How we’re CHANGING to meet the financial crisis

 

We've been re-thinking every aspect of PushPush--from the daily operations to how we define theater. 

 

Our aim: Create a theater that you can use. We believe we have to be useful in our community to hope to survive the next few years. 

 

How?  Read on...


Dear PushPush supporter,


When Shakespeare has Hamlet talk of actors he says, “they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time” He is speaking about changing and keeping up. 


I believe this is at the heart and soul of our responsibility as artists.  This is our job.  And I also believe that it is the only way we are going to survive the coming economic crisis. 


The sad truth is that there is a lot of pressure these days to make theater safe entertainment -- to "give audiences what they want".  To me, this is short sighted.  It turns theater into an out-of-date, out-of-touch art form that has little impact on the bigger issues in our lives.  PushPush has an audience that is largely made up of individuals ages 25–48 who consider themselves politically, socially and sexually connected.  They participate in such issues as the environment, race and the economy.  What they don't consider themselves when asked, is “theater people”.  Getting most young people to come out and see a straight play these days is like pulling teeth.  In their experience, theater is no longer a vital medium.


If theater is to keep afloat in this time of financial challenge – even crisis – it must serve a real purpose.  


In the past brief ten years, our audience has embraced the digital age in a way we simply didn't understand in 1998.  They frame much of their thinking to their new sense of connection:  What is community to them?  What is their sense of truth and beauty?  And most important, how to they participate.  When PushPush begin our audience asked "What is PushPush?"  Now, they are asking, "How do I use PushPush?"  It's a fundamental change.


If PushPush offers nothing more than a season of low-budget shows, and our audience is expected to simply buy a ticket, sit, watch and then go home, then I'd say we are obsolete.  Every member of our audience has thousands of choices competing for their precious time and dollar these days.  Most of them, without leaving home. 


Theater people will balk at me for saying this, but the honest fact is that most of us do not like to go see theater ourselves.  In addition, our audiences age and decline each year and we continue to defend our own shows because we have the ever-present financial fires to put out.   We live month-to-month, teetering on the brink of survival.  Our patrons are tired of our constant pleas for help and they want something to change.  We can’t just keep hitting them with adjectives like “daring and edgy”.   We have to do the work. 


What does PushPush offer?

Opportunities to participate in, create and shape artistic endeavors (for artists and audiences).  PushPush patrons consider themselves socially aware and responsible.  When they participate in the creative process, they are connecting to each other and their community in a variety of new ways.  The "live" aspect of theater has to go beyond sitting down, watching, then going home.  Theater has to allow participation in the process.   We need to be a theater you can "use".


For a few years now, we have been moving in the direction of open-source thinking, global interaction, and peer sharing.  These are all new and interesting ways to create, connect and participate.  These ideas challenge many of the practices we take for granted in our daily lives.  They offer new approaches to dealing with your own projects and ideas.  They connect you with a community both here and abroad that share similar challenges.  These concepts are useful to both artists and audiences.



What does PushPush do?

 

We create the opportunity for artists to have their own affordable space, with time, a voice in how it’s run, and a way to share in the resources available.  Daily, we create a theater for the 21st Century that can be a home for the innovators, the disruptive voices and the real visionaries.  We offer the chance to develop a truly ground-breaking work in an intimate space, with an active, live audience.  We offer a meaningful place for people to get off their computer and share face time with our neighbors. Our new President urges each of us to make a difference in our community.  We believe that the theater should be an invaluable part of the picture.


Please read our changeable, open-source document where hundreds of artists from Atlanta, and other cities, both here and abroad, have shared thoughts and solutions to our changing times.  (It's an open-source document -- you can participate right now by sending your questions and suggestions to admin@pushpushtheater.com). And please check out, or "add to", the "How YOU can get involved" section and participate!



Thanks for reading,

Tim Habeger

 

 

 

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