Growing the African American theater audience is both an art and a science. Using marketing techniques to expand and diversify a theater's audience requires knowledge of a community's event-going habits, as well as specific insights about financing, marketing, publicity, and public relations. The specific decisions and tools used may be different depending on the nature of the theater production.
Nonprofit vs. For-Profit
In today's New York City theater market, there are for-profit, nonprofit and hybrid productions. For-profit producers represent the great majority of Broadway productions. Alternately, Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway productions are mostly accomplished by nonprofit companies. Hybrid productions, on the other hand, include for-profit Off-Broadway shows like The Fantastics, and Avenue Q. While this hybrid for-profit Off-Broadway market used to be much larger in the 1960s and '70s, today most Off-Broadway production falls under the purview of nonprofit theaters.
Hybrids also include companies that have both Off-Broadway and Broadway theaters, such as nonprofit Broadway producers like the Manhattan Theatre Club (Jitney), Lincoln Center Theater (Death and the King's Horseman) and Roundabout (Violet). Second Stage joined this hybrid club recently by purchasing the Helen Hayes Broadway theater....(continued)
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