[SML] OT: Promoting theatre

[Pat Kight]

Jon Ares via Stagecraft wrote:
> On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 12:06 PM, Jerry Durand via Stagecraft
> <stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:
>> Seems the easiest way to get people in the seats is to have your play banned
>> by some group.
>
> I knew a (lousy) director who tried to invent something like that
> (Oregonians remember the OCA - Oregon Citizens Alliance?) - when he
> did a gender-bent production of "Taming of the Shrew," but the media
> never nibbled.  (Was a terrible production, anyway.)  He tried to
> plant seeds that the OCA was going to be picketing outside the
> school....


LOL. That *might* have attracted the local media ... outside ... until 
they realized there were going to be no pickets. But it's not the first 
thing I'd do to attract an audience.

Still ... Back in '87, I directed a production of "Inherit the Wind" 
staged in an historic Oregon county courthouse as part of its centennial 
celebration (we had a progressive county commission back then). Some 
religious sect - I forget which one - they evidently track productions 
of the show so they can protest them - showed up on opening night to 
picket outside the courthouse and hand people their "we are not 
descended from monkeys" leaflets. Then when the audience entered the 
building, I had an actor on a landing en route to the 
courtroom/performance space doing an improvised fire-and-brimstone rant, 
which we'd planned long before we learned about the protests.

Every single person who mentioned it to me afterwards assumed the 
protestors were part of the cast, and said it was brilliant. :-)

-- 
Pat Kight
kightp at peak.org