More Theatre Thoughts

Kris had this post up awhile back regarding a PC article about theatre finances. I sent the following letter to the PC, but they didn’t publish it. I wonder why?

Thanks for the interesting article on the struggles of local theatres to survive. While the article mentions several things that have led to this struggle, I would like to comment on one thing that is not mentioned.

I am currently the Past President of the Iowa City Community Theatre (ICCT). For the four years prior to this, I served as President of ICCT. During that time I noted that there was a definite difference in attendance for productions that were well covered in the local papers and productions that received little or no coverage. Productions that received a nice article, with a picture or two, in the Go Section of the Press Citizen were always better attended than productions that received nothing. And productions that were reviewed almost always got an attendance boost from that review.

Unfortunately, during my time as President, the amount of coverage we received from the Press Citizen and other media outlets dropped. It’s been close to four years since the Press Citizen provided a review for an ICCT production. Were the Press-Citizen to devote a few more of its resources to covering local theatres and reviewing local theatres productions, there would, based on past experience, be greater attendance at those same productions. How much of an attendance boost would occur is open to debate. But I think it’s safe to say that for all our local theatres, at this time any attendance boost, no matter how small, would be a wonderful thing.

Think it hit too close to home?