Piedmont College Navigator

Issue date: 2/11/08 Section: A&E

Melinda Hubbel, the Swanson Center project manager, roams the hallways looking for corkboards to display the current Kiss Me, Kate poster. Alpha Psi Omega members pass out posters to places all over campus and the community. Dr. Rick Rose, chair of the theater department, congratulates Sarah Greene and Regina Fried on a beautiful poster design. There are literally hundreds of posters across campus.

A few weeks ago, students were assisting the theater staff place addresses and mail postcards of the upcoming performances. Before the semester started, David Price's office was busy creating a fine arts' events calendar that went out to students, staff and alumni. All of this is just one small portion of the preparation for a play.

Publicity for one play involves hundreds of hours of planning. It's a group project; no one person could handle it all. Someone has to design the poster, but before that, someone has to take the pictures for it. All of this work creates an 11 by 16 sheet of paper with an intriguing design. Copies of this large piece of paper sit on bulletin boards, windows and nearly any surface they can be stuck to.

Someone designed the postcard that was sent out weeks ago. Someone affixed all of the addresses to the thousands of postcards. Someone is currently designing the programs for the show. That person is collecting biographies and headshots of the actors. Someone sits at a desk designing and printing tickets.

These people aren't identified. The people working on the show know who made it all happen. And yet only a couple of people who will be in the audience of the next show will know these peoples' names. All of this is for what?

"Publicity is important," says Rose, "because theater is the only art form the requires an audience to exist."

All of this thankless work happens so that the talented people on the stage have someone to act for. This work is done so that the theater brings in enough money to produce the next show. Publicity is the backbone of the theater. And yet, the only recognition that the people doing it receive is one or two lines in the program and a blanket "thanks to everyone who helped out."

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