I tried to go see “Mr. Black & Blue” an original interactive comedy created by the Emerald Theatre Company. But when I arrived at TheatreWorks on Sunday, November 13 I found the door locked and this notice tacked to the posters:
These things happen, obviously, and for any number of perfectly good reasons. Audiences have been thin for the last few ETC shows I’ve seen so I actually double checked ETC’s website before leaving home to make sure I wasn’t misremembering the matinee schedule. I wasn’t.
I went back to the press release to make triply sure that this all wasn’t my fault somehow.
Nope.
And ETC’s Facebook page hadn’t been updated since September.
I wasn’t the only person who was confused. Several would-be audience members walked up and cussed when they saw the report. One poor guy who couldn’t reconcile the dates on the poster with the words in red got out of his truck to make sure he wasn’t misreading two or three times.
The afternoon wasn’t a complete waste of time, at least. I wound up discussing William Shakespeare, Gangster (a nifty blog post at Smithsonian.com) with a delightful woman (and therapist by trade) whose name I failed to catch.
So, truth be told I’m not all that grumpy. But audiences hate being tricked. Word to the ETC and other small companies: When you need to change your performance schedule, update your website. Please.
