By Bex Surtees
Anyone who’s spent five minutes with me will know that I’m a complete theatre geek. This should give you a good indication as to my levels of excitement when I discovered – nearly too late, mind you – that a special performance of Stephen Sondheim’s legendary Company* would be beamed into select cinemas across the country last week.
Thanks to the clever folks at More2Screen, who deal in bringing live arts and culture events to the masses via the big screen, the US recording was transmitted simultaneously at 7pm nationwide and followed by a live Q&A from London. With an all-star cast from stage and screen, and backed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, it was literally a once in a lifetime watch.
Slightly disappointing then that my local Cineworld’s vast Sky Superscreen entertained a total of just 15 people. That’s right, 15 out of a possible 770 seats in Europe’s biggest non-imax screen. Admittedly, I can’t account for other venues that night, but what a travesty it was to see such a timeless piece of theatre projected to such a small number of people.
So, as I tucked into my popcorn and put my musical theatre bias aside, I pondered the PR support around these kinds of events. In an age of digital media, where organisations have social media channels coming out of their ears, where was the promotion, the buzz, the pizzazz?
“It’s a niche event,” I hear you cry. Well, let’s not forget the theatre-going community weighed in at approximately 13 million people in 2011 – and that was with a ten percent drop over the last two year period. That’s still a pretty sizable audience in my books.
And with the interest ‘live theatre’ has created in recent years, I guess I’d expected to see healthier audience numbers – especially when there’s the opportunity to see this calibre of show in the comfort of your local cinema, at a fraction of the (pricier than ever) theatre ticket.
What is working here is the simple application of technology to the theatre genre. After what I would assume were lengthy production rights and funding discussions, the result has essentially brought us a whole new way to enjoy the arts – be it male swans, Shakespeare or jazz hands.
And to that I say, encore!
*In case you were wondering: the musical comedy opened on Broadway in 1970 to rave reviews, and the original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards, winning six.
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