Know Your Audience
by Rosanna E. Tufts
Whenever you are looking to manifest anything, it may help you to ask yourself, “who am I really doing this FOR?” Who is the “end user” of the thing you want to manifest?
A case in point is the first full-length musical I ever composed in 1997, “According To Us,” which I wrote in collaboration with Charles Butler. He wrote the book and lyrics, and “thunk up” the melodies, while I took his musical ideas and fleshed them out into full orchestrations. It’s the story of three homeless people who’ve been willed the garden of a church by its Rector, and they each tell of how the Rector rehabilitated them and gave them a sense of direction.
Since Charles is the son of a minister, he knows firsthand the kind of people that he turned into these characters for the show. And at first he thought the show would make a good “chancel drama,” as a fundraiser for homeless ministries..
But despite the obvious merits of the show, both musically and narratively, it wasn’t “pulling.” We kept putting on the show in church fellowship halls, to extremely meager attendance. And I knew that the challenging music wasn’t being done justice by the amateurs he was recruiting. Playing the Rector, I was routinely the most professional person in the cast – and a performer is only as good as his/her co-stars. But, as Charles was so often “poor as a church mouse,” having to put this thing on with a shoestring budget, he didn’t think he had the wherewithal to make it a professional production, with FOUR equally strong leads!
We had a bit of a falling-out over this. With my musical theatre experience, I also came to the conclusion that we were playing the show in the wrong places, for the wrong people. “Churches don’t know how to promote musical theatre,” I pointed out. “That’s not their job. It’s no wonder that hardly anybody from the congregations are even showing up. You need to get this show picked up by a legitimate theater, with its own marketing department, that can promote the thing PROPERLY!” I challenged him to do this, and “THEN come back and talk to me!”
A year later, he saw me actually “put my money where my mouth was,” mounting a professional production of my own show, “The Passion of Persephone,” at a theatre festival – and did it with an even more challenging score and a larger cast. And he knew I was serious. If he wanted to keep me, he was going to have to step up, and go beyond what he thought he could do.
Over the next year, he DID IT. He found a local community theatre with an open weekend, and he booked the show into that time slot. He recruited several players from the “Persephone” cast, expanded the show to include four more supporting players, and actually devised a proper set and lighting cues. Even better, sponsor-funding materialized to cover the set design, and one of the performances was recorded for airing on a local public-access cable channel. Best of all, we actually decent audiences! For five performances in a row!
On closing night, he was astonished at himself. I congratulated him, saying, “Now you can’t go back. Now that you know you CAN pull it off, you won’t ever be able to settle for anything less..” And he realized that I was right, both about this and about WHERE the show should be played, and for whom.
As Manifestations go, this one was pretty good. And I’m pleased to know that I was the “Catalytic Converter” that lit the fire under him.
So: Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, either way you’re right.
And: If you believe in yourself, other people will believe in you too.
Rosanna E. Tufts is the author of “Don’t Start a Business without ME!”, available at www.DontStartABusinessWithoutMe.com. Excerpts from her rock opera, “The Passion of Persephone,” can be seen and heard at www.myspace.com/passionofpersephonerockopera. To hear more from her and ask her questions LIVE on the air, tune in on Wednesday, June 3, at 7 pm!
