Theatre audience demographics

It can depend on the show - Bend It Like Beckham did have a more diverse audience than usual, the night I went.

I was at the Shaftsbury Theatre seeing the Pajama Game several years back and I was chatting to a black employee, it was a matinee and we were watching the patrons leave and both of has lamented that how much of the audience was white and grey (I did say grey) and said to the employee, that the next show will bring in more people of colour, wind forward to Memphis the show I was referring to, watching the audience leave and yeap they were - white and grey.

Is it the cost? Well, I'm told football is expensive these days.
Do you have to have exposure to theatre? Well, most schools do some kind of drama and school productions.
Access? There are theatres in small towns and good shows do tour. You can see great stuff in the London suburbs without ever going into the West End.
A cultural thing? Maybe, I see 49th mentions that some people concentrate on careers that are more certain and maybe don't rate the arts but wait a minute, what about sport? Sport demands family support and sacrifice and there are black and other ethnicities in sport.

I don't have the answer. But I do know an eight year old who loves the theatre so much she has started a blog so all is not lost.

I wonder what the demographics of this place is? Are we 'typical' theatregoers?

I think the audience can vary according to venue and production: for instance, I see much more mixed audiences at the Tricycle, Theatre Royal, Stratford East and indeed at the NT at times - and previously, as already mentioned by an earlier poster, at BILB.

If you are a regular at a particular theatre, you can tell whether it's the production itself which has attracted a certain audience, or a more diverse one and sometimes I've been really surprised to find myself in a minority for whatever reason: age, colour, religion. But that's obviously good for theatre-going in general and probably for me, as a middle-aged white female; in fact, it's quite refreshing when it's not just the play which makes you sit up and take notice. It's also interesting to see that the audience is out there somewhere for the right work - though I do sometimes find myself wondering how they all came to be there and how they heard about it, because the publicity has evidently targeted a particular market - and successfully - but has therefore passed me by.

Haha, good question, Baemax. I assume the thought is that the second generation (who is supposed to have these aspirations) is busy studying to become lawyers or doctors and thus neither think about performing on stage nor about attending the theatre as an audience member.

Personally I would love to see more stories from Africa, Asia or South America on stage instead of white men's fantasies of the orient (Miss Saigon) or the token black leading man in Shakespeare. It's annoying enough that Aladdin isn't able to cast the leads with actual Middle Eastern performers, but there are so many incredible tales to be told, either historical or modern. If shows like Bombay Dreams and Bend it like Beckham can draw more Asians to the theatre, why not encourage more writers from non-white communities to create new plays and musicals that reflect their history and stories? I would much prefer to see more shows like Here lies love (that actually encouraged me to read a biography of Imelda Marcos and learn quite a lot about the Philippines) than yet another story of plucky white people from decades ago.

Theatre is quite a white middle class thing generally. Yes there will not just be white people in an audience but that is what I also generally see. Hopefully things like Hamilton will bring all kinds of people into theatre from all ages and walks of life as I think theatre should be for everyone and I think places like the national help as they are open and have cheaper seats and just a variety of shows for everyone.

I think it is to do with how marginalised BAME are in society and how there are barriers to integration

Sikhs and Hindus have contributed well economically to the UK for years

Yet how many of them are represented in positions of political power?

Same with the theatre and arts

This is why Bend It Like Beckham was a flagship moment (much to the malice and spite of many posters on this forum) in that a female Sikh director bought her cultural thoughts and ideas to a mainstream audience

That it resonated strongly with young females and British born Asians was excellent- it made them feel like they mattered and have a place in society

Unfortunately there is not enough of the target demographic to justify a large number of these financially risk ventures

If certain demographics do not want to attend the theatre then let it be

We all have our own interests

In addition many of my family members think the theatre is a waste of money and they are better off investing it in property to make a profit 

If you have come from having nothing and had to struggle for years, it is always going to seem bizarre to spend £150 to watch people dancing about on stage

I love going to the theatre and would never give it up but can also see that it is a massive extravagance and a decadence there to make money

Some people would rather save the money, others need it to survive and yet more would prefer a holiday

One thing we (as loyal theatre sisters) do not consider that often in detail is that theatre is quite expensive now

Of course people post about costs of premium tickets but I do not think many of us actually buy those anyway

But I rarely hear posters avoiding a show due to cost factors

In reality and in normal lay society most people cannot afford to see loads of shows due to other priorities

I know for example relatively well off friends who had a family and going to the theatre just goes right down the list of things to do

Until the day they add a tick box for 'Simply Fabulous' I ain't filling in no form!

It is probably me!

I like to support BME-majority productions (for example I am going to see Torn at the Royal Court) but I definitely think people of African descent are more likely to go to the theatre, and these numbers increase if the cast is mostly black, but having gone to a lot of plays about North Korea (usually with Chinese actors...) that isn't reflected there. I don't if it was different for a play like Dara at the NT.

I think Amadeus' audience at the NT should be interesting, I was very much drawn to the casting but I would have gone and seen it if a white actor had been cast (as per the usual arrangement) 

But obviously non-white demographics DO want to go to the theatre, they just don't want to see all-white shows, and the theatre industry is ignorantly marginalising them by not catering to them as well as they could.

I doubt there are all that many whites people so stonkingly racist as to refuse to see a play just because there are some non-white cast members. The RSC Hamlet seems to have done okay.

Probably not. The ones who refuse to take their kids to see a black Santa at the mall aren't necessarily the ones staying away from diverse casts in droves. (But they're out there, I'm sure.)

Hamilton does have a more diverse audience than the average Broadway audience but I think you would see that much more if the prices weren't so high. Most of the audience is still made up of the rich white people that inhabit Manhattan. The Color Purple was probably 50% black people when I saw it. Shuffle Along was also much more diverse than usual.

And yet still whenever the NT or the RSC cast a non-White actor as anything but Othello there are still howls of outrage. These are exactly the attitudes that need to be bulldozed out of the way.