As Ed Hall takes over the Hampstead Theatre, Lloyd Evans offers some advice on how to run this prestigious venue
Congratulations, mate. You’ve landed a plum job. And a bloody tough one, too. Paradoxically, it’s harder to run a single venue than to run a group of theatres. The focus is tighter. There’s less opportunity to experiment, to learn as you go, to fine-tune your style. You have to get it right fast. Here are some hints.
First, where are you? Since moving to its new premises in 2003, the Hampstead has barely left a trace on London’s theatre scene. Many play-goers have yet to pay their first visit. You’re a product in a marketplace but you’re invisible. In the age of shameless self-promotion you need a blatant publicity stunt to put yourself back on the map. It needn’t be theatrical but it has to be headline-friendly. A star-studded gala event for Haiti, perhaps. A one-off Pinter Tribute led by Lady Antonia with a host of luvvies reading from the oeuvre. Or how about this: get Gordon to announce the date of the election from your stage. Surround him, Ceausescu-like, by beaming schoolgirls bearing armfuls of roses. Once you’ve attracted the world’s attention you can start running the theatre.
Hampstead’s good name is your starting point and your destination. By invoking its past you can secure its future. This is the stage where Abigail’s Party was born. The Dumb Waiter had its world première here, as did Michael Frayn’s breakthrough play, Alphabetical Order. Way back in 1924 Noël Coward launched his career at the Hampstead Theatre with his sex-and-drugs shocker, The Vortex (though to be strictly accurate that venue was located on a site currently occupied by the Everyman Cinema). A shrewd move would be to commission work from the grand old men of English theatre. We’re accustomed to seeing new plays by Stoppard, Hare, Frayn and Bennett at the National but this privilege isn’t the property of any one institution. Give these chaps a ring. A new play from each would be the basis of a stunning season.
Raise your prices (and lower them). Your top-end Saturday-night ticket is £20. Pricing yourself like a pub venue undervalues your theatre. You’ve got a big, swish, eye-catching arena with a nice stylish bar attached to it. Add £15 to the cost of your best seats. You won’t lose your audience, you’ll help them appreciate the shows more. And higher prices will encourage you to raise your game. At the lower end, offer late-availability tickets for a tenner.
Rename the ‘Michael Frayn Space’. It sounds like something between the poor man’s ears. Open it up as a regular venue. Road-test new plays there. Transfer the best ones to your main stage.
Diversify. Say yes to musicals. It’s easy to be sniffy about the song-and-dance format but the punters love it. A musical that goes into town is a great ambassador for your theatre. It fills your coffers with gold and trumpets your name far and wide.
Use celebrity casting. Everyone does it nowadays. You’ll be criticised for it, and criticised heavily. Rejoice. It means more publicity.
Avoid the avant-garde. The ‘right to fail’ belongs on The X Factor. If people want Racine performed in Esperanto by HIV-positive gypsies, there are fringe venues aplenty offering this and similar treats. Experimentalism is too easy. Successful mainstream theatre is much harder.
Study the art of programming. Assembling a roster of shows that combine variety, excitement, depth and good old-fashioned entertainment is a skill enjoyed by few artistic directors. At the Donmar, Michael Grandage has the knack. In last year’s West End season he created a judicious blend of the daring and the dependable. Take Madame De Sade by Mishima. No one with half a brain wanted to see a play about an aristocratic French pervert written by a Japanese martial-arts fanatic best known for writing novels and cutting his stomach out with a sword. By casting Rosamund Pike and Judi Dench in the play, Grandage turned it into a fascinating curiosity. The same formula gave us Derek Jacobi in Twelfth Night, Kenneth Branagh in Ivanov and Jude Law in Hamlet. Challenge the audience but give them a reward for trusting you.
Find your own money. It’s absurd, and faintly embarrassing, that one of our most prestigious theatres must devour tax-payers’ money like a tapeworm. You receive £1 million yearly. What do you get in return? Nosey parkers from the Arts Council and mockery from the Daily Mail. Right now Britain is heaving with billionaire gangsters who crave status and legitimacy and who’d leap at the chance to swap a million quid a year for a pat on the back from the Establishment. Football clubs have no trouble attracting overseas racketeers. Our theatres should avail of this amenity too. Cosy up to an oligarch.
Rename the bar. This is a favourite West End dodge. It’s simple. A rich corporate sponsor is granted the right to put signs on the doors and a logo over the serving area. He also gets a full-page ad in the programme. This costs him tens of thousands a year. It costs you nothing.
Or go one better. Let the sponsor stick his name between ‘The’ and ‘Hampstead Theatre’. Don’t rule anyone out but keep your neighbours’ social aspirations in mind. ‘The Heineken Hampstead Theatre’? Probably not. ‘The Jacob’s Creek Hampstead Theatre’? That’s more like it. ‘The Pol Roger Hampstead Theatre’? Now we’re in business.
Ignore your core audience. Your theatre nestles snugly in one of the world’s richest concentrations of residential property. During the past seven years the affluent locals remained commendably loyal to the venue. Average sales stood at two thirds of capacity. This was damaging, though. It bred complacency. Even a punishingly dull show looked relatively successful. Don’t run the place as a drop-in centre for well-heeled coffin-dodgers living half a mile away. Think Shaftesbury Avenue. Think Broadway.
Befriend Glenda. Your local MP is an Oscar-winning actress. No doubt it’s enormously exciting running coffee mornings and advice surgeries but Glenda surely hankers for the greasepaint occasionally. Offer her a juicy role in a neglected classic. It’s true she’s got a job in Westminster but if she checks her diary she may find she’s free between July and October.
Use family contacts. Your sister was in that Woody Allen film so get her to coax Woody to come over and direct something. Anything. A double bill of his 1970s masterpieces God and Death would go down a treat. Ask nicely and offer him very little money. When he realises it’s his cachet alone that excites you, he’ll be so flattered he may say yes. While you’re at it get J.K. Rowling to write a Christmas panto.
Don’t worry if you wobble. Kevin Spacey had a difficult first year running the Old Vic. Everyone expected a string of world-class hits and when it failed to materialise they turned nasty. I can scarcely imagine this calamity befalling a man of your vision and intelligence but, if it does, you can remedy matters by offering gratuities to friendly reviewers who praise you in the press. Reviving this forgotten custom will, I feel confident, set the final seal on your genius.
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