chapter 5

chapter5.docx

This week's chapter is all about writing about theatre and serves as a nice prep for the chapter you'll read next, which is all about marketing and outreach. We're now in the realm of thinking about how theatre and the outside world communicate back and forth, and one of the best channels of communication is the theatre review.

Theatre reviews are invaluable marketing tools for production companies. I've spent time working in marketing for smaller production companies, and I cannot overstate how useful good reviews were. A good quote from a reputable reviewer on a piece of marketing (a postcard, a poster, an ad in the paper, etc.) carries a lot of weight.

Why might it carry so much weight? Simply because peoples' bank books/purses/wallets are sometimes at odds with all of the theatre they want to see. Seeing a lot of shows can be expensive, so we use respected and reputable theatre reviews to help us make choices about the shows we see and theatres we subscribe to. A good reviewer is a bit like a good sommelier in a fancy restaurant: they help you pair your purchase with your tastes.

What makes a good review? The chapter gives you a couple ideas.

ASSIGNMENT:

Look at the Review Pitfalls to Avoid--they start to show up in the chapter around p. 102. There are five pitfalls listed. I'd like you to pick three of them--your choice--and explain why each of them would make for a bad review. USE RECORDED SHOWS YOU'VE WATCHED AS EXAMPLES OF YOUR REASONING. Give about 100 words to each of your three choices.

For example, why is censorship/moralizing in a review bad? How does it temper/tamper with/poison the reviewer/theatre relationship? Are there shows you've watched that had energies, plots, or overall importance that would have been missed or downplayed if a reviewer tried to censor the show within their review?