Tag Archives: audience engagement

Figuring Out Your Market is Figuring Out Potential Friends

There’s this song by Youth of Today called Potential Friends that’s somewhat ridiculous in it’s hardcore frustration but it has a good point. When you don’t put yourself out there to meet new people you pass up the opportunity to make new friends. A simple concept but as anyone who has ever suffered social anxiety, not so easy to implement. I seem like a total extrovert myself, but when I’m in a mood or feeling really raw, eye contact can feel overwhelming.

When it comes to figuring out the market for your work the same kind of pattern can develop. Continue reading →

Livin’ the Dream? Uh, no…

“So what do you do?” When I tell people that I work full time as a performing artist I always put it in air quotes. I spend 90% of my time doing admin work and 10% on the creative aspects. I also work other part time and freelance jobs because my admin time can sometimes add up to about $1 p/hour. I’m not kidding about that. Continue reading →

An Open Letter to Non-Theater (or Theatre if you’re all fancy) Goers

Remember when people used to write letters? All Griffin and Sabine and shit?

It’s not your fault really. There’s so much schlock that promotes itself as theater that it justifies your casting off any potential enjoyment of the form. Unfortunately I’m getting majorly screwed by that way of thinking in the process. Some have said that theater is a form with two feet in the grave just waiting for the rest of the body to fall in. It’s pretty accurate. With the major component of the audience being over the age of 50, white and upper middle class, it’s only a matter of time (say 30 years) before that audience is literally dead. Continue reading →

Subjective Success in the Self-Help Web

I’ve been thinking a shit ton about success as I work on the final part of my one-man trilogy on the underbelly of the self-help movement. Kicking Ass and Taking Names (tagline: Measuring Success One Failure at a Time) has been one of the projects I’ve been mind dumping onto my laptop all of December. It’s been a lot slower than expected. Continue reading →

Zero Stars. I Couldn’t Ask for More.

Me Want Stars

Wow. In the midst of my run at Minnesota Fringe I get an audience review with zero stars. Zero. Stars. What shocks me most is that this made me smile. What the fuck am I smiling about? This is bringing down my overall score. This is going to kill my audience. Actually… I couldn’t have asked for anything better to happen. Continue reading →

To Fringe or Not to Fringe…

Me and Mr. David Gaines working the Minnesota Fringe crowds.

…that is the question. I have done four U.S. fringe festivals which is nothing compared to some people I know. I based my decisions to tour to certain ones on a number of factors and research but actually doing them presents things you can only get through experience. One thing that happens when you tour the fringe circuit is you hear what works and what doesn’t really quickly from the other artists you end up meeting. Here’s the down-low. Continue reading →

Thanks for Falling Asleep During My Show

It’s going to happen. There is no way around the fact that someone is going to fall asleep during one of your performances (if not every time you perform). Don’t worry, I’m going to point out reasons why this occurs so that you don’t take it personally and ways you can deal with it that are both helpful and potentially horrifying. Continue reading →

Sethums

Satirical Smartypants