Where can I get data on why people in the U.S. do or don't attend theatre?

Question

By theatre I'm referring specifically to the small stage (plays), i.e. storefront theatre. I am NOT referring to community or dinner theatre.

Specifically, who attends small theatre in the U.S.?
WHY do people in the U.S. attend small theatre?
Why SHOULD people in the U.S. attend small theatre?
What are the benefits of attending small theatre in the U.S.?
Why should local businesses support small theatre in the U.S.?
Why DON'T (or won't) people in the U.S. attend small theatre?
Why don't (or won't) small-to-medium businesses in the U.S. support their local theatres?
What are the barriers (including negative perceptions) to attracting non-attendees to try the theatre?

Are you aware of any survey that has addressed this on either a local or national level? If so, how can I access it?

Where can I get any kind of readable, downloable free data on this?

Searches on yahoo, google and census.gov have yielded fair results.

Answer 1

Wow, what a great topic! I think a couple of people have given you some good ideas with regard to self collecting, and actor's equity.

Some other resources you might consider.
Check with the small theatres in your area. Send an email with questions to all that you can find. Check with any umbrella area theatre resouces. For example we have Theatre Bay Area in the San Francisco Bay area as a starting point http://theatrebayarea.org there may be other areas that have the same sort of thing.

Another way to collect data might be to try posting your poll to Craig's list in various cities. http://www.craigslist.org

Best of luck to you.

Answer 2

Are you writing a paper? This would be a very interesting topic, but I kind of doubt you'd be able to find much hard data on this on the internet, mainly due to the scope of what you're asking. This is also very involved - if you're really looking at the entire country (if this is for a paper, can you localize it? )there are possibly going to be geographical variations (not just location, but the size of the cities and how many small professional theatres are accessible). There are also many possibly biographical variations of the theatre goers - age, gender, race, education level, etc.

You are talking about a huge quantitive and qualitative study to answer these questions and it looks like you will have to do a broad survey or pariticipants, including businesses. I'm not aware of studies of this nature on any level, local or national, though you may be able to find some newspaper articles about the role of businesss in the arts. You could try calling some of the small theatres your targeting and see if they have any data. You may be able to get biographical data and at least get an idea of the "average" theatre-goer of that particular location.

So, if you have the time, I would recommend doing your own data collecting. Sounds like a great (and very ambitious!! You could write a thesis on any one of those questions!) project!! So sorry I can't be more helpful and point you in any specific directions, but again, I think the most obvious place to start would be theatres themselves. This is not the type of research I think your going to find on the internet alone.
Also, check with theatre departments at universitities for prefessors who may take a more research-oriented look at theatre and see if they might be able to give you any leads.

Good luck!

Answer 3

If I were you, I might try going to the Actors Equity Association AEA website. While you might not find all the answers to those questions, you could very well find some clues: actorsequity.org

Tony
www.actingcareerstartup.com

Answer 4

you can research it on yahoo.com