Author: Stevens, Rise

Publication Year: 1964

Media Type: Report

Summary:

I would like to begin by saying that it is common knowledge in the field of entertainment that everybody underestimates an audience. For the past twenty five years, I have been what you might call a traveling artist. I have sung over one thousand concerts in almost as many cities. I have not only met an audience across the footlights, but also many of them face to face.

Abstract:

I would like to begin by saying that it is common knowledge in the field of entertainment that everybody underestimates an audience.

For the past twenty five years, I have been what you might call a traveling artist. I have sung over one thousand concerts in almost as many cities. I have not only met an audience across the footlights, but also many of them face to face.

In the beginning I was told by my advisors not to sing German lieder because audiences would not understand them. I soon found out how wrong they were, because lieder have become the backbone of my concert program. This taught me never to sing down to an audience.

Three hundred and thirty five towns were organized by the Community Concert Association in 1940. The same organization, in 1965, has almost 1,000 cities. Towns, which had budgets that could afford only one name artist and two smaller ones, were able to increase their budgets to such an extent that they now have major concert series and their own symphony orchestras.

To say that we are at a standstill with our potential audiences as far as growth is concerned is almost like saying that a child of ten is not expected to become fifteen. In 1940, our population was 132,000,000. Now it is 194,000,000.

Across the country, theatres and auditoriums are being built to accommodate all the theatrical aspects of a new evolution - a cultural explosion.

In the June 9, 1965 issue of Variety, which is the bible of show business, there is an interesting article on the front page that I would like to read to you:

Report made by a panel here for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund reveals that the sports locally are playing second fiddle to major cultural events, such as the legitimate stage and music. Major cultural events in the Twin Cities last season (drew) 1,749,349 customers, compared to the total big league baseball and football 1,523,121 attendance.

If this report is accurate, and I believe it is, we must assume that the national pastime in America is not baseball but going to the theatre. (p. 101-102)

[Presented as part of the panel on Expanding Audiences for the Arts introduced by
 Oliver Rea. Additional presentations are all listed under Expanding Audiences for
 the Arts by Leslie Cheek, Jr.; Bradley G. Morison; Carol Morse; and
 Mark Schubart.]

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Participation