Arts Reporting: Howard Sherman Analyzes the Numbers for America's Theatres

Published at his website on December 10:

America’s Theatre, By The Numbers

by Howard Sherman - December 10, 2012

 

Many people, and I count myself among them, often find themselves trying to quantify the totality of theatre activity in the United States and, within that, to delineate differences between the various sectors: commercial, not for profit, educational, amateur and so on. While absolute figures may prove elusive, there are a handful of studies that provide a reasonably good picture of professional production, lending perspective to any discussion about the reach of theatre in America.

The Broadway League, the professional association of theatre producers in the commercial sector, both Broadway and touring, generates multiple reports annually; its recent release of its annual demographic figures last week focused a lot of attention on Broadway and who’s attending those productions. The Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national service organization of the country’s not-for-profit theatres (NFPs), produces its annual Theatre Facts report, the most comprehensive picture of activity across a variety of NFP companies based on an comprehensive fiscal survey.

While the methodologies may vary, and the TCG report isn’t 100% inclusive and includes extrapolation, looking at the two is very informative as a means of comparing and contrasting these two sectors, which inexplicably to me seem to be always addressed discretely, rather than as parts of a whole.

Here’s the main snapshot:

2010-2011 Season
	Commercial	Not-for-Profit
	(B’way League)	(TCG)
Revenue	$1,884,000,000	$2,040,000,000
Attendance	25,630,000	34,000,000
Productions	118	14,600
# of performances	20,680	177,000

I was surprised to find that in terms of revenue, the two sectors are quite close; the NFPs edge commercial production by $36 million (for the purpose of this summary, I have merged earned and contributed income in the NFPs). Attendance between the two shows the NFPs ahead by a bit over $ million, which is almost 33%. But the real difference is in the number of productions, which demonstrate that the production pace in NFP theatre is vast compared to the commercial arena, and the total number of performances almost eight times greater. [emphasis added by AustinLiveTheatre.com]

Read more at www.hesherman.com . . . .

A Milestone: The 1000th Post at Austin Live Theatre

Austin Theatre, meet yourself.

Or, as Bogey said to Ingrid, "Here's looking at you, kid."

This is the 1000th post on AustinLiveTheatre since I established it in June, 2008 with a review of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at Austin Playhouse. I wound up that 900-word article with the comment, "We had a great time. As Austin newcomers, we were attending our second Austin Playhouse production - - and at the intermission I went out to the foyer and purchased season tickets for 2008 – 2009 from Producing Artistic Director Toner himself, who was happy to talk theatre with me."

Commemorating the milestone, ALT offers readers background on its origins, a summary of Austin media coverage of theatre matters, and a brief portrait of the Austin theatre scene.

Origins

After a diplomatic career of assignments abroad and in Washington, we chose to relocate to the capital of Texas. We found some superlative local theatre -- starting with The Seagull, produced with very little fanfare by Breakin' String Theatre. We were intrigued by the apparent lack of information about theatre doings in Austin. Taking an example from the cooking blog established by my daughter and her guy, I set up on Google's freebie hosting service blogspot.com my own blog: "Austin Live Theatre." The stated aim for the blog was to serve as "a voyage to discover the underreported Austin theatre scene."

Ticket by ticket, trip by trip, ALT has done that. The following profiles emerge from some meticulous info-crunching of postings, links and information provided by ALT in calendar year 2009.

Media coverage of Austin's Theatre

Austin's free papers and free on-line press cover theatre much more extensively than the daily Austin Statesman and its on-line counterpart www.Austin360.com. The numbers tell the tale:

• Austin Chronicle, weekly free newspaper: 80 reviews, averaging about 1.5 per week

• Austin Statesman: 46 reviews, averaging almost 1 per week. A number of the reviews appearing on-line do not make it into the daily paper.

• Austinist.com: 43 reviews, averaging almost 1 per week\

• AustinOnStage.com: 24 reviews, about 1 every two weeks

• Examiner.com (Ryan E. Johnson, blogging as "Austin theatre examiner"): 26 reviews, averaging 1 every two weeks

• Daily Texan, University of Texas: 22, averaging one every 16.5 days

• Austin.com: 17 reviews, averaging one every three weeks. Postings on this site are often stale or outdated.

• KUT-FM: 17 reviews or features, averaging about one every third week. John Aielli discontinued at mid-year his occasional half-hour programs entitled "Aielli Unleashed." Most coverage is in the form of 2 minute spots done with Mike Lee for KUT's "Arts Eclectic."
  

• KOOP-FM: 18 programs featuring musical theatre productions covered by AustinLiveTheatre. Lisa Schepps hosts the weekly "Off Stage and On the Air" Mondays at 12:30. This program, begun in 30-minute format and extended to 60 minutes, is also posted on-line. Ms Schepps interviews artists and directors; they may perform music live or she will play recordings from Broadway shows or other versions of upcoming presentations.

• AustinTheatreReview (now defunct): Sean Fuentes' undertaking reviewed 9 local productions before going inactive in about September, 2009.

• INSITE, the free monthly entertainment magazine: 4, averaging one feature article per quarter.

• Television coverage is sparse. ALT does not monitor television programming but found and included links to short written or video features: two each from KEYE and News 8, one each from KXAN and KFOX.

• Miscellaneous coverage: 10, including 5 postings by San Antonio weekly and daily papers and one each from www.soulciti.com, www.outinamerica.com, a podcast by Stage Directions magazine, RepublicOfAustin.com, and the Blanco, Texas, newspaper.

Summing all the above, extended media for the Austin region provided 328 features or reviews for approximately 380 theatre productions in 2009 -- an estimate drawn from the fact that ALT posted 387 "upcoming" announcements that year.

Those reviews were not evenly spread. They ranged from nine reviews for Capital T's production of Killer Joe at the Hyde Park Theatre (which ALT reluctantly panned), to a more typical score for well attended shows of two non-ALT reviews (28 productions) or one non-ALT review (57 productions, although this includes some Short Finge elements of Hyde Park Theatre's 100-item Frontera Fest). More typical, however, was no review at all-- the case for 195 productions, or 59.5 percent of those staged in the greater Austin area.


Austin's Live Theatre

Austin is seething with theatre activity. The town deserves its reputation for original work but its theatre companies and groups are producing mainstream comedies, dramas, musicals and narrations as well. Quality is high, variety is striking, and ticket prices are low, often ranging from $10 to $25.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .