Here is a few of the Quick Notes we got on the cross promotion:
Chicago Magazine:
Coincidence!
“Three and seven are usually my lucky numbers. But I will think about adopting four. And maybe five,” says Christopher Durang, the darkly funny playwright-parodist, of his sudden popularity among Chicago storefronts. Spanning his career spectrum, five of the Juilliard prof’s works appear this fall: through September 17th Oracle Theatre performsThe Actor’s Nightmare and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, written in his early 30s (773-244-2980). In November, Next Theatre (847-475-1875) tackles his most recent work, Miss Witherspoon , written in 2004. Chemically Im-balanced Comedy (773-865-7731) and Infamous Commonwealth Theatre (312-458-9780) also get into the act, with The Vietnamization of New Jersey (through October 8th) and Betty’s Summer Vacation (through October 1st), respectively.
Windy City Times, Year in Review:
Quite by happenstance this autumn, a gaggle of Off-Loop theaters found themselves producing plays by the out, satirical and virulently-lapsed Catholic playwright Christopher Durang. So they did the smart thing: They marketed them collectively as the Fall of Durang. Between September and November there were Durang plays produced by the Chemically Imbalanced, Infamous Commonwealth, Next, Oracle and Prometheus theater troupes. The productions drew a lot of attention but were a decidedly mixed bag in terms of quality. They also proved that not all of Durang’s work can withstand the test of time.
Chicago Reader:
One producer’s glut is another’s festival: attend any one of the four Christopher Durang plays being produced at area theaters this fall with a stub or program from any of the others and you’ll get $5 off your ticket. Chemically Imbalanced Comedy, which initiated the co-op effort, is doing The Vietnamization of New Jersey, Infamous Commonwealth Theatre has scheduled Betty’s Summer Vacation, and Next Theatre will be doing Miss Witherspoon in November.
AND
Chemically Imbalanced Comedy has launched “The Fall of Durang,” a joint effort by several small troupes to present a minifestival of plays by controversial playwright Christopher Durang. CIC’s The Vietnamization of New Jersey at the Cornservatory (4210 N. Lincoln, 773-865-7731), about a blind veteran who returns to his parents’ home with an Asian wife, runs through October 8. Infamous Commonwealth Theatre stages another Durang, Betty’s SummerVacation, at Live Bait Theatre (3914 N. Clark, 312-458-9780) through October 1.
Performink:
he four theatres involved in the collective effort dubbed the Fall of Durang are disappointed that playwright Christopher Durang will not be coming to Chicago to see any of the productions. Part of the problem is he doesn’t like to travel (he hasn’t been to Chicago in over 25 years), and part of the problem is his teaching schedule at Julliard. The logistics from the Chicago end would be clumsy, too. If Durang had come in to see the Oracle, Chemically Imbalanced and Infamous Commonwealth productions he would have missed Next Theatre doing his latest work, Miss Witherspoon, which opens after the others have closed. Same old sturm und Durang, eh?
AND
Why compete?
BY Jenn Q. Goddu
Infamous Commonwealth’s Betty’s Summer Vacation was promoted
by all four theatres.
Seeing the words “Fall of Durang” a reader might think something strange has happened to playwright Christopher Durang.
Strange, after all, is par for the course for the contemporary playwright best known for his works of absurd and outrageous comedy.
Yet the phrase actually refers to a cross-promotional push organized by four Chicago area theatre companies who all ended up staging Durang works this August through November.
Oracle Productions was first up with its pairing of The Actor’s Nightmare and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You in August and September. Chemically Imbalanced Comedy’s production of The Vietnamization of New Jersey ran from Aug. 31 to Oct. 8 and Infamous Commonwealth Theatre’s staging of Betty’s Summer Vacation was up from Sept. 2-Oct. 1. Only Next Theatre Company is left to go with its Chicago area premiere of Durang’s latest work, Miss Witherspoon, up from Nov. 16-Dec. 17.
Rather than seeing each other as competition, the four companies came together in a marketing effort and discount offer. Each company offered a $5 discount to anyone who showed them a program or ticket stub from another of the Durang shows, and all four theaters stuffed their playbills with postcards for the other three shows.
Banding together was the brainchild of Angela McMahon, Chemically Imbalanced’s executive director and founder. The company had originally gained rights to Betty’s Summer Vacation, but when they approached the League of Chicago Theatres about setting up a Theatre Thursday, they found out another company was doing that exact show at the same time.
Plan B was to move forward the production of a dark comedy by Noah Haidle but, since the Goodman is opening his latest show later this season, rights were frozen and Chemically Imbalanced couldn’t move up its production of Miss Marmalade.
Clockwise from top left: Matt Hendricks, Angie McMahon, Laura Mahler and Chris Rehmann in Chemically Imbalanced
Theatre’s The Vietnamization of New Jersey, which closed Oct. 8.
McMahon, who describes herself as “a huge Durang fan” decided to stick with the playwright and simply change the show. The Vietnamization of New Jersey made sense. “We chose that show because we felt that it was really old wine in a new bottle, really kind of more specific to what’s going on right now, but it related back to Vietnam,” she said. “We only do comedy, so we felt it was a nice way to do something a little bit more edgy and still be a comedy and still have something to say.”
Still, it was only after seeing an audition notice for Oracle’s Sister Mary production that McMahon had the big idea to bring everyone together. Realizing, “Wow there’s a lot of Durang going on at the same time,” she asked herself, “How can we capitalize on it rather than having it hurt each of our productions?”
Infamous Commonwealth, the company that unwittingly had grabbed first dibs on Betty’s Summer Vacation, was quick to come on board. “To us it just seemed like a no-brainer,” said Jennifer Matthews, the company’s director of press relations. “Any type of cross-promotional opportunity we’re always open to. I was really intrigued by the fact that it was three other theatre companies that do different types of work and have different types of audience.”
Plus, since the company has such a small marketing budget, any sort of free promotion was embraced as a good opportunity, Matthews said.
Although there was no real indication that audience members were taking advantage of the discounted ticket prices (only a few people showed up with playbills over the first three show’s runs), the companies agreed that sending out a joint press release announcing the “Fall of Durang” made a big difference.
The process was “arduous,” since each company had to sign off on the press release, McMahon said, but in the end Oracle, Chemically Imbalanced and Infamous Commonwealth all said they received more press than they would have normally.
“I know for sure we would never have gotten a Sun-Times review if it hadn’t been for this cross promotion,” McMahon said. “Even though [Hedy Weiss] didn’t give us the best review, now hopefully I’ve opened a door of a relationship with her because of this and she’ll come see other things that we do.”
Matthews definitely noted a great response from the media among the benefits but, since she was acting in the show, she also welcomed the way in which it made her job as PR person a little bit easier. “It definitely helped that it had other people out there branding our show and our company. It was just an added way of reminding everyone that we’re out and we’re doing this show.”
Once the joint press release was approved and out, the cross-promotion didn’t take up much more of the marketing directors’ time. The companies had already agreed they would each promote their own individual shows as they would normally, only adding mention of the overall promotion.
“There was some concern at first that people would be promoting all the shows and [the companies] wouldn’t get their focused attention on one particular production, but I don’t think that happened,” said Katie Hawkey, marketing director for Oracle Productions.
Instead she said it worked out really well as a way to gain additional promotional opportunities while helping out some other companies in the city.
“Since we were the first show and we pretty much closed as every one else was opening, it may not have paid off for this show,” she said. “But we’re in it for the long haul and we’re trying to form partnerships with other companies in the area that can pay off later down the road. We’re trying to think big, although we’re a pretty small company at this point.”
Having four shows producing Durang works did also help the companies make contact with the playwright.
“I don’t think I would have had the balls to call up Durang and say, ‘We’re doing your show,’” said Hawkey. “It definitely gave us a reason to contact him. One production is great, and I’m sure he’s excited to have his work produced, as any writer would be, but having so much of it really gave it a significance it wouldn’t have had if we hadn’t all been doing it at the same time.”
McMahon e-mailed Durang through his Web site and ended up in e-mail contact with the playwright. She would send the information he gave her about the individual works on to each company and, at one point, company representatives met to discuss the possibility of bringing the playwright in to see the productions (an idea that didn’t pan out due to the playwright’s busy schedule).
But why did the companies all end up picking Durang? (There was even a fifth company producing Durang this fall, the Promothean Theatre Ensemble performed Beyond Therapy at The Side Studio Sept. 16-Oct. 7, but they contacted McMahon only after the group press release had gone out.)
Hawkey explains Oracle’s choice of the two one-acts by saying, “Durang is so darkly funny and we like to do work that has a little bit more grit in it and he certainly fits the bill.”
Oracle is a relatively new company comprised of young actors and Durang’s work appeals a lot to youth, she said. “He definitely elicits a response from people and that’s the kind of work we’re trying to do, to get our audiences as involved as possible. I think that Durang really does that well and really gets people. Whether you agree [with Durang’s point] or you don’t, it gets people involved, and I think that appeals to youth in a very specific way.”
Infamous Commonwealth had picked “death” as its overall theme for the year and after deciding it wanted to start off the season with a comedy, turning to Durang was an easy decision, Matthews said. “He was the first playwright who came to mind for me as someone who can find the funny side of really dark topics.”
Doing Durang also helped the company to pull in a different kind of audience, she said. “We haven’t really done anything like this play in the past.” Betty’s Summer Vacation gave the company a chance to show its funny and silly side while drawing in the educated open-minded people who typically like Durang. “More than anything [Durang’s audience is] people who tend to think a little outside the box,” Matthews said. “They’re going to the theatre to have a unique experience.”
The great advantage of having the four plays up in the same fall season is that the plays covered the breadth of Durang’s writing career. “You can see him growing up through his pieces and see the evolution of his writing and his themes,” Hawkey said.
Durang was 28 in 1977 when he wrote Vietnamization which he followed two years later with Sister Mary, which was paired in 1981 with the curtain raiser Actor’s Nightmare. The companies’ season offerings then fast forward to Durang’s 50s when he wrote Betty’s Summer Vacation in 1999 and Miss Witherspoon in 2004 (it premiered in fall 2005 and was nominated for a Pulitzer).
Getting to know an author’s body of work is always a good thing, said Chelsea Keenan, Next Theatre’s marketing director and artistic administrator. But it’s even more valuable in the case of Durang since his plays tend to be so much more adventurous in form.
“To see all the plays not only helps [the audience] understand each one better and better, because they then have a broader vocabulary of that author, it also helps them understand all theatre that is pushing the form because they have emotional access to and intellectual access to things that are not just a well-made play,” she said.
Miss Witherspoon represents Next’s first foray into Durang, but the company was enthusiastic about the opportunity to cross-promote with other companies booking the kind of socially provocative work Next focuses its attention on, Keenan said.
“It’s great to support these other companies’ decision to go out on a limb and to do something that is topical and a little artistically risky,” she said. “And it’s, of course, a great way to cross-promote to audiences who might not come to Next. If they’re making that trip out to see work that is risky, they should know about the Next.”
So, in the end, is McMahon proud of her brainchild or feeling like she birthed a Frankenstein? She says she’d happily do it again. “There’s really no reason not to,” she said. “We’re not really in competition with each other unless we’re doing the same show.”
Matthews agreed. “We’re all struggling and we’re all trying to meet the same objective which is to get people to come and see our work and I think as theatre in general succeeds our company succeeds, so I’m always willing to champion other people’s work in exchange for them doing the same for us. I’ve yet to see a major drawback to that.”
The remaining show from the Fall of Durang, Miss Witherspoon, will be presented by Next Theatre Company at Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes Street, in Evanston. The production runs Nov. 16-Dec. 17. Tickets are $20-35. Call 847/475-1875.
