The Guardian, the cat and me – adventures in open journalism
When I applied for a job in the PR department at West Yorkshire Playhouse I remember being asked what I thought the challenges would be working for a large producing regional theatre. My answer: you have to be creative, thinking up new ways of selling a production of Hamlet to pique interest in people who have a whole host of Hamlet press releases sitting on their desks – it's my job to make ours stand out.
Since then I've had my fair share of Hamlets. A play is proposed and a small part of you thinks: what on earth is left to say about this? Part of you prays for revolutionary or film-star casting (I'm talking Madonna in Up for Grabs) and occasionally it happens – Lenny Henry making his Shakespearean stage debut at the Playhouse for instance. But it's not always handed to you on a plate.
Creating a whole new identity for a classic play like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is challenging. It's an undeniably brilliant play by a remarkable playwright but none of this is news. Creating a balance between local and national coverage is the place to start. Local press reaches our immediate audiences, the very people that populate our theatre every night – national coverage on the other hand raises our profile in the wider cultural ecology. Very often creating this balance is about a judgement call made by the PR professional, a decision about where to focus your energies. Not every show needs to be covered nationally. Sometimes and particularly with classic texts, energies should be focused locally.
"Director directs brilliant play" is not a story
The challenges for this production lay not in how we might sell this to our local press but how we would gain some national profile for the show. Locally we were in a pretty good position: we had cast members with current TV profile (Zoe Boyle in Downton Abbey and Jamie Parker in Parade's End); and unusually Tennessee Williams had never before been produced at the Playhouse. So regionally the production of this show was news.
National profile on the other hand was trickier – in fact was it even necessary? My judgement call this time was yes. I remember attending a PR conference where Guardian theatre critic Lyn Gardner talked about how to get your pitch noticed. Her first tip was that "director directs brilliant play" is not a story, so the first question for me to ask myself was: what is my story? How do I make this very classic play current?
As an arts PR, you need to know what is current, what journalists are writing about, what topic of conversation keeps appearing. Does it (or more accurately can you make it) relate to your production? If the answer is yes than you might be in with a chance. Dallas has been back on our screens, set in a hot and steamy Deep South full of love and lust, sex, betrayal and money – it almost sounded like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I had my line: how much does Dallas owe to Tennessee Williams? Like I said in my interview, in this job you have to be creative.
Another hot topic of conversation, particularly among freelance arts journalists at the moment seems to be open journalism, the development of a much longer dialogue with artists and audiences than the traditional arts model of preview and press night.
During the spring, another Guardian journalist Maddy Costa visited the Playhouse to see Chris Goode and Company's production of Nine. She worked closely with the company and got involved in their process, watching from the inside out but still there to critique and evaluate what she was seeing. In the summer she published a fascinating blog about her experience. This was a new way of working with journalists, inviting them to look at a production in 360 degrees. So when the Guardian approached us to become involved in a new open journalism project – a mini-site on its website dedicated to our production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – we were already familiar with the idea. Now this was exciting!
Using open journalism as a tool
The Guardian's proposal was to create an open forum, led by its professional writers, in which anyone could have their say about any aspect of WYP's work with particular focus on Cat. This was a little terrifying; we were being asked to lay ourselves wide open to scrutiny, not only from professional arts journalists but also from our peers and our audiences.
It left nowhere to hide, even if we wanted to. Unsurprisingly we had lots of questions, but a meeting at the Guardian offices reassured us and the support seemed considerable. The paper would embed its journalists into our organisation, they would look from the inside out (with a critical eye) and the conversation would begin from there.
The resulting coverage has been immense – no fewer than four guardian journalists have seen this show. They have scrutinised backstage work, the music, handed out top tips on how to write blogs and reviews, provided the director with a right to reply, given talks to our youth theatre and over 55s group. They have also held open forum discussions, tweet nights, live web chats and spoken directly to our local bloggers encouraging them to have their say. In short, they have opened out their journalism to include the thoughts and opinions of those on the front line – our audiences.
Do I think that open journalism is the way forward? I really do. It augments professional journalism but does not replace it. The internet and social media has opened up comment in a way that we have never seen before and that should be encouraged because I want to know what our public think. But I also want to know what the professionals think and for me working on this project in close collaboration with the Guardian has created the perfect balance.
It has been a learning curve for us, a pioneering step and we haven't got everything right but I'd love to do it again.
Paula Rabbit is head of press at West Yorkshire Playhouse – explore the Guardian's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof project and follow the Playhouse on Twitter @WYPlayhouse and Paula @PaulaRabbitt
This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To get more articles like this direct to your inbox, sign up free to become a member of the Culture Professionals Network.