A new generation of Chicago theater producers is reaching out to younger audiences with a combination of Hollywood-style marketing formats and low-cost internet distribution channels.  This past January, for instance, Riddlemark Theatre adopted “The Making of” genre to market its original King Arthur epic, Pendragon.  Its three-minute documentary, The Pendragon Fight Week, intersperses footage of clanging swords, sweaty armored actors rehearsing the show’s elaborate fight choreography, and talking-head interviews with the director, writer and fight director.  Riddlemark posted the film on its website and on YouTube. 

"The Pendragon Fight Week" Video

The Broken Compass company is adapting another Hollywood marketing staple, the teaser trailer, for its newly opened production of Philip Ridley’s play Mercury Fur.  To create the trailer, the company joined forces with independent filmmakers Ben Kolak and Will Slocombe, two of the artists behind the independent feature Crime Fiction, which garnered praise at this year's Slamdance Film Festival. According to Mercury Fur production manager Mitch Salm, the production’s artistic team met several times with the filmmakers, engaging in lengthy discussions about how to marry theatrical aesthetics with the technical and artistic demands of film.  Those discussions culminated in a one-day shoot with cast members the day before their regular rehearsals were scheduled to begin. The trailer is now posted on MySpace, YouTube and The Broken Compass website.  

"Mercury Fur" Teaser Trailer

And while the original impulse was to create a marketing piece, the makers of the film hope it can also have a life beyond that of the play.  Kolak says, “We sought to create a trailer that is both a glimpse into the world of Mercury Fur and a work of art unto itself.”  He and Slocombe plan to submit the piece to festivals as a short film inspired by the play.

These techniques have enormous potential to popularize theater among a younger crowd, suggests Martin Denton, who is the creator of nytheatre.com, an increasingly influential site championing the work of off-off-off Broadway artists.  Denton believes that “Web 2.0--to use the current buzzword--offers tremendous possibilities for marketing indie theater, with MySpace, blogs, and newer sites like squidoo and flickr providing tools that will help to make it clear to a younger, more technology-savvy audience that theater isn't just big-budget broadway-type shows but is also a $20 or $30 show in a small theater that can be cool and fun and entertaining.”