I think to solve that problem, we can look at the root causes of the problem and find creative ways to tap ourselves back into the news market. For that, I say look no further than the blogosphere. The money isn’t going away from media, it’s going away from classified-supported print media. At the same time, online ads and news is blossoming, so it’s becoming increasingly important to become engaged as a theater company with the online outlets in addition to print media.

People are also changing the way they get news these days. A LOT more young professionals spend a lot of time reading online magazines and listening to podcasts. I think the vibe that I’m getting, and you’ve been successful with this, Angie, is that theaters now need to treat critical involvement as icing on the cake, but really become proactive about making their own news and buzz and getting users to engage with them directly.

I’m hoping that increased blog activity from theaters can create a kind of common pool of readership that will effectively supplement the loss of outlets like the reader. But we’ve got to make it happen ourselves.

Even if lets say I move my show to a night that NO ONE is performing (lets say I do a press open on a Tuesday) with the budgets of papers these days only sending out critics to cover 4 or less shows in a given week (Reader, Windy City Times, New City for example) even if my show opens on an off night with the weekend packed with shows it still might not get seen.

How do we fix the problem that the internet is loosing us our newspaper critics cause of budget cuts. That I have no answer for.

That said, most of the private feedback I’ve gotten from about 10 smaller theater companies is that this will be a useful tool to help them avoid the big pitfalls of season schedule planning. Let me review the systematic difficulty that we face here, which may help provide those outside of Chicago with some context – If your press opening is on the same night as say a Goodman or Steppenwolf press opening, for instance, that’s basically a guarantee that no reviewers will come to your show in the first week of performances. Since word of mouth is one of the key factors to getting audience, that can contribute to slumping ticket sales until the third week of the run or so… which is for most small theaters a week before they close. However, if you can make an adjustment and get a critic to see how wonderful your show is (and, also, get them in early enough to make that week’s deadline), that can get a good review out in some cases two weeks earlier. That single scheduling coup, in the case of the theaters I work with, can often result in $500 – $1000 more in ticket sales from the increased exposure over time.

So it may be tricky to navigate, but there’s artistic, financial, and community incentives to at least take a look when planning your season.

Of course, for a scheduling coup to work, you’ll also need to make your show compellingly wonderful. Which we should be doing anyway. So this isn’t at its heart a “help a critic” project, though my previous language may have made it sound that way… if anything, I’m calling for them to have fewer nights off.

It’s also true that the bigger LORT theaters don’t need to use the tool – and probably won’t. If you’ll look carefully, you’ll see that the biggest theaters in town already don’t conflict with each other, because they have staff already paying attention to that kind of detail. My primary hope is to remove one of the tricky obstacles in the way of the tiny storefront theaters – who don’t have production staff that has time to do the work I’m doing here – and help them gain improved access to media outlets.

Thanks, it’s been fixed! No more 2 am blogging for me. – N