Starting Monday: The Live Test
You'll get 3 emails per week for 4 weeks: a complete marketing campaign for a fake production of Othello set during the Civil War. But here's the important part: Try to experience this as the audience type you are trying to reach. Pretend you don't know the story. Pretend you don't follow theater. Pretend you're just scrolling through your inbox, wondering what's worth your time. Act like a real audience member, not the professional you are. And react to the content: does it grab you or bore your?
4 Weeks Later You'll Finally Know...
01
Whether backstory, character details, and world-building creates real interest before audiences meet the actors. Not because I told you it works. But because you felt it yourself.
02
Whether story-based content can reach people outside the theater world—or if the barrier to new audiences is bigger than marketing tactics alone.
03
Whether this approach makes someone want to buy a ticket better than postcards, actor interviews, and desperate hope. So you can stop wondering and decide which method deserves your budget.
And at the end of the campaign, I'll ask you one question:
Story-driven campaign marketing vs. postcard marketing: Which one actually MAKES you want to buy tickets?
Why Audiences You Are Trying To Reach Don't Care About Theater Marketing.
The hard truth that keeps you up at night: Nobody cares about artists they don't know. You can't market a play by promoting actors people outside of theatre have never heard of. You can't sell tickets by saying, "come see our production" to people who don't know if they'll like it. Or worse, think they won't. But here's what haunts every theater professional: You know your show is brilliant. You know it would move people if they just gave it a chance. But they won't. Because you're asking them to gamble their Friday night on strangers.
But people DO care about: Characters with interesting backstories, worlds they want to escape when life feels heavy, story details that pull them in before they commit their time and money. People will care about stories before they see them if you give them content worth engaging with. Theatre marketing shouldn't announce art: it should be art.
What If Your Theater Marketing Was Art?
Imagine this: Instead of telling people about your show and hoping people care, you give them weeks to fall in love with the world, the characters, the stakes, before they ever see a ticket price. What if marketing became as rich, layered, and surprising as the production itself? That's what I'm testing. And you get to watch it happen in real-time. What if people started asking YOU when tickets go on sale—instead of you begging THEM to buy? That's what this approach makes possible: Not marketing about the theater. Marketing that IS theater. If this experiment works, it changes everything; especially for productions that struggle to sell to people outside the theater bubble.
How I Figured This Out
After years of watching theater marketing fail to reach anyone outside the theater bubble, while game studios, streaming services, and publishers figured out how to make people care about unknown stories, I studied what they were doing differently. And then I saw it. They release character stories, world-building content, and backstory months before launch. By the time their product drops, people are already invested in characters they've never "met" and worlds they've never explored. They don't announce. They seduce. Then AI emerged and I realized: Theatre could do this too. Not content about the production. Content created about the world of the play. The difference? One is an advertisement. The other is an experience. People don't ignore experiences.
The Logistics: What you need to know
Time Committment: 2-3 minutes per email
How Often: 3 emails per week for 4 weeks
Cost: Free (because it's a proof of concept. Proof for you.)
Your Role: Experience it. Enjoy it. Think like a non-theater goer. If you can't, recruit someone who can.
The Catch: Once we start, no new people get in. This is a live test.
Audience Engagement
You'll experience audience engagement material that feels like entertainment. Imagine, if you can, how this might work for your audience. The ones you are desperately trying to reach.
Give. Don't Sell.
You'll see how to give value freely before ever asking for the "buy". Make your audience feel like they owe you by showing value first. Then make the ask.
Fun experience for you.
The ONLY thing you have to do is click, consume, and pretend you are not the professional you are. Experience it as a potential customer would. That's it. Total fun!
Common Concerns
01
I'm too busy to read every email
Then you'll miss parts of the story, just like a real audience member would. If you can't give 10 minutes per week, this isn't for you. But let's be honest, you spend more time than that checking and rechecking tickets sales numbers don't you?
02
This won't work for my theatre.
That's what we're testing. You'll get to decide at the end whether this approach would actually drive ticket sales for your productions - OR - if you'll keep doing what you've always done (and getting the same disappointing results).
03
What if it doesn't work?
Then you'll know exactly what NOT to try. Either way, you'll learn something your competition won't.
04
Why should I trust you?
You don't have to. I'm not asking for trust. I'm asking for attention. At the end, you'll have proof, not promises. You'll know this works because you experienced it. That's the only thing that should ever convince you to change.
Still here?
SIGN UP for the free newsletter. Not to be sold to. Not to be convinced. But to experience the content yourself. The goal? To give you a blueprint that actually attracts audiences to your productions.
An Invitation-Only Experience
Exclusivity
For quality control in this one-time experiment, I am only letting in a handful of marketers. For those who start believing, we build.
Limited time
Invite window closes Monday at 9:00 p.m. or I reach 25 marketer signups. This free 4 week experience will run one time. Get in now.
To know or not to know
You either want to see what happens when someone breaks the theater marketing rules, or you don't. Shift your marketing origin point, or stay stagnant.