Madison Conference 2009

I can't remember how many times I've come to this every other year conference in Madison. Each time I've been recharged by sharing and discussing issues that affect not only each of the theatres that we work for but also some of the challenges that we each face on a personal level. I've eaten wonderful Italian food, terrific Afghan food and tipped back a few micro brews after sessions with fellow directors from Hawaii, Texas, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Kentucky,Kansas, and Florida. I've listened to the struggles of theatres who are struggling to sell ads for $10 in their program up to theatres that have lost over $3 million dollars in their endowment fund.

Many of the issues are the same no matter the size. How do you attract performers, how do you energize boards, how do you sell tickets and how can you raise contribution levels.

In a great session yesterday after noon we had a presentation from Andrew Taylor who talked about social networking, facebook, twitter, flickr, geotagging and geocoding, and how to try not to just keep up but to move ahead to where arts are going. His presentation on place based networking is fascinating. Some theatres are now setting aside "Twitter Seats" for those people to tweet and text during performances. In several places arts organizations have empowered teens to produce shows using almost exclusively teens in all areas of production.

Last night we had a presentation from John Prignano of Music Theatre International who gave away lots of prizes for knowing show trivia but more importantly talked to us about copyright infringement, and new show availability. The new technology that MTI is constantly coming up with is helping community theatres and professional theatres across the country. We got dates for when shows like Legally Blonde, Hairspray, and Spring Awakening will be available for licensing. It was amazing to me how many community theatres in conservative areas had successes with shows that I would consider risky that are available right now- Rent, Full Monty, etc. I found out that Midland Texas and Diamond Head Hawaii can get shows like Les Miserables and others that we may not get for years because they have no tours that will impact them. (You must be at least 100 miles from the closest touring house.) Directors Tim from Midland and Deena from Diamond Head got lots of good natured ribbing from fellow directors about their locations.

I heard some great fundraising events that groups have done like a Diva Night where audience members watch local female performers in solo numbers and then vote on their favorite performer.

We talked about how many times to ask for contributions during the year. We talked about average ticket prices and discounts. We talked about censorship and how to remain true to the playwright while being aware of community sensitivities. We talked about staffing and how to evaluate and to deal with issues of transition.

This morning we have a 3 hour session before we all leave. Many will be heading out through out this mornings sessions to catch flights at the airport. I'm coming back with about a dozen pages of notes and handouts from dozens of theatres to look at implementing new ideas at MHT. While I'm not looking forward to the 8 hour drive back today, I know that my head will be spinning with new thoughts and ideas from this conference.