WITH the animated film Finding Dory swimming in almost R30m in local box-office takings, and parents splurging up to R475 a ticket so that their tots can don their Elsa and Anna costumes to see Disney on Ice, you wouldn’t think SA’s economy is in the doldrums. But the kiddie economy is a different beast, say local producers.
That’s not to say just anything targeted at teens, tweens and tots is sure to rake in the money — although being attached to a major children’s brand such as Disney, DreamWorks or Nickelodeon certainly helps.
The Dora the Explorer live show at Emperors Palace on the East Rand, and GrandWest Casino in Cape Town, packed them in at up to R325 a ticket (plus an extra R200 if you wanted to snap a cellphone photo with Dora).
For a more modest ticket price, Cape Town audiences have been able to see a Noddy show (R80) at Artscape and Goldilocks and the Three Bears (R70) at the Baxter Theatre this winter.
SA’s intrepid impresarios — those who find the money to stage it, and hope the families will come — say that while family entertainment isn’t quite recession-proof, it’s a safer bet than most other ventures at the moment. This is particularly so as parents cast around for things to keep children busy during the school holidays.
"It’s a seasonal thing," says Steven Stead, producer of Shrek: The Musical, which showed at Gold Reef City’s Lyric Theatre in July, and Winnie the Pooh, at Durban’s Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre. He also stages an annual festive-season pantomime (this year it’s Sleeping Beauty) in Durban.
"Any producer knows that during December and July, you have a chance to make money by creating theatre for young people. "But we do find that family-based theatre is safer these days … people do tend to spend on their children."
Stead’s KickstArt Productions in Durban is also known for staging mainstream "adult" musicals such as Sweeney Todd, Cabaret, Little Shop of Horrors and Into the Woods, and has made great strides in growing the city’s live theatre market over the past decade or so.
But show business is never a done deal. Even though he is producing musicals with a recognisable brand name, "there’s no guarantee of box office success".
International stages are littered with the corpses of flopped musicals based on hit movies. Even Stead was sceptical of the DreamWorks Broadway show Shrek, thinking it was "just another knock-off franchise" — until he saw it on DVD "and fell in love with it".
But producers can be forgiven for feeling jittery when they’re forking out hundreds of thousands of rand for show rights alone, without even factoring in venue hire, taxes and actors’ salaries.
With exchange rates volatile, championing live entertainment for young audiences is certainly no get-rich-quick scheme.
Hazel Feldman of Showtime Management, the local producer behind the international show Disney on Ice, says the family market is an important one. "We’ve been leaning towards the family niche market within our country’s very small market. Our challenge is that we have to look to broader markets who are not necessarily regular commercial theatre-goers."
...
WHILE Disney on Ice — now in its third successful year — has predictably been an audience drawcard, Feldman is gambling on lesser-known international brands such as Cirque Éloize and Slava’s Snow Show to tap into SA’s existing family market while drawing in new audiences too.
"It’s a risk," she admits. "But we can’t just keep doing the same thing and standing still. We have to be a bit experimental and keep pushing the envelope. With Cirque, we saw brand-new audiences coming in — youngsters who’d never been in a theatre before. We’re exposing children to the wonder of live entertainment and hoping that the bug bites. It’s the only way to grow our audiences."
After 40 years in the industry, she has found it’s a combination of quality, word of mouth and simply "wanting to see" something that puts bums on theatre seats. But people are, in general, more inclined to spend on their kids than themselves, Feldman says.
Even bringing in imported shows creates work for the local industry, she points out, with three South African skaters in the Disney on Ice cast as well as an array of technical and support staff.
"The international live entertainment industry is looking at SA — its performers, productions, its technical expertise. Look at how well Grant Almirall (the South African lead of Singin’ in the Rain who has been brought in to star in the Sydney production) is doing, and our crew is getting poached into Australia, New Zealand and Asia."
She views children’s shows as complementary, not competing.
"It’s added value," she says. "It’s about getting kids out and away from the TV and video games, and into live theatre."
Jill Girard of the People’s Theatre, based at the Joburg Theatre complex in Braamfontein, agrees. She produces up to four smaller-scale children’s shows a year, with Disney’s Peter Pan Jr currently on and Seussical scheduled for later in the year.
"Where we fit into the picture is not on the scale of the grand spectacle of Slava or Disney on Ice," she says. "But we do productions that make people think — they open up conversations in families.
...
THAT’S where our strength lies. When you take away the costumes and the set, how much do kids remember of the content?"
Girard believes children’s theatre helps develop emotional intelligence. "Most of our productions make kids think about relationships and how actions impact on other people. I’d like to think they make kids more sensitive to other people, and within the framework of the family."
Family-oriented theatre, she says, is geared at encouraging children to play. "I’ve seen, even with the kids in the show — there’s 24 of them (alternating in roles) — when we started rehearsals, they were all on their phones. Now, these are forgotten and they tend to interact more with each other."
She believes there is a place for both the big budget and the smaller, more intimate family shows in SA, and that the wealth of choice benefits the industry as a whole.
"The more people go to see other stuff, the more they come to us." But she does admit that Disney "bonsai" productions are undoubtedly more of a drawcard for "Mr and Ms Average".
"If we do something different, like our Animal Stories or Storybook Theatre shows, the response is not as good as for a Disney production," she says. "People go for the brand names they know. So we have to play it safe. We give them what they want to see — something familiar, giving them the reassurance of something they know. We keep the integrity of the (Disney) brand but put our own stamp on it."
There’s more of the same coming later in the year: for example, Feldman and Pieter Toerien are staging a local production of the musical Annie in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and Janice Honeyman is mounting her Robin Hood pantomime at the Joburg Theatre.
So, is the kiddie economy recession proof? "If it was, I’d be on a yacht in the Riviera now," says Feldman. "There is no such thing in this industry as a guarantee." Adds Stead, ruefully: "Producing theatre is like making your money from the casino floor — as a punter!"
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Frozen’s Anna and Elsa from Disney On Ice. The show is now in its third successful year — and has raked in the audiences in predictable fashion. Picture: SUPPLIED
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Dora the Explorer in Disney on Ice. Disney productions are always a major drawcard. Picture: SUPPLIED
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Mickey Mouse in Disney on Ice. Disney productions are always a major drawcard. Picture: SUPPLIED
WITH the animated film Finding Dory swimming in almost R30m in local box-office takings, and parents splurging up to R475 a ticket so that their tots can don their Elsa and Anna costumes to see Disney on Ice, you wouldn’t think SA’s economy is in the doldrums. But the kiddie economy is a different beast, say local producers.
That’s not to say just anything targeted at teens, tweens and tots is sure to rake in the money — although being attached to a major children’s brand such as Disney, DreamWorks or Nickelodeon certainly helps.
The Dora the Explorer live show at Emperors Palace on the East Rand, and GrandWest Casino in Cape Town, packed them in at up to R325 a ticket (plus an extra R200 if you wanted to snap a cellphone photo with Dora).
For a more modest ticket price, Cape Town audiences have been able to see a Noddy show (R80) at Artscape and Goldilocks and the Three Bears (R70) at the Baxter Theatre this winter.
SA’s intrepid impresarios — those who find the money to stage it, and hope the families will come — say that while family entertainment isn’t quite recession-proof, it’s a safer bet than most other ventures at the moment. This is particularly so as parents cast around for things to keep children busy during the school holidays.
"It’s a seasonal thing," says Steven Stead, producer of Shrek: The Musical, which showed at Gold Reef City’s Lyric Theatre in July, and Winnie the Pooh, at Durban’s Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre. He also stages an annual festive-season pantomime (this year it’s Sleeping Beauty) in Durban.
"Any producer knows that during December and July, you have a chance to make money by creating theatre for young people. "But we do find that family-based theatre is safer these days … people do tend to spend on their children."
Stead’s KickstArt Productions in Durban is also known for staging mainstream "adult" musicals such as Sweeney Todd, Cabaret, Little Shop of Horrors and Into the Woods, and has made great strides in growing the city’s live theatre market over the past decade or so.
But show business is never a done deal. Even though he is producing musicals with a recognisable brand name, "there’s no guarantee of box office success".
International stages are littered with the corpses of flopped musicals based on hit movies. Even Stead was sceptical of the DreamWorks Broadway show Shrek, thinking it was "just another knock-off franchise" — until he saw it on DVD "and fell in love with it".
But producers can be forgiven for feeling jittery when they’re forking out hundreds of thousands of rand for show rights alone, without even factoring in venue hire, taxes and actors’ salaries.
With exchange rates volatile, championing live entertainment for young audiences is certainly no get-rich-quick scheme.
Hazel Feldman of Showtime Management, the local producer behind the international show Disney on Ice, says the family market is an important one. "We’ve been leaning towards the family niche market within our country’s very small market. Our challenge is that we have to look to broader markets who are not necessarily regular commercial theatre-goers."
...
WHILE Disney on Ice — now in its third successful year — has predictably been an audience drawcard, Feldman is gambling on lesser-known international brands such as Cirque Éloize and Slava’s Snow Show to tap into SA’s existing family market while drawing in new audiences too.
"It’s a risk," she admits. "But we can’t just keep doing the same thing and standing still. We have to be a bit experimental and keep pushing the envelope. With Cirque, we saw brand-new audiences coming in — youngsters who’d never been in a theatre before. We’re exposing children to the wonder of live entertainment and hoping that the bug bites. It’s the only way to grow our audiences."
After 40 years in the industry, she has found it’s a combination of quality, word of mouth and simply "wanting to see" something that puts bums on theatre seats. But people are, in general, more inclined to spend on their kids than themselves, Feldman says.
Even bringing in imported shows creates work for the local industry, she points out, with three South African skaters in the Disney on Ice cast as well as an array of technical and support staff.
"The international live entertainment industry is looking at SA — its performers, productions, its technical expertise. Look at how well Grant Almirall (the South African lead of Singin’ in the Rain who has been brought in to star in the Sydney production) is doing, and our crew is getting poached into Australia, New Zealand and Asia."
She views children’s shows as complementary, not competing.
"It’s added value," she says. "It’s about getting kids out and away from the TV and video games, and into live theatre."
Jill Girard of the People’s Theatre, based at the Joburg Theatre complex in Braamfontein, agrees. She produces up to four smaller-scale children’s shows a year, with Disney’s Peter Pan Jr currently on and Seussical scheduled for later in the year.
"Where we fit into the picture is not on the scale of the grand spectacle of Slava or Disney on Ice," she says. "But we do productions that make people think — they open up conversations in families.
...
THAT’S where our strength lies. When you take away the costumes and the set, how much do kids remember of the content?"
Girard believes children’s theatre helps develop emotional intelligence. "Most of our productions make kids think about relationships and how actions impact on other people. I’d like to think they make kids more sensitive to other people, and within the framework of the family."
Family-oriented theatre, she says, is geared at encouraging children to play. "I’ve seen, even with the kids in the show — there’s 24 of them (alternating in roles) — when we started rehearsals, they were all on their phones. Now, these are forgotten and they tend to interact more with each other."
She believes there is a place for both the big budget and the smaller, more intimate family shows in SA, and that the wealth of choice benefits the industry as a whole.
"The more people go to see other stuff, the more they come to us." But she does admit that Disney "bonsai" productions are undoubtedly more of a drawcard for "Mr and Ms Average".
"If we do something different, like our Animal Stories or Storybook Theatre shows, the response is not as good as for a Disney production," she says. "People go for the brand names they know. So we have to play it safe. We give them what they want to see — something familiar, giving them the reassurance of something they know. We keep the integrity of the (Disney) brand but put our own stamp on it."
There’s more of the same coming later in the year: for example, Feldman and Pieter Toerien are staging a local production of the musical Annie in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and Janice Honeyman is mounting her Robin Hood pantomime at the Joburg Theatre.
So, is the kiddie economy recession proof? "If it was, I’d be on a yacht in the Riviera now," says Feldman. "There is no such thing in this industry as a guarantee." Adds Stead, ruefully: "Producing theatre is like making your money from the casino floor — as a punter!"
