Apollinaire Theatre Company’s Romeo and Juliet: A study in community-growing, audience-building art

This week in Chelsea, Massachusetts—a diverse and densely populated city across the river from Boston—the Apollinaire Theatre Company’s production of Shakespeare’s timeless love story opened a three-week run. But this is not your mother’s Romeo and Juliet. Let me count the ways.

The event begins with a two-hour pre-show of the street fair variety, sure to help audiences and actors alike get into the mood for the upcoming Capulet party. Musical performances will be flanked by traveling “troubadours” and entertainers offering such diversions as a clowning performance and “the singing of boleros.” Audiences and onlookers are welcome to enjoy a pre-show meal in the theater’s beer garden or other nearby restaurants. The Bay State Banner calls the immersive evening a “love letter to the city of Chelsea” that is designed to “delight and engage audiences of all backgrounds and to show Boston all that downtown Chelsea has to offer.”

Echoing the city’s population, Romeo and Juliet will be a bilingual production, with actors shifting between English and Spanish throughout the story. “We wanted…everybody in Chelsea [to] feel like they could come, that they could understand the show,” director Danielle Fauteux Jacques told WBUR. “We really worked on the adaptation with an eye to keeping it very comprehensible in both languages.”

The pre-show will merge seamlessly into the story itself, which will take place outdoors, on the streets of Chelsea. WBUR calls it an “on-your-feet adaptation” with the actors moving through the city as the story progresses. The famous balcony scene will take place at a second floor window of the Theatre’s historic stone building. Other scenes will take place in the park and by the fountain.

With a running time listed as 90 minutes, admission is 100% free, thanks to grant funding. Audiences are merely instructed to meet outside the Chelsea Theatre Works building at 7:45pm, and to expect to be “on their feet moving with the action throughout Chelsea Square.” A press release describes the audiences as “creators of the action,” who will be welcomed to join in—dancing with the actors during the Capulet party scene, for example.

The theater company intends for the show to be a compelling piece of public art that will bring together the community and infuse the city with Shakespeare-loving out-of-towners eager to partake of Chelsea’s Latin American food scene, which suffered last year during the city’s Covid-19 surge.

For arts organizations looking to expand and diversify their audiences, Apollinaire Theatre’s immersive Romeo and Juliet is a wonderful model.

For arts organizations looking to expand and diversify their audiences, Apollinaire Theatre’s immersive Romeo and Juliet is a wonderful model. Not only is an outdoor performance a great way to circumvent the challenges that theaters are facing with the continuing pandemic, this production is also providing new “doors” into theater for their community through accessibility in language, price, and proximity.

Mishka Yarovoy, who plays Romeo, told BU Today: “This is, by far, the most accessible play I have ever been a part of. It is outside in the park, it is completely free. And even when we’re rehearsing certain scenes outside, you’ll see that people will start gathering. There will be kids running around with their parents, and they’ll just start looking and paying attention to our rehearsals.”

The first weekend of Romeo and Juliet drew enthusiastic crowds. (Source: Apollinaire Theatre Company)

If you want to grow your audiences, “don’t be IN a city,” writes Mark Schaefer, author of Marketing Rebellion, “be OF a city.” When you get out into the streets of your community, you demonstrate that you understand your potential audiences, that you care. You develop deep roots in your community, and your community sees you as a part of them. “Your customers have to experience you where they live, believe you where they live, and trust you where they live.” And that connection is crucial to building relevance for potential ticket-buyers.

Jobs to Be Done theory tells us that people don’t buy things (i.e., a theater ticket) because of who they are. They buy things because of who they want to become. Nina Simon (The Art of Relevance) says something similar: “Relevance isn’t about what you already know. It’s about what you’d like to know, where you’d like to go, and what experiences you think will help you get there.”

But knowing who you want to become and what could best help you get there isn’t easy, in this world of endless and overwhelming choice. Apollinaire’s team is practicing what Nina Simon preaches: shouldering the responsibility to “meet you in the middle, reach out a hand, and invite you in.” When insiders build new ways of accessing their art by cloaking something unfamiliar in what is familiar, outsiders can begin to see how art might fit into their own lives.

Most arts organizations still rely on traditional marketing methods to fill their seats. But the fact is, consumers hate marketing. Let’s face it, who doesn’t have an ad blocker on their internet browser these days? Is your community even seeing your marketing?

Luckily, there are other ways to create visibility. Physically leaving your theater or concert hall allows an arts organization to create a moment of connection and participation on Main Street which, in this era of marketing fatigue, is pure gold. Nina Simon writes, “When organizations show up as outside guests, they humble themselves…It changes the dynamic. It opens new doors into the work and the communities themselves…[it sparks] new connections…in places that already matter.”

Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s “Building Boléro” video below provides another example of a cultural organization getting out into the community, building goodwill, and adding value in an informal, non-transactional setting. Notice how the musicians are joyfully interacting with each other and their community—something that is often missing in the concert hall. (For the Boléro haters in my audience: sure, the piece is overdone, but it does provide a nice vehicle for this gradual gathering of flashmob-ers.)

In Marketing Rebellion, Mark Schaefer explains how consumers use technology to organize themselves into like-minded islands. These islanders are wary of strangers—in other words, they no longer trust traditional marketing. What they seek instead is an emotional connection with a brand. What does that look like for arts organizations?

Organizations who build trust with these islanders are the ones that strive to “be a friend” and to “do something useful,” writes Mark. They “come alongside” the islanders and create unique experiences that show the islanders what treasures can be found beyond their island. And, they don’t just say that they’re great and that they belong—they demonstrate it.

“When they feel included, they become invested.” — Pat Flynn

Wildly successful entrepreneur Pat Flynn is a one-man demonstration of how grow trust and engagement. “There is tremendous value in seeing people face-to-face,” he says. “It’s important…to create those moments where people can come together, because they take away experiences. They take away memories. It turns them into superfans…When they feel included, they become invested.”

This is invaluable advice for arts organizations during a time when audience development is crucial but more and more consumers are rejecting traditional marketing methods.

“Brands aren’t built on advertising impressions like the old days,” says Mark Schaefer, “they’re built on human impressions.” By moving into the streets of Chelsea and creating art alongside their neighbors, Apollinaire Theatre Company is generating those human impressions, building that inclusion, and creating an experience that its community won’t soon forget.