This is interesting:
American Poll on Attitudes About Movies
As someone who is preparing to open a theatre where we’ll have a much smaller target audience, how closely do we take these results and apply them to live theatre? (By ‘smaller target audience’ I mean the percentage of Americans who attend live theatre -vs- the percentage that attend or rent movies, coupled with the obvious fact that our play is done in one place, not cineplexes all over the country.)
One of the most important questions for me is this:
What is your favorite type of movie to watch? Would you say..
_Comedy, 27 percent
_Drama, 19 percent
_Action/adventure, 17 percent
_Family, 9 percent
_Science Fiction, 6 percent
_Westerns, 5 percent
_Musicals, 4 percent
_Horror, 3 percent
_War movies, 2 percent
_Something else, 7 percent
_Not sure, 1 percent
(Now, the answers are clearly different for live theatre, since Musicals would rank much higher, and the amount of Sci-Fi plays that get done is sadly small! I’ve not yet found a recent poll for live theatre, anyone seen one?)
However, it surely seems like comedy leads the pack in films, with drama 8 percentage points behind. In Live Theatre, Musicals, one would suppose, would be in the top 3? So it would seem that a nice mix of comedy, drama and musicals SHOULD be an appealing draw. In a 5 show season, 2 Comedies, 1 Fun Musical, 2 Dramas? Possibly a nice mix for an established company with a 5 show season. However, if you’re attempting to build an audience? Hmmm…the rules change, I think. I think you need to get butts in seats and get people to trust you, to feel a part of the place, to want to make coming to your theatre a habit. I think you lean more heavily on Comedy, Warm Comedy with heart (Heart, IE: an emotional connection with the audience, enough to move them, but not so angst ridden or pervasive in the script that it overpowers the comedy). Then, when your audiences TRUST you, I think you mix in the heavier stuff, and you do it without preaching or teaching, you do it to MOVE them, and if you give them something to think about on the way home, or to talk about at the bar afterward, I think you’ve done your job.
Oh, there’s much more to be discussed on this point. But that’s it for now.
Anybody out there got any thoughts?
Tony Caselli 
Hi Tony. I agree with your thinking a lot, and have actually discussed similar questions with a teacher of mine before. This teacher is Dr. James Hartman from Schoolcraft College. Although emotions about him are mixed between his peers as well as his students, fact is fact, and he has single handedly built (with the help of talented actors and etc.) the Schoolcraft College Theatre from a non-attendance joke to a sold-out-before-we-even-cast-so-now-we-have-to-add-a-show reputation. Perhaps you could try to pick his brain a little and see if he can offer an additional insight.
-Steven Rice
Thanks Steven! Maybe I’ll drop him a line, he’s obviously doing it right!
I agree
I think you are right on…I think you have to build people up with comedy that they can relate to, that’s real, but then once in a while you can zing them with some drama.