In order to narrow down an idea and find out more about our target audience we decided to go and ask a few people in our target audience as to what they want to see in a theatre show.
From the beginning of the process it has been clear that we have wanted to produce theatre which is relatable to a target audience of 16-25. We want to create theatre which can be a form of escapism but also relevant at tackling issues that our age target audience will face at some point over the next few years. We arranged to have a chat with Toby Ealdon of Zest Theatre in order to explore how they approached relevant issues, where they get ideas from and how they engage their audience. As Zest have a similar target audience we wanted to see how to achieve engaging our audience successfully without becoming too similar to Zest as a company. In particular, looking at their 2016 Gatecrash tour:
(zesttheatre, 2015)
Gatecrash explores relevant issues for Zest Theatre target audience in an interactive way. In particular, the audience where headphones and tune in to certain areas of the stage in order to hear what is happening. This kept the audience engaged and encouraged us as a company to explore ways of incorporating relevant media such as Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter into our show.
During a production meeting, we were discussing the option of having live media such as a Twitter or Snapchat that the audience could send content into. However, due to the nature and unreliability of technology we decided that this currently would not be a viable option as there would be too many technical risks. However, after more practice and a few experiments with technology we may be able to incorporate a live stream into the performance. We may also be able to adapt the show to incorporate social media into the decisions of the show. This would make the show unpredictable and provide a challenge for the cast, however, with rehearsal it may work.
After managing to have a brief talk with Toby Ealdon, he told me that Zest mainly decide their content by either being commissioned or a member of the company having a creative idea that they want to tackle. In terms of an issue he recommended not getting caught up in ‘issues’ unless the company want to be school and Theatre in Education focussed. He suggested just to make art. Zest are currently developing a show on World War 1 and the moment, it’s topical but has no particular issue which needs tackling. He also recommended that we have a local instead of a national focus purely for funding purposes and then explore further afield.
After exploring further into Arts Council funding and taking on Toby’s advice, including our usage of technology and social media to engage our audience we could apply to get Arts Council England Funding from the Creative Media and Digital activity, and GFTA, due to our involvement with social media. We could increase our chances at getting a grant if we further developed our use of digital art as the Arts Council “wish to support new forms of creativity; emerging arts practice and artforms which embrace digital technologies and push the boundaries of traditional artforms.” (Arts Council England, 2016) However, we could also apply to other grants such as the Public Engagement grant.
Works Cited:
Arts Council England (2016) Creative media and digital activity, and Grants for the Arts. [online] England: A.C.E. Available from http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/information-sheets?search_api_views_fulltext=&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&page=1 [Accessed 3 March 2016]
Zesttheatre (2015) Gatecrash- 2016 Tour [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-mnpE_WjrA [Accessed 3 March 2016]
