Selling Shakespeare

Today's media-saturated audiences are savvy to Shakespeare; most have gloomy recollections of classrooms full of double, double toil and trouble English courses in the Bard's leaden works.

So,what does it take to sell an evening of Shakespeare to a 21st century audience? It takes a bit of humor, says Catherine Atack, executive director of the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival.

But it's not the hard sell it might seem.

In fact, she says, her survey of attendees at the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival says that people come for the Shakespeare.

It's not the lake, not the picnics under the stars.

It's Shakespeare that is the draw.

"For the past several years,we've been selling toes in the sand," says Atack.

And the approach has been successful for the 33-yearold lakeside festival.

It's become a summer staple at Sand Harbor State Park.

It built a $2 million stage in 2000.

And it draws upwards of 30,000 attendees to its performances under the stars every year.

Still, there's room for more.

The performances are running at 75 percent capacity,with some nights sold out, some showing swaths of empty seats.

This year, the festival's marketing no longer focuses on the sandy beach; it's selling its core product: Shakespeare.

The group's change of focus is the result of a 2003 market survey conducted by Sierra Marketing Group.

It was sent to a random sampling of 1,000 of the festival's database, and it revealed two surprising facts: People say they come for the Shakespeare in other words, they like the plays and, what's more, they want to see tragedies, not just comedies.

There's some hankering for Shakespeare going on out there.

In response to the survey results, the festival this year for the first time in recent history is staging Macbeth as an alternative to "A Comedy of Errors," its other offering.

It's also shifting its main message to the plays.

That does not mean it's losing its sense of humor, though.

There's danger in taking yourself too seriously when you're selling the Bard, says Atack.

Hence, her group's posters touts "Macbeth"with tongue in cheek.

Its headline: "Macbeth, a tale of treachery, deceit & duplicity curiously, Joan Collins is nowhere in sight." The major customer, says Atack, is in the 35-55 age group, with women making most of the ticket purchase decisions.

And they come from here, as well as from California.

Of the attendees, 45 percent come from California,with 12 percent of those from the Bay Area, 11 percent from the Sacramento area, 5 percent from southern California, and 14 percent from the Lake Tahoe/Truckee area.

With the Bay Area so saturated with entertainment options and Sacramento saturated with Lake Tahoe messages, the growth market for the festival is Los Angeles, says Atack.

The festival will be marketing into that metropolitan area this year,with a television spot production funded by the RSCVA and media buy contribution by Charter Communications.

The group is also running advertisements in American West and Southwest inflight magazines.

If all this additional advertising to farflung audiences sounds like double trouble for locals trying to buy tickets,Atack has an insider tip: Buy Friday tickets.

Most weekenders arrive too late for Friday performances, leaving open seats on Friday nights.