Growing with the audience

After much-talked-about budget cuts to the arts on the state level and nationally, community theaters like Playmakers of Baton Rouge and Baton Rouge Little Theater are looking for ways to rally support from audiences.

To raise the curb appeal of theater, in the past several years, arts organizations have combined educational elements with their productions to provide access and context—not to mention develop a love of theater early on. Playmakers, which focuses on young audiences, has implemented a steadily growing educational component in its programs, which helps expose community members and children to types of art they might not otherwise see. “The largest growth Playmakers has seen,” says Karli Henderson, former managing director of Playmakers, “has been with our educational programs: camps, classes and our education tours.”

Playmakers’ Education Director Todd Henry thinks supplemental theater education can also stave off the fast turnaround seen in kids involved with theater, typically occurring around ages 10 and 11. “You have to find projects that interest these kids,” Henry says. “We have a great group of kids in our Young Professionals program that have stuck around. Now, they are 16, 17, going on 18, and have grown with us because we’ve grown with them.”

The hope is that with intensive arts education, both in school and out, more Baton Rougeans might grow to appreciate the arts as essential—and Playmakers is not the only organization to harbor this opinion.

Sandy Parfait, curator of the community gallery at Community Fund for the Arts, a program of the Arts Council, says their arts education provides programs in several East Baton Rouge schools via professional development for artists and teachers.

“It’s important to remember that [the arts] work hand in hand with education, infrastructure and the economic development of community, and really need to be seen as an equal,” Parfait says. “Children are learning through the arts. They stay in school longer and do better on tests.”

The Manship Theatre also shares this focus. “We send artists out into the region, performers as well as art teachers,” says Renee Chatelain, executive director. “Not just educational outreach for school kids, but for seniors, veterans, different business groups, so that you reach the entire city rather than pulling everybody only into downtown. We see arts programming and education as the same.”

Keith Dixon, Baton Rouge Little Theater’s managing artistic director, didn’t mince words about how the arts stacks up against other economic drivers. “Some of [the reasoning for funding cuts] comes down to, ‘It’s not a profitable business,’” Dixon says. “Let me tell you what I do: I create a product. I build a retail store for that product. I train employees to sell that product. I open the store on the date I announce, and usually below budget. I do that eight to 10 times a year. Show me a commercial venture that has that kind of track record.”

According to community arts backers, a stifling effect on creativity seems to occur when only ticket sales, not coupled with grants or other revenue streams, drive production. “I think we would be forced to eliminate some elements of our program eventually,” says Henderson. “You have some programs that you might call ‘moneymakers,’ and other programs that introduce cultural diversity to our community. Unfortunately, those are what would have to be eliminated if grants funding starts disappearing.”

It’s harder to explain the financial benefits of experimental shows on paper. “If you try something new that pushes the boundaries of the arts culture here, and it’s not guaranteed to make money, that would be eliminated,” says Playmakers’ Henry. “It would just be bigger name shows, which doesn’t serve the arts organizations in our community.”

Part of generating buzz in an arts community, according to Chatelain, is bringing in a wide variety of acts to satisfy different tastes. “When we see something from somewhere else, like New York, some diverse, unique presentation in culture or the arts, the phrase is, ‘I feel like I’m not in Baton Rouge,’” says Chatelain. “I am going on a campaign to stop that, because obviously people here celebrate diversity in arts and culture; they embrace it, but yet have stopped short of identifying it as part of their existence.”

Shawn Halliday, artistic director of Playmakers, sees an increased interest in the arts as an incentive for working artists to remain in the community.

“If you have an arts organization in the community that you care about or that you’ve been wanting to check out,” says Halliday, “now is a great time to do it.”

According to Chatelain, the bottom line is that funding cuts are old hat in the art world. “It has ebbs and flows, just part of the cycle,” she says. “You have to keep apprised of what’s going on and look ahead to projects that are beneficial, will have an economic impact, and be food for the soul.”