Producing a performance as a theatre company requires audience consideration, without an audience there is no performance. Therefore as part of the marketing team this was something to be considered when deliberating the marketing strategy. Playwright Roy Williams stated in an interview with the guardian,
‘When a theatre produces a play by a person of colour, it is easy for its marketing department to bring in large black audiences. When the Royal Court staged Fallout in 2003, it targeted local youth theatres, community centres and schools, with great success. It was a thrill to watch these audiences come into the theatre. Finally, they were able to see themselves and their stories on stage’ (Williams 2009)
This was not the case in our adaptation of the play, the target audience is for anyone who wants to listen. WAKEUP wants to make the audience think about what is happening around them, still today, twenty years on from Stephen Lawrence’s murder, there are people being stabbed. We do not want to aim at one specific audience type; we want people of all ages and all races to be in the audience. Due to the strong language and themes of violence there is an age restriction attached, however, it seems ironic to have an age restriction when the play is about young people who commit crimes and is inspired by the real event of a ten year old who was killed by an unprovoked knife attack, ‘in 2011/12, 14% of those admitted to hospital after an assault by a sharp object were aged 18 or under’ (Fearless: Online). This statistic proves that young people are involved in crime therefore plays like 130,000 could be used as a tool for younger people to think twice about committing crime, although Emile is not arrested you still see his life fall apart through living with the quilt. Fallout highlights ‘both a conflicted police service and the societal divisions that push black youths towards criminality, draws attention to the underlying systemic causes of inner city violence and makes a constructive and valuable contribution to on-going public debate’ (Derbyshire 2007, p.414). Our adaption of Fallout could potentially make young audience members think twice about committing crime or getting involved in gang culture, 130,000 looks at the different view points from the victim, the witnesses, the murderer and the grieving family. The guilt of Emilie and the affects it has on his character could make people see that it is not a game and that he has to live with the fact he has killed someone.
The main audience for 130,000 will be made up of family, friends, lecturers and peers, due to the show being apart of our final degree. This will create a supportive audience who are there to provide support for our company and more specifically the individuals in the company. As part of the marketing team we have to take this into consideration, we know most of the tickets sales will be from the above list. However marketing our performance is still essential and we aim to market a wide demographic. Therefore we have to take into consideration our core and potential audiences.
Our Core Audience
Friends and Family of the participating individuals
– Parents and grandparents interested in seeing their children/grandchildren perform in their final degree show(some of which will not have see theatre like ours before)
– Friends wanting to support their friends
– Students wanting to support their fellow students
– Second year students who will attend in order to help them decide which module to take for their final degree performance
New Audience
Individuals who have an interest in original theatre
– Interested in Verbatim theatre and new forms of representation
– People who follow the works of playwright Roy Williams
– Individuals who take an interest into society and news
– Curiosity into the Stephen Lawrence inquiry
– People who are interesting in starting their own theatre company
– Educational reasons
– People interesting in new and innovative theatre
The piece is current and relevant and furthermore has a unique selling point of merging verbatim and fiction, therefore new potential audience members who have a genuine interest could potentially come to see 130,000. This will only be achieved through successful marketing and staying true to our company and performance, false advertising can lead to an audience being dissatisfied with what is being presented. Therefore our marketing material must coincide directly with the originality, the reality and simplicity of WAKEUP and 130,000, as Mokwa states, ‘marketing’s role is, therefore, not to influence the kind of art produced but solely ‘to match the artist’s creations and interpretations with an appropriate audience'(Hill 2003, p.2). Our marketing strategy is not to sell a product, but to promote our work and the message behind it. The emphasis is on the art form rather than making money, we want to sell seats to get people to listen rather than sell seats to make a profit.
Therefore our marketing strategy will reside on being accurate to WAKEUP and our manifesto, being committed in making thought-provoking theatre through originality in the hope that the audience leave the theatre questioning the world they live in.
Derbyshire, Harry (2007) ‘’Roy Williams’’: Representing Multicultural Britain in Fallout’, Modern Drama. pp.414-434
Fearless Against Crime Charity: Online: http://www.fearless.org/ (accessed 21st March 2013)
Griffin, Caroline (2007) This way up: A flat-pack guide to marketing the Arts, Cambridge : AMA and Arts Council England.
Hill, Liz, Catherine O’Sullivan and Terry O’Sullivan (2003) ‘’Chapter I: The Evolution and Context of Arts Marketing’’, Creative Arts Marketing, pp: 1-35.