'Go See a Show' initiative encourages Pittsburgh audiences to attend live performances
WESA - Pittsburgh’s three largest theater companies might be parting ways in terms of a potential merger. But this week, the troupes announced a new joint marketing initiative they hope will help performing-arts groups across the city.
It’s called, straightforwardly enough, Go See a Show. It’s meant to get Pittsburgh audiences excited about live performance by letting them know more of what’s out there, while sweetening the pot with discounts and other promotions.
“Go See a Show reminds people that our theatre scene is replete with an abundance of stories worth showcasing, and they are worth making time for,” Pittsburgh Public Theater managing director Shaunda McDill said in a statement.
The Go See a Show website has links to shows by about 20 nonprofit groups that produce their own work, from organizers the Public, Pittsburgh CLO and City Theatre to smaller troupes like Stage 62, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Co. and Front Porch Theatricals. (Go See a Show doesn’t include presenting organizations like the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, which offer shows produced by others, like touring Broadway productions.)
Most participants are theater companies, though venerable dance troupe Attack Theatre is also in the mix, and organizers say any producing company is welcome to participate.
“The main goal here is actually visibility,” said City Theatre managing director James McNeel.
Some of the discount offers are pretty substantial. The Public is offering 20% off tickets to its new production of the classic “An Enemy of the People.” And barebones productions is offering $10 off tickets for its March staging of “Infinite Life,” the latest from acclaimed playwright Annie Baker.
Go See a Show grew out of the merger talks between City, the Public and the CLO, which like theaters around the country were all struggling with rising costs, low ticket sales and a declining subscriber base.
Just last week, City’s board of directors voted to opt out of further talks, while the other two groups will continue. But the groups say feedback at a November town-hall meeting emphasized the need for theater companies to collaboratively promote themselves — and the very experience of live performance — more aggressively.
Last year, City and the Public received a $48,000 Allegheny Regional Asset District grant to do joint marketing. They spent about half of it on Go See a Show, which was inspired in part by Go See a Play, a 2023 initiative by four theater companies in Portland, Ore.
I’ve not yet been able to reach anyone from those troupes to see how it went. (The initiative’s website seems inoperative.)
In Pittsburgh, each company is limited to one show posting at a time, even if the show is months away. So if nothing else, in an era of declining media coverage of the arts, Go See a Play provides a one-stop shop for theater fans for what’s on across the city’s wide array of troupes.
As McNeel says, “There’s a greater pressure put on all of us in the arts and culture to generate our own buzz.”
Go See a Show, managed by existing staff at the companies, is slated to run through July, with an option to go longer.
The troupes hope, of course, that the initiative attracts newcomers to theaters. But their target audience is current theater-goers, whom audience surveys indicate once — i.e., before the pandemic — went out more often than they do now.
“If they’re seeing one show a month,” said McNeel, “will they see two?”