up mostly of friends of the show’s cast and crew. A lot of larger theaters have been offering heavily discounted and even free tickets to fill their seats, with mixed results. Smaller theaters have fewer seats to fill but are just as desperate for patrons.
As a lifelong theater junkie, I was fortunate enough to grow up in the ‘70s in New York, and saw Broadway and off-Broadway shows as often as possible. By the time Mel Brooks turned my favorite movie, The Producers, into a Broadway musical, in 2001, I was living in Los Angeles. I ordered tickets before the first preview and booked a trip back. Until COVID, I regularly went on theater trips to New York where I saw multiple shows a week—sometimes two a day. I love the Pasadena Playhouse so much I used to have a subscription, despite the unwieldy traffic between here and there. And of course, as a reviewer for The Larchmont Buzz, I see dozens of shows a year.
I’m also in a theater company myself, writing plays that recently have had to be produced on Zoom. We’ve been asking ourselves for a long time when we should commit to going back to in-person performing, which is a lot more complicated and expensive than it was when our March 2020 production was cancelled.
Luckily, the yearning to share a darkened space with an audience is powerful on both sides of the curtain. A year ago, most performances featured social distancing that went well beyond CDC recommendations. Lately, some performances have felt fuller. Masks have become optional (and virtually nonexistent) at many theaters, so maybe COVID fear is abating and audiences are finding their way back. We still have a long way to go, however.
Other than the Hollywood Fringe Festival and acting school productions, Los Angeles theater has become an art form supported primarily by the 50-and-up crowd. It’s always exciting to go to a performance, such as Slave Play, Smile or Lavender Men, and see a younger crowd. Without an audience, of any age, not only does today’s theater suffer, the future of the art form is in jeopardy.
Recently, Theatre Communications Group, an organization with 700 member theaters, noted the ongoing challenge of “the slow and inconsistent return of audiences to traditional theatre spaces and performances.” TCG is holding a conference to ask, “What does the future hold for our art form as we strive to understand and reimagine a range of new relationships with our communities?”
Yes, theater companies have a responsibility to build relationships with audiences. They have a fiscal imperative to expand them beyond where they have been. But theater lovers also have a responsibility. They need to get back out there, to buy tickets and support local productions. Waiting too long could mean there won’t be much to go back to.
