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Printer-Friendly ModeTheatre deserves student support
February 19, 2007 —
With your SVSU student ID (or any campus student ID), you can get into football games, basketball games or any other sporting event on campus for free. If you went to see "A Christmas Carol" or "Fat Pig" last semester, however, you showed your ID and paid $7 (or $5), which was a discounted price. That's odd, isn't it?
I'm sure the justification comes down to money, as most things in the world today do. Sports bring in money for the University. I would question if they all do, though, but maybe that's none of my business.
Or, maybe it is. I am a student and a theatre major. I tell my friends to come see the show I'm involved in, but they have to pay $5. The basketball players' friends pay nothing to come watch one of their games. But the justification doesn't really matter in the end. The bottom line is there is something wrong with this issue when you consider it.
I then stop and think: "What if our theatre productions were free? Would more students come and see them?"
Perhaps. Or perhaps not. After all, $5 (or $7 even) isn't really that much money. I'm sure that the number of students who come to productions would increase to some extent, but unfortunately, I don't see that extent being that much of an increase. And so I ask: why?
I've formulated some reasons, some holding more merit than others. The timing is one. I don't understand this reason, but it often seems to be many people's excuse. They couldn't make it on such a night. What about the next night? Well, they worked that night. This, then, seems less of an issue of timing and more of an issue of importance.
Theatre, along with other forms of art (a term I use somewhat loosely), has lost its importance in our society today, especially when you look around Michigan. There aren't numerous theatres in our area, nor are there all that many art museums.
Another issue is the often inaccurate perceptions that localized theatre isn't going to be as good as Broadway or a movie.
I am going to avoid the movie argument purely because last year around this time Scary Movie 4 was the number one movie at the box office, which represents a clear lack of judgment regarding people's definition of a word such as "good" as it applies to movies.
As to the Broadway argument, how many people that aren't going to SVSU theatre productions have seen a Broadway show? There is just an inadequate assumption of "amateur" correlating with the word "bad."
If you don't ever go, how would you really know? Perhaps you go to one show and are disappointed, so you don't go back. If you see a "bad" movie or if a CD has a "bad" song on it, do you stop watching movies and throw the CD away for one poorly made track?
Furthermore, I have had people who have seen Broadway shows claim they have seen better-made amateur theatre productions.
My point in all of this is simple: theatre is highly unsupported by our culture, only moderately supported by our institution and, often, rarely supported by you as individuals.
So, I suggest everyone gives it just a few chances and see if your opinion remains. See an amateur show. See a professional show. I promise if you go to the theatre on a more regular basis, you will end up finding a show that speaks to you, and you will hopefully then seek out other shows that succeed at this.