FREE SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK CASE STUDY

1.  Context and History of Free Shakespeare in the Park –

 Founded in 1999 by Sharon Se`love as a response to the 1998 Thurston High School Shooting, Sharon brought her training and love of Shakespearean acting and performance to the Eugene/Springfield area as a way for teenage youth in our community to have a safe place to work with adults and be able to explore the works of Shakespeare.  The targeted participants for the program are students ages 13 and up but the audience target is for those who may not be able to attend theatre productions in a formal performance hall.  While the demographics of the company’s attendees and actors have not been formally done, a wide range of people from Eugene/Springfield will have seen the production or have heard of the company.

 Now heading towards their 17th production season in 2015, Free Shakespeare in the Park has not updated their branding and marketing as Sharon has been the only one running the company since its founding.  A few individuals who have been with the company for more than 10 years have been taking on some of the responsibilities that Sharon generally shoulders but the process is slowly happening as these individuals are volunteers and have to balance their work with the company alongside their jobs, schooling, and family.

2. Environmental Scan –

             A.  Economic Trends: As with many cities recovering from the Great Recession of 2008, the Eugene/Springfield area is slowly coming back after the loss several businesses, most notably the luxury coach manufactures of Marathon and Coach motor-homes along with technology groups like Sony, Hynix, and Hyundai which brought a lot of prosperity to the community up until 2007/2008. FSitP continued to provide its programming at no charge to the public but due to lack of documentation online for this company, there is no posted evidence to show if there was a decline or increase in audience attendance or how much of a change there was in financial support towards the company.   The area is on the rebound and showing stability due to “the region’s [5 counties including Lane] large public sector, with the state capitol located in Salem and two major universities in Corvallis and Eugene” (Lehner 2013).  Some other signs of the area’s economic strength are the “employment gains in professional and business, educational and health, and leisure and hospitality industries” (Lehner 2013).  This may play in FSitP’s favor by seeking the right donors who may find them being able to give as they may have more discretionary funds than from a few years ago.

              B.  Cultural Trends:  Eugene/Springfield has a very rich cultural community, per an interview with Tomi Douglas Anderson, Cultural Services Director for the City of Eugene, there are over 800 organizations they work with and FSitP is one of them.  There is then an inherent competitive nature to the community, especially in the performing arts sector.  FSitP stands out as being a company that only does Shakespeare’s works, uses only Amazon Community Center for their stage, and performs once a year, whereas there are companies using the FSitP framework of providing free shows but they do a variety of plays and in various locations.  In a citywide survey conducted by Barney & Worth, Inc in January of 2010 (Eugene Public Art Plan), 70% surveyed enjoy Outdoor art, how that is specified is not clear but 78% of the participants of the survey said their favorite type of site are public parks.  Perhaps the most interested survey result revolves about service, 64% were unsure if all areas/groups were being adequately served and 23% indicated they are not being adequately served in areas like public schools, parks, and gateways or low income/ethnic groups/borderline neighborhoods.

              C.  Demographic Trends:  Without current evidence as what ethnic groups attend productions by FSitP we can assume a large portion is made up of white, well educated adults.  In a 2013 survey, 85.8% of the population is white and 39.8% of persons over age 25 have a Bachelors Degree or higher but the census does not give detailed information as which ethnicity has the higher education.  Another indicator of the education level of the audience in Eugene is there is a 93.5% of high school education or higher of persons over age 25.  The likelihood of a person in the audience having been exposed to Shakespeare in the their education is high but these numbers do not indicate the level of actual exposure/experience with Shakespeare as a performance.

3. SWOC Analysis –

           A.  Strengths:  One of the strongest attributes of the product that FSitP produces is an experience families can enjoy for little cost, they may spend more money on the dinner they bring as the shows are free to the public.  Many attendees bring their dogs or make a full family outing with grandparents, cousins, neighbors, etc; and the company strives to make the product the highest quality with the time they put into rehearsals, costuming, and staging.

           B.  Weaknesses:  A big weakness of FSitP is lack of ongoing productions throughout the year or rather a lack of ongoing communication and marketing to their audience.  A few previous participants with the organization are listed as content contributors to the company’s Facebook page, but the majority of activity posted is by one individual (me) and there is a lack of knowledge which hinders effective outreach via this particular social platform.

           C.  Opportunities:  FSitP has many opportunities, one being doing a winter production that can be both a stand alone show/fundraiser and do a three to four week run of either a different play or the one done during the summer.  Consideration would be taken into account should the summer actors not be able to commit to the winter show, but with proper documentation of the staging and have a community partner who is able to provide the performance space, FSitP has the potential to expand their audience base and be able to give greater access to those who miss the summer shows.  Other opportunities would be to offer show dates with American Sign Language interpretation or present select scenes in Spanish to reach other demographics in Eugene.

          D.  Challenges:  As mentioned above in the opportunities, to do a winter show, FSitP is designed to perform in a similar fashion like the actors in Shakespeare’s time would have performed; no artificial light, little to no audio enhancement, and only performed in the English language.  If FSitP wants to reach out to more diverse audiences, they will need to look at areas of inclusivity as this may be a future hurdle for having sustainable attendance numbers.  The physical location of the summer productions are done at Amazon Community Center’s South Lawn and as it is part of Amazon Park; there are no walls behind the audience to allow the actors’ voices to bounce off of and environmental noises like cars, sirens, and the wind will overpower the actors’ voices as well.  Should the company do a survey,  how do you capture it accurately as this is a public space?

References:

Lehner, J 2013 http://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2013/12/30/willamette-valley/