The Stage

A way with words: Twitter in the arts

Published Friday 23 April 2010 at 11:51

In an industry that depends on promotion and networking, why aren’t more people using Twitter? Miriam Zendle (@mzendle) meets some who are

Twitter is a valuable promotional and networking tool, so why aren’t people in an industry that heavily relies on all of this using it more?

The Royal Shakespeare Company is just one company that is utilising it creatively, with its innovative Such Tweet Sorrow (@Such_Tweet), a production of Romeo and Juliet taking place solely via Twitter conversations between characters and followers.

However, many other organisations and individuals avoid it, reluctant to expose themselves outside of their own circle of friends, while others struggle to adapt to the effort of coming to grips with new technology.

Social media PR Luke Murphy (@lurkmoophy) has been exploring Twitter’s value as a connective tool for the theatre industry since he moved to the UK from Australia. He has been organising a series of ‘Twespians’ meet-ups for theatrically-inclined Twitter users.

Murphy says: “A lot of people who aren’t on Twitter are scared by it. They don’t see the value - they see it as people writing what they had for lunch today, when they went to the toilet.

“@Twespians is a good opportunity for people who might not know that much about Twitter to come into a room full of people not only well versed in Twitter, but who know how to use Twitter for theatre.

“In Sydney, I was going to ‘tweet-ups’ for other things and people from all walks of life [would] get into a room together and start talking. It was fantastic.

“Once you’d made a connection on Twitter, followed somebody or ‘@replied’ them, it didn’t matter what your background was, you were all equal, because you were all from Twitter. I loved that. Theatre is all closed walls and between the students and the amateurs who wanted to get into professional work and the professionals, nobody talked to each other because there was this elitism and real snobbery. So when I came here, I thought hey, let’s do this.”

Murphy’s first event hosted everyone from musical directors to lighting designers, administrators and producers.

“It was a really nice mix of people that I don’t think would have talked in other places,” he says. “The whole point of it is to bring the theatre community together and get them talking about the right things… saying what are the problems we’re facing as a group passionate about theatre? I want this to be a regular event there for the London theatre community.

“It’s always frustrated me that people don’t see the value of Twitter and theatre, because the two just go hand in hand. They make sense.”

Actor Adam Lilley (@adamski1974) has just finished a sold-out run as the lead in Above the Stag’s Maurice. He has been on Twitter for 18 months and recently attended a Twespian tweet-up.

He explains: “It took me a while to get used to it, but then I got in with the theatre crowd and found an audience. I’ve been addicted ever since I began to realise how quick and easy it was to get messages out to people to publicise what I was doing. I built up good contacts in the industry and spoke to them on a regular basis.”

Michaela Dewhirst has run Richmond Theatre’s Twitter feed, @RichmondTheatre, since mid-2009. She says Twitter is beneficial for building business relationships with everyone, from bloggers to theatre patrons.

She says: “It goes beyond just marketing - it’s being able to talk about the theatre’s heritage and get people’s feedback about what they like in the bar. Things like that have been the real revelations for us. People seem to respond really well to being able to ask a question and get an answer back. To be a real person and not just marketing to them, to be engaging with them.”

Dewhirst agrees that the time spent building these Twitter relationships can be off-putting: “It’s really labour intensive and it takes time to see the fruit that develops. It’s not something that you can just do on your lunch break. In my case, I need the support of the whole theatre - everybody’s always thinking of interesting things to say. It’s a group effort. I’d say just to give it a try. You’ll be surprised at the information you get.”

However, not everyone’s a fan. Experimental musical theatre company Little Bulb Theatre avoid the medium. Artistic director Alex Scott agrees that maintenance is the main issue: “We’ve already got a Facebook site, which we use very rarely, and an email list, which we’re not very good at using. It’s a sliding slope - you have to invest a lot of time. I think it would be different if we had a natural proclivity towards it. Because none of us actually has that inclination, it’s not on our radar.”

Little Bulb acknowledges the benefits Twitter could have for the company in a business sense, but are still unable to bring themselves to deploy it. For them, the walls are still firmly up.

Lilley believes the effort is worth it: “Twitter is a far better communication tool than Facebook, which goes to existing friends, whereas Twitter reaches a wider and more open audience. It really is a brilliant way to market yourself and publicise what you are doing to an audience who would otherwise not know you. Maurice is a good example. Interest and awareness spread thanks to Twitter - the success of it was communicated. If you’re responsive on Twitter, people feel closer to you, so will be more inclined to support you.”

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