Hello! This bonus edition of my Substack won’t be of interest to everyone, but as I know a lot of my subscribers are in theatreland, I thought I would share some content I recently posted on my blog in the hope it will be helpful.
Plus, I thought some cross-pollination might be useful - so if you enjoy this Substack and would like to check out my blogs, you can do so here: Prodigal Geordie covers theatre reviews, general life stuff and things related to Newcastle. while Dark Dates is more focused on my books, writing advice and the like, although there’s obviously some overlap. So please enjoy…
5 mistakes you might be making in your theatre press releases - and how to fix them!
After the heady days of Edinburgh Fringe – don’t get me started on the cost of a cheese sandwich! – autumn theatre season has well and truly kicked off, which means my inbox is once again overflowing with press releases. I love this, of course – so many great shows to see, and many of them I’m honoured to get to go to for free. Sign me up, folks!
But many of these, alas, repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Now, I get it: everyone is skint, busy and underfunded. Most theatre PRs – at least in Newcastle and the North East – are doing it as a side hustle, or companies can’t actually afford to hire someone so they are doing their own PR on top of the million and one other things they need to do to get a show on. Even the people who do this stuff very well – and I have encountered some true stars here who knock this stuff out of the park every time (you know who you are!) – are stretched thin and can’t work for everyone who wants them, often because they need to take other, non-theatre jobs to pay the bills.
So please be assured, this isn’t a dig at anyone. It also isn’t comprehensive – I’m not interested in taking work from actual PR professionals who can give you more in-depth advice and who you should pay properly for doing so. But if you want five easy fixes, here would be my top ones.
(And while this is obviously based on my own experience and opinions, so not every editor / reviewer will agree, please be assured I’ve had a LOT of conversations about this with others in the same field, often more experienced and established than me).
[Image description: Newcastle at night, view from the Quayside]
Don’t leave it too late:
My most common bugbear is I get invited to a LOT of things last minute. Now, sometimes that is fine – my life is not so exciting that I’m booked up every day of the week months in advance and can’t fit in a last-minute invite. But I am one person, with only myself to answer for.
If you want your show reviewed by an actual publication, you need to remember they have limited resources to allocate, and generally like to allocate them well in advance. (This especially applies if they need to book travel – have you seen the price of last-minute train fares lately?). I’d generally recommend sending your initial press release / press night invite around six weeks to a month ahead, and then send a reminder a few weeks before if you haven’t had a reply. Equally, though, give people time to answer and remember that some publications / editors are so busy that no answer equals a no: don’t spam them with a thousand requests, frustrating as that silence may be.
Don’t put everything pertinent in the attachment:
Realistically, half the time it’s not going to get opened. Your key facts and selling points should be in the body of the email, and your email header should include key info that will influence a decision whether to see it (show title, star name if relevant, press night, location). Anyone who reviews stuff is likely on a million email lists that send them irrelevant stuff – I personally get invited to a lot of shows in Philadelphia, and I have yet to figure out how that happened, but I’ve gotten a little tired of reading about that great-sounding show only to realise halfway through an email I’d need to book a plane to see it.
Include full credits in your final press release:
Every reviewer I know is familiar with the criticism that they focus on the actors and ignore the technical talent. Every reviewer I know has also spent hours after a show emailing people going, but who did the design? Who was the sound person? Can you give me any production details?
While I am at it: include key character names! Most of the common UK names you can think of – Sarah, Clare, Mohammad, Stephen, to name just a few, though I have at least yet to find a variant on Chloe or Jack – have variant spellings and while no one is going to die if you call a character Jane instead of Jayne, it’s annoying to have to guess which is right. (Signed, a woman whose name is included in her email address and still gets things sent to Tracy).
This is especially key if your characters have non-English names (I know, I know, we are a hideously insular country, but that’s a bigger problem than we can tackle here). Or names where the spelling isn’t obvious to a reviewer – who will generally be British, and let’s face it, given how shockingly undiverse our arts journalism scene is, most likely English and white – from the pronunciation. My Irish and Scottish friends already laugh at my terrible pronunciation of Gaelic names, please don’t make them laugh at my spelling too.
Check the cast names:
An obvious one, and I do get it, typos happen. But I also see more press releases than I can count where an actor’s name is spelled incorrectly or inconsistently (or, for instance, is hyphenated then not). It’s embarrassing for everyone if a mis-spelling goes into print. Obviously, it happens and equally sometimes the reviewer is to blame (*waves*) but this should be one of your basic hygiene checks when pulling something together.
Also, if people have preferred pronouns, please include them where you can. Most reviewers – certain newspapers aside – would be mortified to misgender someone. Given today’s climate, it can be properly upsetting for the reviewer to do this, because people online can decide you did it deliberately to be a git, and it’s obviously horrible for the actor involved. Nobody wants to send the ‘I’m honestly not a bigot I was just filing a review at 9am before I had enough coffee’ email.
Check all the factual details!
No, really. I’m ending with the most obvious one, but it’s also the one that can get you into most trouble if you get it wrong. In my time reviewing I’ve been sent press releases with the wrong start time for press night (I once reviewed a show in London where half the press trouped in late, having been told a 7.30 start time for a show that kicked off at 7 – lucky for me, I have a pathological fear of being late for anything so was there in plenty of time), the wrong date in the email header (so only discoverable if you read the attached press release – see point 2), and completely the wrong venue, or at a venue with a common name and the PR person just assumes you know which city they are talking about (cough, not everywhere is London, cough). Those mistakes are thankfully rare, but they do happen.
And, of course, reviewers make mistakes (again: *waves*) so it’s a good idea to send a ‘we’re looking forward to seeing you’ reminder a couple of days beforehand in case a clueless reviewer has – to take a completely random example – written the wrong date down in their diary and otherwise would have turned up looking confused a week late.
Bonus point:
And finally, one for both sides of the reviewing equation: remember everyone you are dealing with is an actual person.
It’s not always possible to personalise every email if you are contacting a huge mailing list, obviously, but I know from my own perspective that adding a personal touch makes me more likely to respond to one email in a sea of dozens.
Nobody should be trying to catch anyone out. If you send the wrong press release or put the wrong date on something, send the right details and apologise, it’s not a massive deal. If someone messes up – mis-spells someone’s name, misgenders them (accidentally, not in a shitty way, obvs), agrees to come see something then realises they are double booked – treat it as a good faith mistake rather than assuming the worst. Fix it where you can and move on.
And remember there might be a dozen valid reasons someone can’t review your show. The most common are budget, space (for print publications, especially) and time, but some are less obvious.
I had a conversation with someone not that long ago about why it was hard to get reviewers into a family show. The answer, which wasn’t obvious to them because why would it be, was that the majority of reviewers these days do this as a side gig, or part of a portfolio career. Put simply: they can’t always get time off to see a show during the day.
Don’t assume you are not getting the coverage because your show is stupid, or shit, or everyone hates you. (But equally: check you are not making easy-to-fix mistakes that might be hampering your chances… hey, didn’t someone just write a great blog post about that?)
It’s really, really hard out there. This industry is on its knees and still getting kicked in the legs. Let’s all look out for each other and make whatever we can, easier where we can.
Great advice especially the point about everyone being human.