Welcome to our Maine! Live! issue. I’m glad to see you have your tickets. Just follow this flashlight beam, and we’ll find a seat for you.
I was in a theater recently and saw Fun Home, the musical featuring “non-linear vignettes” from the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel. I couldn’t wait to get a look at who’d be sitting in that darkness. You don’t get nominated for 12 Tony Awards if your musical doesn’t connect with issues that are in play. I expected the show to be packed with theater fans, including young theater fans. The show has the courage to explore LGBTQ issues. There are even special effects—a dreamy mist rises from the stage to suggest time travel. It was a terrific live-performance event—a Sunday matinee with reduced-rate tickets, easy to attend—but wait, what? The demographics of the audience were still skewing in, shall we say, a more mature direction. I heard a whisper in the crowd: I thought we’d see many more of the younger set here.
Let’s just say it out loud: Many members of the younger generations don’t attend theater—bad news for theaters, writers, and actors. They’ll go to beer tastings, concerts, and so many weddings (is this the new theater?). But before I get too peevish, let’s step off the print stage and onto the internet—an anonymous meet-up in the darkness—so we can engage in a roundtable discussion. Topic? What will it take to draw the next generations into theaters to promote edgy, provocative shows, both new and classic? And if someone comments, “Well, old shows are not edgy,” maybe he or she could revisit any number of standards, including Carousel (the movie based on the show was filmed in Maine). Let’s all help dispel the urban legend that young fans can’t sit still for two hours. Is maybe part of the key, “Instead of waiting for the audience to come to the theater, take the theater to the audience”? Look for a story in our next issue featuring a Maine theater doing just that. Let’s tease the beast.
A recent fad rescues old glass keys from antique Underwood typewriters (many used to hammer out the plots to endangered plays such as Strange Interlude, written by Eugene O’Neill in Maine in 1927) to make jewelry so the wearer can self-identify as thoughtful and literary. The necklace in this picture costs $65 (how many theater admissions is that?). These dangling modifiers seem to be catching on. Maybe this is a beam of hope. See you out there in the darkness.
Visit “Let the Fur Fly.” To light the fires of your imagination, you’ll be treated to live quotes from many of Maine’s top theater producers and directors about audience engagement strategies. For those of you who dare to post a comment or suggestion before May 10, we’ll be holding a random drawing for a pair of tickets for Portland Stage’s The Last Five Years (starring Yarmouth native Laura Darrell).
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