Portland Center Stage held an experiment with twitter last month.
They invited “30 or so of [their] closest twitter friends” plus anyone else who cared to join them, to live-tweet the world premiere performance of the play Apollo. You can read the resulting twitter stream on their blog, or use #apollo on Twitter Search.
According to Trisha Pancio, PR and publications manager for PCS, the goals were two-fold: one goal was to embrace the use of social media, rather than fight it – people were already tweeting and texting in the theater. “…we wanted to see what it was like to release that restriction, and let them have a real conversation with each other (and the world) during the performance.”
Publicity was the second goal. It was almost by definition an experiment in publicity – twitter is about sharing your thoughts with the world at large. “We wanted the experience, not to replicate the experience of seeing the show, but tease the experience… leave people wanting more,” said Trisha in an email to me.
For half the stretch of the production, #apollo was in the top five for twitter traffic on a specific topic, and the story was picked up by national arts blogs, as well as local media.
" … we ended up being astonished at the sheer volume of twitter correspondence each participant produced,” said Trisha. “We expected the occasional ‘wow,’ or ‘how’d they do that?’ or ‘I’m bored,’ but what we got was a near minute-by-minute, multi-perspective breakdown of the show, complete with people googling and explaining references that were unclear to fellow tweeters, and connecting the work on stage to current events in all kinds of interesting ways."
While participants reported having a great time and bonding with each other (the one exception being a theater critic who was reviewing the play), they also noted that they felt they hadn’t really “seen” the show, and wished they could come back for a second viewing.
I asked Trisha if audience members felt distracted by others’ texting, something people always bring up as a reason this kind of audience participation would never work.
”Surprisingly, no. We had everyone up in the balcony, so the regular audience couldn’t really see them at all. The actors had been warned in advance, but none reported the screen glow bothering them (which makes sense, since they deal with the same thing during techs). And even the people in the booth, who were right behind the tweeters, reported no distractions from screen glow or anything. The one thing that came up a few times was that someone would tweet something that the other participants would laugh at, when the moment happening on stage was not actually a laugh moment. But there weren’t enough of them to make it very distracting.”
Would PCS do it again?
“We’ve thought a lot about whether we would do it again,” Trisha said, “and we agree that there are some great ways to use the twitter technology during a show, but with some big adjustments…. The big lesson we learned is that it is impossible to fully experience the show while [tweeting]. The people who got the most value out of the experience were the people who had already seen the show. With that in mind, here are some ways we could see using the technology moving forward:
3. Or, we would promote it more as an event that’s fun for the participants, and less for the people who follow them. The participants really did bond over the show in a way that strangers don’t usually bond in a darkened theater. As a tweet-up, it was phenomenally successful. I could see building a whole special interest audience for this style of performance experience.
4. Passive uses for the twitter technology. We have also talked about the possibility of exploring more passive uses of the twitter technology. For example, it would be a great way to close-caption the show in real time. Or to have an event where people watch the show and receive live tweets from the director with commentary about the performance. Again, if we did this we’d do it for second time viewers (just like the directors commentary on a DVD…you want to watch the movie without the commentary first, and then go deeper into the show with the commentary to guide you). And a “pop up video” style event could work, with fun facts and behind-the-scenes tidbits. That way we could time the tweets to be useful, but not distract people from the most important moments of the show.
I think one of the most interesting points Trisha highlighted was that live-tweeting was especially fun for the participants – attending the play was, in effect, attending a tweet-up. And I think that illustrates what that is starting to emerge as we look at arts participation:
There isn’t one right way to experience art, and the social element is a significant part of cultural life for many people.
(Thanks to @dougfox for the tip!)
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Photo: Efran Delgadillo, Jr. All rights reserved. From the workshop production of Apollo part one at the Center Theater Group. Ensemble members demonstrate the long reach of the Apollo project in Nancy Keystone's World Premiere multimedia exploration of the intersection between the space race and the civil rights movement in Apollo. Tickets, blogs, info and more at www.pcs.org
What I thought was most significant of this was that the participants felt like they hadn't seen the show. I think it begs the question, what i the purpose of theater and art. Is it merely to get people to buy tickets and sit in the seats? A tweetup is all fun and good, but I am not convinced that it is the way to go about using twitter as a viable interest source for a production.
I think it would be much more interesting or the twitterverse out there, to follow the actors, crew, directors and designers in the process of making the show. Encourage the behind the scene drama and struggle to make art, as opposed to 2 hours of lots of twits on the subject.
Posted by: Daniel Klein | February 23, 2009 at 10:38 AM
Hi Daniel.
My opinion is that both approaches are valid.
Someone who might be excited about talking with other audience members via twitter might not be so interested in witnessing the struggle to make art. Those who are deeply involved in the art of the theater might find some audience members' twitter comments to be beside the point.
I'd be interested in following both, and I think there is room for both.
As Trisha notes in the interview, PCS has lots of ideas about how to do it better, or differently if they do it again.
Posted by: Maryann Devine | February 23, 2009 at 01:10 PM
Thanks for posting this Maryann! i think it is so interesting, the options that are available, if we are willing to try. The thing is that some ideas won't work out. Even if this particular experiment didn't result in exactly what they were hoping (if they even had an exact hope...) it definitely got a lot of buzz and a lot of attention, which I am sure helps them significantly.
Daniel's thoughts are also good, though I can attest to the fact that it isn't that easy to get your artists, managers, etc on board by committing to be on Twitter and post regularly.
I agree that it is interesting that the members bonded over the experience. I hope that this experiment introduced some new people to the Portland Center Stage. And who knows, maybe the twitterers, and the other who followed along, will buy tickets to attend the show again - tweet-free. :)
Regardless, I think it is great that arts groups are beginning to embrace and experiment with social media and finding ways to involve individuals in the overall arts process.
Posted by: Lacey Huszcza | February 24, 2009 at 05:07 PM
Hi Lacey. I've been having trouble commenting on my own blog lately, so my apologies for the long response time.
Anyway, yes, it's heartening to hear about arts organizations that are embracing experimentation with social media.
Any similar plans at LACO?
Posted by: Maryann Devine | March 03, 2009 at 04:45 PM