On Monday evening, D Magazine welcomed a panel of area theater critics to participate in a forum about the local theater scene (for play by play of the evening, check out our live Twitter feed). In attendance were many representatives from a wide cross section of this city’s theater world, and as you can expect with a room full of thespians, the discussion got passionate at times.
One of the issues that was brought up to the panel, which included KERA’s Jerome Weeks, the Dallas Observer’s Elaine Liner, Theater Jones’ Mark Lowry, and FrontRow’s Lance Lusk, as well as SMU theater department head, Stan Wojewodski, was the role of media in advertising the city’s theater offerings. Some of the dissatisfaction voiced from members of the audience included nostalgia for print advertising and publications like The New Yorker, which lists a wide variety of theater performances in their print magazine. The comments were surprising considering that between the publications represented by the members of the panel, it is hard to imagine there is a single theater production that goes unlisted in this city.
But the comments, I believe, cut to something that is different in the way theater is covered in Dallas and how it has been in the past – or in other cities. In Dallas these days, there is no shortage of coverage. Today a production by a small or large theater may get reviews on FrontRow, KERA’s Art and Seek, TheaterJones, The Dallas Morning News, The Dallas Observer, and Alexandra Bonifield’s blog. The issue no longer seems to be that no one is writing about the arts or that there aren’t places to find out what is going on in the arts. The issue is that a vast majority of this writing is happening on the internet.
The internet. Ay, there’s the rub. During the panel, social media was discussed, as was the way actors can use venues like Facebook to build followings and drive audiences to performances. The Ochre House’s Mathew Posey said he doesn’t need to think about a marketing budget for his tiny alternative theater because he can get the word out for free.
But while there are many benefits to the way the internet can aid the discussing, promoting, and critiquing the arts, there are also some drawbacks. The first is that the internet as a medium is very useful when you are looking for specific information – when you already know what you want to find. If you want to know what play to see, or if you want to see what production that opened last weekend was the best reviewed, Google and about ten minutes worth of time will provide loads of information. You can read a handful of quality reviews, watch video or see photos from the show, purchase tickets, and print out a map to a new theater, all with a few clicks.
But what about those potential audience members who don’t know they want to go to a theatrical performance? If you are not looking for Dallas theater on the internet, you will rarely find Dallas theater on the internet.
Media outlets try to overcome this silo-mentality that dominates the internet. That’s part of the reason we redesigned FrontRow earlier this year – so that someone reading a movie review might find a featured theater review on the sidebar and go looking for more. What the internet can’t provide, however, is the kind of experience that got me interested in the arts in the first place: those youthful Sundays spent with the New York Times’ Arts and Leisure section spread out on the living room floor, reading about a movie and then flipping the page to find a photo of a wild staging and or an intriguing headline for a new art show that pulls me into to a world, a conversation, a way of thinking about art, performance, and life that I had never considered.
I fear there is no going back. The internet is rapidly replacing print as a primary means of news and information consumption, especially among young audiences (Yes, I recognize I have just typed one of the most dated sentences of 2011). But as with the examples of Facebook marketing, audience development, and personal followings, the internet also offers alternatives to replacing what is lost from tradition print advertising or coverage, that is, ways to get butts in theater seats.
What I don’t think will be easily replaced is what was really at the root of some of Monday’s attendees’ concerns: how, when Dallas’ theaters seem to be doing some of the best work they have ever done, do you cultivate a reputation both in the wider Dallas public and in the nation at large that Dallas is a theater town?
This is a role print and television media serve quite well. Those mediums have an effect that supersedes the specifics of their content. Content on television or in the newspaper not only conveys information, it implies to the casual viewer who may or may not be interested in the subject that the content is important to the life and pride of the city. For example, when local television broadcasts interrupt the usual lineup of drug busts, murders, and weather reports to show an interview with Dallas Maverick J.J. Barea’s family during the 2011 NBA Finals, even the non-basketball fan has to recognized that the Mavericks were vital to the city at this particular moment. We became a Mavericks town. The internet doesn’t have this same effect because it is niche by nature.
So in terms of wider media coverage that conveys a sense of pride in Dallas theater, theaters need to look for their equivalent of an NBA championship. They need to keep an eye on and talk up Liz Mikel’s success in New York. They need to keep an eye on and talk up the Dallas Theater Center, whose reach, fresh ambition, and ability to grab attention in and out of town, is so important to all of the area’s smaller theater groups.
But ultimately the media is only a conduit in this process. If Dallas wants to earn the reputation of places like Chicago or Minneapolis, than its theaters, its advocates, and its city organizations not only need to take up the charge – they need to be on the same page.
This is why the clouds gathering over the showdown between the arts community and the Dallas Visitors and Convention Bureau has me worried. When, later this year, the city finishes paying down the debt on the American Airlines Center and the portion of the hotel tax that has been funding that debt is freed up, it may be redirected to fund either the DVCB or Dallas arts. There will be much political wrangling to get these funds, but my question is “why?” Doesn’t the case of the Dallas arts, the reputation of Dallas’ respective arts scenes, the health, vitality of our cultural life directly play into the wider appeal of our city? Isn’t the life of Dallas the product The Dallas Visitors and Convention Bureau is selling? Why rob Peter to pay Paul?
The truth is the DVCB is not selling Dallas, but rather operating a convention hall, and funds are needed to subsidize lucrative conferences. Sure, conventions and conferences are valuable as economic drivers, but in the case of Dallas, attracting the top brass of organizations to take their minions of worker bees to Dallas for a three night dip in the convention center hotel pool, a ride on a bronze bull, and a titillating tour up Harry Hines Blvd., means selling a vision of Dallas that doesn’t necessarily flesh with the city that is here. You only need to take a brief peek at this video to recognize the disconnect.
If there is something holding back Dallas theater’s reputation, it is this disconnect between theaters, their advocates, and the civic organizations that are supposed to be their advocates but are not. During the panel, the creation of a Theater League was suggested. Perhaps that would help. Perhaps it would create more problems. Regardless, ahead of the hotel tax debate, one thing needs to happen: arts advocates need to work to get all of this city’s boosters on the same page. That won’t be easy, but neither is getting coverage of The Shipment on the evening news.
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7 comments
Oh, Lord, not ANOTHER theater league. In the last 30 years at least 3 theater leagues (plus an arts coalition) have come and gone in Dallas. In each case, the problem was not the lack of an organization; the problem was that the theaters, for various reasons, could never accomplish much once they banded together. Ask 20 veterans of these times why not, ask them what they would recommend as new solution for an old problem, and you will probably get 20 different answers.
The long-term solution is that arts groups must grow their audiences–that is, they must attract the attention of the child, the teenager, the young adult, before the possibilities of art get crushed in the realities of living in today’s world (or just surviving in today’s economy) .The butchering of arts programs in the schools, and elsewhere. that has occurred and that will accelerate thanks to the Texas Legislature’ recent funding failures makes the job of growing those young audiences ever harder.
In this kind of environment, most organizations must consider their own survival before attacking the problems of the greater theatrical or art communities in which they exist. Historically, the only consistently successful model for operating success has been patronage, that is, donors who donate to the organization and lead others to do the same. That is how our art museum, our symphony, our opera, and the Dallas Theater Center have survived to this day. Other groups, such as the Dallas Children’s Theater, have learned this lesson, and have adopted this model. Yes, it’s old-fashioned. Yes, it’s elitist. Yes, it is patronizing. And, yes, it can work. Frankly, I find it distasteful from a moral standpoint, but, if you’ve got a better plan, put it on the table.
I read Peter Simek’s FrontRow article with great interest and wanted to clarify a couple of points that he made in an otherwise very interesting article.
The two percent tax designated from hotel occupancy taxes to help pay for American Airlines Center ends when the bonds are paid off. The tax ends and cannot be re-directed to either group.
There is no showdown between the arts community and the Dallas CVB. Performing, visual and culinary arts are integral to the Dallas CVB’s branding and marketing of Dallas to regional, national and international audiences. Not withstanding the trade video that was produced for a specific audience to show the city’s support. In fact, the Dallas Arts District was the star for our closing night event for that particular group attended by more than 3,000 meeting planners. A similar event was held for American Bus Association attendees in the district. We produced CityArts in the Dallas Arts District for six consecutive years; sponsored the King Tut exhibit; and traveled on regional, national and international promotional trips with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and AT&T Performing Arts Center – to mention a few collaborative initiatives.
We are reaching out and look forward to helping the arts community in Dallas identify alternate sources of revenue during this economic downturn. And we look forward to being part of the dialog and making this city the leading visitor destination.
Ross,
Thank you so much for reading and your feedback. Regarding the hotel occupancy tax, you are correct that once the American Airlines debt is paid off the tax will be retired. However, in a 2009 Dallas Morning News article, Philip Jones is quoted as saying he would like see a replacement tax or a tourism district created which would, in effect, redirect the tax from AAC to the DCVB. That piece is no longer available online, but you can find it here:
http://forum.dallasmetropolis.com/archive/index.php/t-20120.html
More recently, members of the arts community have been discussing mobilizing to convince the city council to create a similar new tax that would also, in effect, redirect the moneys from the AAC debt service to the Office of Cultural Affairs, meanwhile removing the funding of the OCA from the city’s general fund. The advantage here for arts groups is that it would remove the uncertainty that inevitably arises during sluggish economic times that results in funding cuts. It would enable the OCA to create a more stable and predictable cultural policy.
If the DCVB is no longer interested in pursuing a replacement tax to redirect the hotel tax revenue to funding the bureau’s marketing (like that video), please correct me. But as recently as last week KERA’s Art & Seek reported that it is still an intention of DCVB.
Also, I think your comment actually elucidates the trepidation some of the smaller or mid-size arts groups feel about using that hotel tax to further fund the DCVB’s marketing, rather than investing it in an alternative funding scheme for the OCA. The arts programs you mention in your comment – the symphony, the ATTPAC, King Tut – while they represent important, blue chip cultural offerings, they also indicate that the depth and variety of this city’s cultural scene still flies below the radar of its own boosters (CityArts, while a nice event, is also not an accurate exhibition of the best this city has to offer).
Here’s a comparison: last summer I wrote a travel article for D Magazine on San Diego. During that trip, members of San Diego’s visitor’s bureau went out of their way to make sure I not only saw their premiere theater and summer music festival, but also met with grass roots arts leaders who are reclaiming abandoned parts of their city for performing arts practice and performance spaces or non-profit art spaces. There was an understanding on behalf of their bureau that selling their city meant more than showing that we have an opera or a symphony or any other things that fit nicely on a list of necessary cultural amenities, but rather that there was cultural life beating on the street level, on a human scale.
For example, it is a shame that the DCVB didn’t work to help promote the Horton Foote Festival to the national market. It may not have resulted in an immediate convention booking, but in terms of affecting this city’s national reputation, that would have moved the needle.
Ross says “We produced CityArts in the Dallas Arts District for six consecutive years”. But then it was run out of the Arts District. Among the reasons heard were the following:
1. The DMA did not like the quality of the art being shown on the street. They refused to allow the 500 artists to set up on Harwood.
2. The DMA and the Nasher did not like the kind of people that come to street festivals, who then toured their facilttes. The DMA even tried to get City Arts to pay for extra security for that reason.
Perhaps the AT&T PAC weighed in as well, but it seems to be bad timing to move the City Arts Festival out of the Arts District, just as it comes to fruition.
@Lee: I heard CityArts moved, in part, because of how expensive it is to close down Flora St. That’s a whole ‘nother conversation.
Yeah, sure.
Go ahead and knock the cowboy tourists and fake-bull riders.
That’ll really help theater look like a better entertainment choice.
Sure.
Dear Peter,
Thank you for the continued discourse on this important issue. We both acknowledge that the American Airlines Center tax will be retired after the debt is paid off. And Phillip Jones has said in the past that he would like to see a replacement tax. Unfortunately that has not happened. The Dallas tourism industry has been researching alternate funding scenarios, and we’re seeking to establish a “self-funding” means to pay for promotions.
I also agree with you that it is unfortunate that we have not had the resources to promote all of the activities that happen in our city. This is not limited to promotion of the arts but many other worthwhile activities as well. The Horton Foote Festival is just one example of missed opportunities due to a lack of funding.
We may disagree on which comes first the chicken or the egg, but we do agree that more money to promote Dallas is essential.
I’m as interested as you are in seeing how this develops. Stay tuned…