Where Have All the Reviewers Gone?

What gives? As if it's not tough enough to produce community theater, now the local media is abandoning us. That's right. Don't know if you've heard, but the Princeton Packet and the Trenton Times will no longer be publishing reviews of local community theater productions.

I shouldn't act surprised. The Times has had one foot out the door for a while now. It felt like the planets needed to be aligned before their Features Editor would agree to run a review. And then you had to hope the damned thing ran before the show closed. There were occasions when they actually ran the review after the show closed. Now that was helpful. Anita Donovan would faithfully come to the shows at the Kelsey Theatre and write a review only to have the editor ignore it. In time, they just told her to not bother unless told to. Now they've killed reviews entirely.

The Princeton Packet's weekly entertainment publication, Time-Off, used to be our saving grace. They were there for us more often than not. (Okay, I still hold a grudge over our award-winning production of Driving Miss Daisy being overlook for a review, but we won't go there.) Actors, artisans and not to mention theater-goers used to look forward to the reviews. For a producer a good review meant stronger second weekend ticket sales. For the cast, crew and their families it meant some form of recognition for committing sometimes hundreds of hours to help keep an art form alive in our community. Now what do they get? Crickets. The Time-Off staff has been gutted and their regular reviewer, Stu Duncan, has been given a hardy farewell.

Look, I'm not saying anyone was looking for a hand out. This isn't about "why don't they give us 'good' reviews." This is about getting any reviews at all. We in community theater all know the score. You produce a poor show, you get ready for a bad review. It's that simple. But now there will be no reviews at all for theater productions staged in the heart of Central New Jersey.

The real question is this: how will community theater companies survive this blow. And don't kid yourself, it is a serious blow. Not just for the lost ink, not just for the lost recognition, but for what it really means. This is just the beginning. Print media, which has been a partner with the performing arts since before the Barrymore's walked the boards, is struggling. And that's putting it kindly. The Internet, the very tool with which I make my own living and the means by which you are reading this diatribe, is killing the newspaper business. The only way for community theater to not become collateral damage is to evolve ourselves. Producers need to get more creative. Theater companies need get better at communicating with their patrons. It's not as easy as "just use the Internet yourself". The fact is that many dedicated theater-goers come from an older "pre-digital" generation and don't use the Internet. How do we reach them?

If you're expecting me to layout the answers, you'll be disappointed. I don't have them. At least not yet. This is going to take some serious noodling and a lot of experimentation. Stay tuned for future postings as I and my colleagues try to figure this out. But in the meantime, you can do one thing for us. Keep talking. When you see a show you like or a theater company you admire, talk about them to your friends. Since Homer was telling stories, word of mouth has always been the greatest source of ticket sales and the best way to keep art alive. So do us fellow theater folk a favor and keep talking.