Where in the World is ALT? -- Austin, July 10

In July and August, 2010 I will be traveling, first to Chicago and then to Europe. This is a vacation in the sense that I'm "vacating" my activities as reviewer for made-in-Austin theatre productions during that time. Thanks to digital technology and the birthday gift from K of a new laptop computer, I'll be maintaining the site, including the Austin Live Theatre calendar, notices of upcoming theatre events and arts reporting.

(image: tropic diver at flickriver.com)

July 10, Saturday

Chicago is a great theatre town, with well-established, classy and innovative companies such as Steppenwolf and the Goodman in the loop, a generous helping of semi-pro theatres mostly in the north of the town, and a variety of suburb and university theatres.

Both of our children chose to go to Chicago for university, so we've had an intimate but long-distance relationship with that town since 2003. We still do, for our son L, just graduated, is sharing an apartment in Hyde Park, working and thinking about next steps, including graduate school.

First N and then L learned that a visit from dad was probably going to mean an excursion to the theatre. In this Internet age you can pick over the theatre offerings at leisure -- the Chicago Tribune's metromix.com provided me hours of dreamy trip-planning as we sat in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, on assignment from 2003 through 2007.

On-line entertainment information in Austin

Metromix has pushed into 63 other urban markets. Their beta site for Austin is laughable, by comparison with the meaty buffet available for Chicago. The new Austin start-up focuses on restaurants and bars and mentions a single current stage performance, misnaming it as "The Hat" (and, to boot, the Austin Lyric Opera's "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" was sold out within hours, long ago).

Maybe I should contact them.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Where in the World is ALT? -- Austin, July 8

In July and August, 2010 I will be traveling, first to Chicago and then to Europe. This is a vacation in the sense that I'm "vacating" my activities as reviewer for made-in-Austin theatre productions during that time. Thanks to digital technology and the birthday gift from K of a new laptop computer, I'll be maintaining the site, including the Austin Live Theatre calendar, notices of upcoming theatre events and arts reporting.

(image: tropic diver at flickriver.com)

July 8, Thursday

After two years of creation and dedication, It's time for a getaway. I've written and published 79 theatre reviews so far in 2010. In 2009 I published 158 and in the last six months of 2008, while defining AustinLiveTheatre, I published 57. Wowzers -- 294 essays on Austin artists and productions! That part is the labor of love, involving attending productions, thinking about them, and invoking the mysterious muses with the aim of depicting those events in prose, appreciating the artists and saying something significant about them. Theatre writing isn't quick or easy. The French would call it un travail de longue haleine -- a job that requires endurance and stamina for the long haul (literally, "a job for sustained breathing"). Depending on the complexity and challenge, each essay takes from two to four hours to craft and publish.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Conversation: Newspapers Are Fading -- What Can A Theatre Group Do? WBEZ, Chicago, January 15

How can a theatre group reach its prospective audience, when financially hard-pressed newspapers are cutting staff and in many cases simply abandoning coverage of theatre arts? Chicago's public radio station WBEZ invited journalists, artists and theatre directors for a lengthy dialogue last January 15.

This is a long, wandering conversation -- 90 minutes or more -- with some interesting Qs and As from the audience at the end, along with some telling anecdotes.

One exchange during the main discussion particularly attracted attention here at Austin Live Theatre:

Question from moderator Gordon Mayer, Community Media Workshop: How do arts organizations explain to funders who expect reviews as one of their pieces of their evidence before they’re going to release another grant, or whatever process they have - - how do you explain that you are not getting reviewed, or not as much, and you don’t have those to include in your grant applications even if it’s a requirement?

(hesitation from among panelists, ended by Scarlett Swerdlow of the Illinois Arts Alliance)

Answer/Comment from Scarlett Swerdlow: Rather than explain why you’re not getting reviewed, you need to start preparing your funders for new types of reviews of your work. This goes back to the conversation of new media and Web 2.0. I work for an arts service organization, so it’s a different context, but it’s the same principle.

Reviews, whether they’re print or broadcast or online -- I see the point of them being that they help you market your event, but also offer you that third-party endorsement that what you’ve done is good and that it’s worthy. And these are both things that you can get through new media and web 2.0 tools.

There’s a whole host of direct marketing that’s cost effective and powerful that’s available to us through Web 2.0, everything from blogs to ways to share multi-media. There’s also the basics of e-mail and search engine optimization. Google and other search engines, that’s really how most people interact with the Internet. So if there are ways that you can boost your ratings, so that you pop up sooner, that’s a huge way to reach more people.

I also think these tools also offer you that opportunity to get that third party endorsement of your work. In Chicago there’s definitely a lot of respected seen-as-authority blogs that specifically focus on arts and culture. I would encourage you to start following those blogs, pitching those bloggers, and looking to get reviewed there as well. Traditional media is shrinking, but the blogosphere is definitely growing and there are huge opportunities there.

Rather than going to a funder and starting to make excuses, prepare them for new types of reviews, saying how they’re just as powerful as or even more powerful than print and broadcast. That’s one way to approach that.

Blurb from the "Chicago Amplified" section on the WBEZ website:

The Incredible Shrinking Media & What It Means for Your Arts Organization
(click title for link to WBEZ page)
with Sylvia Ewing, Catey Sullivan, Kris Vire, and Scarlett Swerdlow

Are you noticing the more press releases you send out the less arts coverage you see in the news? As media shrinks and newsrooms become understaffed, the arts become more underrepresented in traditional media.

Reflecting on what the new year may hold for arts groups in traditional and new media as part of this event are:

Sylvia Ewing, on-air talent at WTTW, Young Chicago Authors board member, & consultant
Catey Sullivan, Examiner.com
Scarlett Swerdlow, Illinois Arts Alliance
Kris Vire, Time Out Chicago and founding editor of GapersBlock.com
Gordon Mayer, Community Media Workshop, moderator

Listen in as they share their insights on the trend of shifting media and new online alternatives to help your arts organization reach new audiences and increasing your visibility using new online media.

Recorded Thursday, January 15, 2009 at Columbia College Film Row Cinema.

[Thanks to Jess Henderson from New Leaf, a Chicago theatre group; she posted a link to the WBEZ discussion in her February 5 article "Engaging Our Core" on her blog "Violence of Articulation."]