Friday 18 April 2014

He loves me not . . .

Our next production opens in under three months and I'm busy working on the publicity. The first task is to put together a poster, which will form the basis of our leaflets and other advertising. This is the draft I've put together so far. (Yes, I'd far rather this was undertaken by a professional designer, but we're losing enough money as it is...)

There are - as many of you will spot immediately - several problems to be overcome. We need a strong image. We need a title, a strapline. We need dates and addresses and prices. We need reviews to entice the punters, sorry, discriminating members of the public who will rush to buy tickets. And we need to list three shows with straplines to further entice our potential audience. All of this has to come together in a harmonious, seductive whole.

This is what we have so far. Needless to say, there will be changes. The theatre address will probably be smaller and move down a little. The theatre logo might also be reduced. We will probably more a little more of the beauty's body - after all, there's nothing like nudity to draw the eye of the beholder.

Plus the strapline is likely to change. "love" is a difficult word, with different meanings for each person who utters and hears it, but there is a common core that suggests that the heart is more engaged than the groin. I'm not convinced that the three characters in Desire and Pursuit - the tormented priest in Angel, the cantankerous writer in Now We Are Pope and the old man on the beach in Tadzio Speaks . . . are in love with their respective obsessions. Lust, yes, Longing, ditto. But love? One of them indeed believes he is in love, but whether he is fooling himself is a central question in his play.

Which means I am thinking of changing the strapline to say "three one-man plays about beauty, faith and obsession". Will that bring in the punters? Or should we just have the youth in his loincloth posing at the theatre door? Nice idea, but since he's been in his grave for the last fifty years or more, not one that I am seriously considering.

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