Interview answers - Buntport Theatre

Even Weissman Buntport theatre:

Who do you generally market your performances towards? How many seats do you fill on average with your performances?

we make shows that we like and then put them on...as we write and create our shows we don't have a target audience in mind. However, our audience has grown over nine years to be an oddly diverse crowd (in theater terms) especially younger folks and those that don't normally go to theater. Our seats are modular, so the number depends on each show, but generally around 100 for each night of our mainstage shows.

What genres does your theatre prefer to perform, and what are the most successful with audiences?

We write all our own work...we call it "Transformational theater" but that doesn't really mean anything to anyone else. Some folks in the press have begun describing things "Buntportian" if they involve set pieces that are treated like another character---changing into lots of different things......Comedies work very well for us, though 90% of our shows are "dramadies" I'd say!

As a theatre group how do you market yourself to your targeted audiences and beyond?
We are lucky enough to have built up a large audience base without any advertising. We did 8 years of a live sit-com on tuesdays and wednesdays that brought in a lot of folks who then came to our mainstage shows. However, we try and utilize the web and social media sites, cross-promotion with other theaters, artists and non-profits in the area.

What direction do you see Denver’s theater scene evolving into over the next 10 years?

Tough to say. I wish for more folks doing original work. It's so necessary for a community. I'd like to see ticket prices reduced as well! My guess, with the loss of newspapers, and tv rarely covering any theater, that we'll continue to see a decline in ticket revenue for a lot of theaters, but then there will be a resurgence: it will be "hip" to see things locally made as opposed to zapped in from LA on the tv.

How would you value your theatres ability to serve as a means of social awareness for social activism?

I value it highly, though I'm not sure about our ability. Theater CAN be a great vehicle for social activism. The main questions for artists creating work are: SHOULD my work be a vehicle or social activism, and HOW to do it? At Buntport, we try to layer our work in order to be both accessible to audiences and make them think (and laugh, etc...). We are not a "political" theater. I have worked with political theaters and they have an important role. Sometimes, you want to hammer people on the head about an issue, and sometimes you don't want to---the question is really effectiveness and when you get bogged down in effectiveness, it can lead to inaction---which is the opposite of what you want if you have a social ethic of change in your mindset. So, sometimes you preach to the choir, sometimes you preach to the whole community, and both are good. We try to write about what we're interested in and hope that inspires thought and action.

What are your theatres objectives?

accessibility and affordability for our original works. Also, we work in a non-hierarchical, collaborative way because we think it's the most empowering way to create as artists. Democracy works and is hard and annoying and is better than the alternative!

How did your theatre group as a whole originate?

"Hey let's make a show" "Cool" Made the show, toured it around to fringe festivals, made another. Decided to try and get serious about it. Fundraised, found a warehouse, started making shows---got lucky!

What kind of touring experiences does your theatre have?

Not too much---originally we toured the fringe circuit in Canada, went to philadelphia and chicago...but since we got our own space, we really only go elsewhere when we perform at a college or something like that.

How many performances do you average in a year?

We usually debut 3 or 4 world premieres a year. We wrote 100 episodes of our sitcoms. We've made 29 plays in 9 years (which is a LOT). Also, we have an ongoing show at the Denver Art Museum every month.

How many staff members make up the back of the house staff for a performance?

We are six people for everything---writing, acting, writing grants, designing, cleaning the bathrooms. Typically, 5 of us act and one is the technician. We get volunteers to run the box office.

What challenges as a theater have you had to overcome or still deal with today? How did you solve these problems?

Getting legitimacy in some ways. We've won over 60 awards but most people we meet in the supermarket have never heard of us or think we're some kind of improv troupe. Unless you've got lots of cash to market yourselves in some sleek way, things just take on a life of their own. But after nine years in Denver, that's been decreasing. Fundraising is a constant challenge. Keeping our ticket prices low is important to us, but it does make it harder to bring in more revenue.

How important do you feel the community is both towards involvement with your theater and its influence to your success?

It's most everything. We believe that a strong community needs the arts and a strong arts community needs the community at large. We hold a benefit night during each run of a show, where we give 100% of the box office sales to another community group. Philanthropy should be reciprocal and serial. We collaborate with tons of other groups. We work with students all the time, to expose them to what theater can mean (not just incredible sets that cost a ton, but using their imaginations). We got a grant to give away free tickets to six community groups who work with folks that could not, or would not otherwise come to theater: the homeless, the working poor, recent immigrants among them. We have pay-what-you-can nights for every show. If we're ever going to change anything in our community, it has to start with ourselves.