Sean Daniels

For Geva Theatre in Rochester, NY, I created an engagement group that has significantly impacted the way we interact with patrons and stakeholders, it’s called The Cohort Club.

I started with four ideas:

1)   Education breeds excitement.

2)   People wanna see how the sausage is made.

3)   If you want people to come see your shows, you need to speak their language, or teach them yours.

4)   “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.”—Chinese proverb.

The original plan for the Cohort Club was to identify a group of 20 Rochesterians from varied ages, races, and socio-economical standings and give them unprecedented access to the creative process. And we did just that. Equally important - we made it look like Rochester in terms of age, race, and socio-economic background.

After our first show of letting the audience into the full process, it was an across the board success. How do we gauge that? After 4 weeks of attending rehearsals and tech, the Cohorts called the show theirs – they talked about how nervous they were for their show to open, they brought friends to opening, they baked for the cast, they now obsessively check show reports as they came out – millions of dollars of marketing can’t buy this kind of fluency and ownership of our artistic product.

What I didn’t predict is that the idea of education breeds excitement would be soooo true. The cohorts suddenly wanted to learn about the costume shop, what was hand painted? Could they talk to the painter? What is the equity book we all curse at? And so on and so on. Wait, your sets are hand painted, who does this? After opening, they commented on how they didn’t realize how many local artists it takes to pull off regional theater. Their appetite only grows as we offer more access to what we do. Some of these were 20 year subscribers who seemed like we were telling them things for the first time. A great lesson: just because we told them how many local artists it takes to put on a show, they didn’t always hear it – because until now, we weren’t really speaking the language our patrons spoke.

One of cohorts blogged (we had asked them to blog and journal about their experiences): “I have been fortunate to observe this theatrical collaborative, and I’m sure there are other plays with other directors, playwrights, designers, actors and at other theatres where there is more hierarchy, more conflict, more control, and more certainty throughout the rehearsal process. And a good play is likely to be produced in the end, and the audience who sees it is likely to enjoy it. But this version of collaboration that I have been privy to watch, this play with this director, playwright, designers and actors at this theatre, has been remarkably embracing of creativity and risk-taking, respect and playfulness. The result is something greater than its parts, something magical.”

Want to learn more?

How it went in Year One (blog link)

How it went in Year Two (blog link)

And on the TCG website

Want to chat about it? I’m @seandaniels on Twitter. Looking forward to it!

Sean Daniels will be speaking at our National Arts Marketing Project Conference Nov. 7 – 10 in Atlanta at the session “Creating the Next, New Thing Now!” Register today.

The Arts Marketing Blog Salon is generously sponsored by Patron Technology.