Theaters get 'em while they're young

"There's plenty of good theater out there, but it's just not being marketed correctly to the right demographic," says Erica Livingston, herself a young festival producer who targets 21- to 35-year-olds. "Those are the next theatergoers. Those are the people [who] are going to start subscribing to things in 10 years when they're making the salary."

Last November, she and two friends took a different approach to promoting theater to that age group. Running for three weeks in Manhattan, their multimedia festival, The Fall Collection, combined short plays with films and live music in one night of entertainment. Their "guerrilla" marketing, as Ms. Livingston calls it, included offering temporary tattoos to people waiting in line for other events.

When they first started coming up with the idea for The Fall Collection, they wanted people to get as excited about theater as they did about a film or a rock concert. They wanted to know why friends couldn't feel "as excited about [theater] as you do when you have tickets to Radiohead at Madison Square Garden?"

Much of that enthusiasm may go back to theater being a part of a person's entertainment mix from childhood, which is why school-age children are a priority. In Costa Mesa, Calif., for example, the Orange County Performing Arts Center will launch an arts-integration program this fall called ArtsConnect, which will begin in the first grade at a handful of schools. Teachers are trained to use the arts for teaching core academic subjects, but students will also learn the history of arts disciplines.

"We've always had a strong outreach program into schools," says Nancy Warzer-Brady, the center's director of education. "The rationale behind that is to build future audiences, and to demonstrate the positive impact that the arts have on academic achievement and social behavioral development."

Theater executives hope that in addition to schools and arts groups, parents will also help foster interest in the theater by taking their kids. Moms and dads often recognize the value of the theater experience, but say the cost can be prohibitive. Broadway tickets, for example, can run as high as $100, with an average of about $60. Even $25 tickets to "children's theater" can set a family of four back $100.

"To understand your place in the world, and the world around you, you need arts and you need theater," says Mona Freidin, Rebecca's mother. "Unfortunately, the cost is prohibitive for us to expose the kids as much as we want to. It's just too expensive."

Some arts groups are making sure parents get a break. One program for families in Nebraska was done in conjunction with the Lied Center for Performing Arts in Lincoln.

Sixty eighth graders from a variety of economic backgrounds were brought in to learn the choreography and music to "Dancing Queen" from "Momma Mia!," which they then performed for their families before attending a touring performance of the show.

The center was able to reduce tickets from $50 to just $5. The students also got to rub elbows with the cast.

"We've had so much success with this," says Laura Kendall of the Lied Center. "To stay in business, it's important for us to get kids aware of performing arts, live art. Just being there in the theater and desiring that experience is something you have to cultivate for lifelong arts participation."

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