lifttheater Unlocking LiFT

Unlocking LiFT 14: Advertising and Promotion Basics

By Matt Powers

Everyone understands that advertising and promotion are necessary. Without them our events, cool ideas, and information wouldn’t be seen or heard by anyone. Its crucial, and essential to the survival of any organization.

I happen to dislike it.

When I consider my duties and the work I enjoy, promotion falls to the bottom. I much prefer working with actors and scripts and making theater. That is not to say that facets of advertising aren’t wonderfully compelling and imaginative. The best advertising, from my limited experience, surprises us and is a very compact story.

Exude Story – Every piece of advertising needs to tell a story, ideally your story. From concept, layout, artwork, and language, everything needs to stem from story. One of my favorite recent examples is our poster for The Brass Lantern (many thanks to Sign Designs by Al for the great poster). With a striking image that captures the essence of our hero, tactful use of color, effective composition, and clear language this poster does everything we need it to: capture attention, give information, and give ideas about our story for The Brass Lantern.  If nothing else, character dominates this poster. BL example

Surprise – Surprise sounds cliche, but it is important. Surprise doesn’t have to be a “Holy cow! I didn’t know that or see that coming!” moment, but it does need to entertain. Surprise could entail humor, or an interesting graphic, an unusual method of delivery, or all of the above. I guess when I say ‘surprise’ what I mean is ‘delight,’ because if you can delight an audience, you have their interest. Once you get their interest, you had better capitalize. In the case of our poster, surprise (well mystery) is achieved through the artwork, color, and font type. Particularly the word “podcast,” with its thinner lines and wider typeface, catches our attention because it is so different from the rest of the language. Where the font for “The Brass Lantern” hearkens back to the pulp era of gritty heroes with its marquee like look, “podcast” has a more contemporary, sleek look to match up with the newness of the digital medium.

Persistence & Repetition – Getting your name out there is difficult, especially with the dearth of material one has to slog through on the internet, social media, print sources, television, and radio. Tactful repetition and being persistent can get through much of it, and when it does get through it should be effective. Casting a diverse net helps with this, and any advertising campaign should certainly make use of social media, print, and, if possible, radio or television (though this does get cost prohibitive). For LiFT we’d had great success with social media and print – creating events, sharing them, cross-promoting with other pages, promotional posts that are image centered, press releases, and news stories. With The Brass Lantern, we even spread posters around to community boards and businesses willing to let us use some window space. It is difficult to gauge how effective print can be at times, because of a lack of analytics, but at the same time that kind of advertising is cheap and gets it in front of a public who may, or may not, know about it. It is also a way to establish community connections – which should always be utilized – and develop future relationships. To me, that’s a good return on investment.

Talk soon,

Matt

lifttheater A.G. Devitt, Brass Lantern, Unlocking LiFT

Unlocking LiFT 12: The Brass Lantern Live Rehearsal

By Matt Powers

We live in interesting times. Radio has made a comeback in the form of podcasts. The public has a desire to see how a show is created. Shows like Prairie Home Companion were popular in their day because they produced sound effects live, and now, with The Brass Lantern, we have the opportunity for a hybrid performance. Sure some of our effects are digital, but many we can reproduced live. But this isn’t about sound effects! Not yet! Back to directing.

Script Additions and Aids

While not a memorized show, it is still helpful to have some additional notes in a performance script. As my actors have requested, I’ve added several notes, cues, and other matters in the script so that they have a handy reference during the live performance. This isn’t so much that their memories are faulty, or that they didn’t take notes, rather there is an air of wanting to do very well, and they want to be sure to “get it right.”

Which is alright with me, it is a bit more work on my end, but this is worth it, and has an unforeseen benefit. It forces me to make my vision for the show much clearer, more potent. Not only is clarity beneficial for the actors, as it provides direction (ha, see what did there?), but allows them a solid foundation from which to build their character upon. Actors can piece together words, tones, and actions in unique ways – and I, for one, am the last to get in the way of that, but it certainly does help even the most seasoned actor to have a starting point. And, selfishly, this exercise helps my writing and my ability to communicate. Which is always beneficial.

Stage Presence

Transitioning from voice acting to live stage performance is a bit tricky at times. Actors get used to the privacy, intimacy, flexibility, and reproducibility of recording in a studio. It is very similar to television and film acting – if you mess up, you just do it again. Don’t nail the line? It’s alright. Do it again and stitch together the best bits.

Performing live, obviously, takes away this safety net, and when that happens, some actors retreat inside themselves, and their charisma and entertainment subside. At times like this, it is the responsibility of the director not only to put the actor at ease with reassurances, so they can flourish and be their radiant selves, but to guide them through the show with a clear plan. Then rehearse it enough so everyone is on the same page.

At that point, it is important that everyone has some fun, and draws out their character. Acting is fun after all, and if that’s not happening among the actors and director, that will clearly be evident to the audience. “If we’re not having fun, they’re not having fun.” I’ve said this many times to my actors, have seen it to be truthful, and will continue to say it until I’ve been proven wrong.

Timing / Fluidity

Certain moments and beats need to timed well to convey the moment accurately, with emotional intensity and clarity. Really, it’s about what information the audience needs to understand at that moment. Our job is to make that very clear.

In drama, or more serious portions of theater, timing functions a bit differently. In comedy, humor is generated through quick pacing, expression of the dialogue, and posture (as well as an actor’s awareness of laughter). With more serious work, those same concepts are in play, but in reverse essentially.

In the clip above, we see Matthew Arnold (played by A.G. Devitt) talking with Elaina Dare (played by Laura Powers). Arnold is home from his stint in the war, where horrors have scarred him, has difficulty confessing the whole truth about Elaina’s father, St. John.

Much of the work that we focus on here is accurately conveying Arnold’s character, and the difficulty he has with opening up to people. Contrasting Arnold, Elaina needs to come across as fierce, independent, capable, and understanding.  The scene also has elements of romance, as two characters, despite their foibles, are discovering they care about the other.

Its a dynamic scene with much to show to the audience, and great character development. The awkwardness, the risk-taking of emotional expression, and the wonder of discovering a new person (as well as new things about yourself), I think all of us can relate to. It becomes a matter of making the moment real. To that end, we opted for a slower pace of dialogue, with longer pauses to help show both the difficulty of being truthful and thoughts simmering below the surface. Character spacing also matters, we wanted the characters close to establish some intimacy, but far enough way to show distancing. Posture and mannerisms do similar work.

While the scene isn’t perfect yet, it is moving in the right direction. All it takes now is practice.

Till soon,

Matt

lifttheater Unlocking LiFT

Unlocking LiFT 10: The Communal Story

By Matt Powers

Community theater is the only theater. Blasphemy, I know. Particularly since community theater is see as pretty low on the totem pole. There are regional theaters, for- profit and not-for-profit professional theaters, Broadway which all have greater “status” or “respectability” than community theater.  It’s all hooey really.

The roots of theater grip into the community. The Greeks held multi-day celebrations with theatrical contests. Plays written by Sophocles or Euripides and others used familiar stories, religious deities, and local people to entertain, examine social and philosophical issues. Sure part of this was religious in nature, but much of it too was a community coming together to create new work from a talented artist, where the work directly related to the people of that time. Two thousand years later, we still do the same thing.

 

Making theater is about the journey we experience as a group, and how the stories we spin entertain and connect with our community. We all have lessons to offer, and we all have things to learn from stories. It is our duty to bring them to life, present them, and, hopefully, impact the community to get them talking. Spark discussion. Promote reflection.

If this is absent, the community suffers from this lack of discourse. It also misses out on opportunities to see the world through a different perspective. Take, for instance, Trifles by Susan Glaspell. First performed in Provincetown in 1916, this one-act play deals with an investigation of Mr. Wright’s death in his home. The male characters look for clues, while their wives talk. The ladies too investigate, examining the kitchen, her sewing, and the deceased pet bird she adored. They quickly realize that the Mrs. Wright indeed murdered her husband by considering her life, whereas the male characters barely consider it. The inherent feminism in the play adds to the community and shows inequality in that community. Possibilities for discussion, reflection (and hopefully change), are now available to make the community tighter and stronger.

With LiFT, we began Strike Story, continued with summer Shakespeare, but have now expanded to include radio-theater with The Brass Lantern, and have a foothold in an upcoming production of The Laramie Project. While we typically focus on new work (Strike Story and Lantern), because their themes are most relevant to our community, older and pre-produced work also bears important thematic concerns for our community.

Part of the job of artists, particularly theater artists, is to see the bigger picture of their community, and then create work that addresses it, to promote dialogue and reflection, and to make their community a better place to live.

A healthy community needs a healthy theater. No matter what size.

Till soon,

Matt