Arthur Miller? snore! Audiences want new plays – why are theaters afraid of them? | stage

Crise? What crisis? This week’s report on British theater before and after Covid is like a mask of tragicomedy presented in academic form. If you look at it one way, you see smiles. Look at it again, and all you see are the things you cry about. Media coverage of the report, by the British Theater Union, focused on the latter, with Stage reporting: “‘sharp decline’ in new plays since Covid”. Between 2019 and 2023, the number of new plays produced fell by approximately 30%. If vindication is needed for many of the recent concerns about the state of new writing in theater in the UK, this report seems to provide it.

Is playwriting in crisis? I am well placed to comment, at least insofar as this question applies to Scotland. I run A Play, a Pie and a Pint (PPP), the Glasgow theater organization that produces more new plays than any other theater in… Europe? the world? known universe? (We wait in vain for someone to tell us we’ve overcome.) Based on our experience—submitting hundreds of scripts a year, producing and touring new plays every week, year-round—there’s a lot to worry about. But there are also reasons for optimism, some of which are evident from the report by director Dan Rebellato and playwright David Edgar.

The undeniably bad news is the sharp decline in the number of new plays being produced (relatively higher than the overall decline in theatrical production). This reinforces the popular feeling that there are fewer opportunities for playwrights to present their work on stage, and fewer opportunities to make a living as a playwright on their own. The report also documents the closure of many small theaters, where new plays had been running smoothly. At the PPP, we are inundated with plays, and the frustration – especially among the younger generation – is palpable because outside of Iranmore, where we present our work, the options for new writers to stage plays, or for playwrights to develop their craft, are sparse.

Why then this reduction in new theatrical production? This seems likely to be post-Covid commercial conservatism – that infamous idea of ​​audiences being afraid of new drama. This is where Rebellato and Edgar become most interesting, proving what my daily experience reveals. Because even though there are fewer new plays, “[the] Newer plays had longer runs, larger audiences in larger theaters, and attracted greater box office income than in 2019.

More and more people are coming to see new plays. And if we widen our lens to look at new works (including new musicals, innovative shows, and original Christmas specials), we see that audiences certainly aren’t afraid of innovation. As the report states, attendance from new acts accounted for just over 40% of all productions in 2023 – an increase of almost 50% compared to 2019.

Isn’t the story then that demand for new works is on the rise – if only we could get them to market? To see the production of new plays declining over the period 2019-2023 is not only shameful, it is also short-sighted. A healthy culture is one that not only reclaims old stories, but tells itself new ones, and lots of them—and makes room for new storytellers, too. But as this report makes clear, we shouldn’t stage new plays for some abstract public good – we should (contrary to conventional wisdom) do so for our own bottom line, too.

If you’re a theater producer, you bring Arthur Snore Miller or Anton Chekhov (just kidding!) to the stage, because that’s all your audience will accept – well, you’re not doing your job right. Where is the hype in the theater? What gets fans out of their seats? This season, it’s Sofia Chettin-Leoner’s porn at the Royal Court, Uma Nadda Raja’s Black Hole Sign fantasy for the NHS, or James Graham’s hit Punch on the West End. Or (dare I say) Éimi Quinn’s Hauns Aff Ma Haunted Bin! At PPP – by some measures, the best-selling show in our 21-year history – or Stephen Christopher and Graeme Smith’s Dancing Shoes, a great show beloved by our spring audiences and revived for Christmas at the Traverse.

At PPP, we only show world premieres – no old plays – and receive approximately 150 to 200 viewers each lunchtime, six days a week. It comes as a habit of pies and crackers as well as plays. And so for thousands of people in Glasgow’s West End, seeing new plays is a joyful part of their daily lives – like reading a book, turning on the radio, or going to the food market.

Joy is part of it. Note that the British Theater Union classifies all new plays as ‘dramas’ – ignoring that some may be comedies. (And don’t get me started on the classification of Scotland as a ‘region’). Maybe if we stopped talking about new plays as if they were atonement, the whole food of the entertainment world, we might get more people to engage with them. But – judging by these recent results, and all those millions of people happily flocking to new plays – we’re actually doing a good job of it.

Now we just need bolder programming, more confident promotion, and more opportunities for writers to present their work on stages large and small, commercial and subsidized, in London and beyond. Give them these opportunities and the audience will follow. Data doesn’t lie!