You Can’t Win Them All
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Obalil’s act followed a fantasy that blew in from the west coast. Theatre Bay Area has undertaken a “Social Marketing Research Initiative” intended to convince San Francisco residents that the performing arts are as vital as fire stations. “People always say if their house is burning, they’d rather see a fireman than an actor,” said TBA’s Belinda Taylor, but never mind. “A goal for this program is to get it to the point where policy makers would be as likely to cut a math class as a theater class.” This is not a product-pushing “Got Milk” campaign, Taylor explained, but a wear-your-seat-belt, don’t-smoke kind of effort aimed at “changing the face of audiences in the greater Bay Area.” A hand went up. “Weren’t those other campaigns about life-and-death issues?”
A few months ago, the League of Chicago Theatres commissioned some new research: a preliminary look at a “frequent buyer” rewards program that might, for example, give a patron a $25 Marshall Field’s gift certificate for every ten theater tickets purchased. This sounds about as motivating as a free bowl of soup for every dozen chocolate cakes, but researcher Patricia Martin reported that businesses are willing to work with the league–well, with the “top five houses” anyway. (When it came to storefront theaters, potential partners “began to waffle.”) This kind of program would require “a three-way sell,” Martin said, “to businesses, consumers, and the arts organizations themselves. That’s expensive, and so are the management and infrastructure costs.”
The center is exploring affiliation with UIC, where it will sponsor a new course, “The University and the Public Sphere,” next spring. Its initial public program is under way this month–a four-lecture series, “ExtraOrdinary Aspects of the Ordinary.” In the first lecture, earlier this week, NPR’s Ira Glass talked with the New Yorker’s Lawrence Weschler. Up next: Harvard professor Marjorie Garber, author of Sex and Real Estate, speaking at the Chicago Architecture Foundation April 12. After that, Duke professor Henry Petroski, author of The Book on the Bookshelf and The Pencil (April 17, Museum of Science and Industry), and chef Charlie Trotter on “The Small Price to Pay for Excellence” (April 25, Field Museum). Thank goodness someone is giving these folks a podium.
