Sold Out ≠ Full House

Butts in Seats Strategy

Photos of Theater Audiences are hard to come by. When I expressed my frustration at the inability of photographs to capture the energy of a show or theater house, a friend suggested I just use ‘vintage theater photos’. I like it. That is a great audience. We should all be so blessed to look out on so many smiling faces or sit amongst such bubbly sweetness when we go to the theater.

2 of the empty seats on the closing performance of Diaspora were my fault.

There were 6 empties in all. Maybe all 6 were my fault.

“Small!?!” 4 rows of 12 seats on a moveable riser, in a black box theater tucked into the wedge-shaped space under the big main stage. My dates did three pirouettes to take in the 50 person crowd.

That Sunday matinee had been sold out since Thursday. I know because I got the last tickets. A high school teacher from a small public charter school thought that maybe she could rally a crowd of students for the performance. So, I reserved the remaining 5 seats.

Understandably, no one co…