Promotional Activities of Drama Theaters in Bulgaria

The first records of theater events date away back to Ancient Greece. As one of the oldest art forms, theatre has occupied a significant place in the arts’ history of all European societies. Its mission throughout the historical and cultural ages has been to inspire, criticize, reflect political and social realities, worship God, deny God or simply entertain. As a classical art form drama theater represents a huge part of the Bulgarian cultural scene. Although its historical development commenced in the second half of the 19th century, quite late compared to the western European tradition, its popularity and significance has grown gradually in the past hundred years. The role of theater in Bulgarian society was especially important in the period between the 50s and 90s when the country was ruled by a totalitarian government. At that particular time there was almost no accessible information about the political, cultural, social events from the world outside the country. Attending the theater, where European dramatic masterpieces were performed was one of the few opportunities of Bulgarian citizens to get in touch with western European or American culture. On the other hand, the same system that suppressed the freedom of artistic expression created such a wide network of drama and puppet theaters, that almost every town had one (or two) such institutions, generously subsidized by the state. The political changes after 1989 led to many economic and social alterations. Of course, the cultural sector was not an exception. The hundreds of state-owned cultural institutions, including theaters, had to adjust to a new environment, which to the most part of the employed in the sector was petrifying. Many artists lost their jobs and the opportunity to work in the cultural sphere again. The performing arts organizations, namely theaters, also had to face challenges evoked by the new era. The drama theater performance, which to that moment had had very few alternatives as a leisure time activity was standing in front of a whole palette of entertainment options that obviously the thirsty-for-novelty public preferred. Therefore, theater managers needed to adopt new, inexistent to that moment in Bulgaria, techniques to bring the audience back in the theater halls. That was when the word “promotion” began to appear more and more often in culturally related publications, theater experts’ conferences, directors’ interviews. 5 When the idea of this research was forming in my mind, several months ago, I called some acquaintances of mine in Bulgaria, who are either connected or work in the drama theater sphere. I simply asked them if they knew whether theaters there engaged in modern ways to attract audiences to their performances. I personally have seen many newspaper articles, heard radio spots or watched interviews with famous actors on the TV, but I have never found any literature sources on the marketing and promotion of the Bulgarian performing arts scene. The answers I received did not have a word in common. I heard statements that ranged from: “Yes, they are actually very active. Here in Sofia there is a new hype now, going to theater is very popular. So news about theater events is everywhere.” to “Bulgarian drama theaters haven’t changed much since the early eighties. I even doubt they have heard about marketing and promotion.” After reflecting briefly on these answers, I realized that conducting this research would be an interesting challenge, first as a work process and then naturally for the knowledge that could be obtained about the consciousness and state of development of Bulgarian Drama theaters in terms of marketing and promotion. Generally stated, the focus of this research is to investigate what types of promotional activities drama theaters in Bulgaria conduct. The overall aim it strives to achieve is to describe to some extent the current state of development and attitudes of the drama theaters towards the tools of the promotional mix. The research starts with a review of literature sources on cultural marketing and promotion. Secondly it delivers information on the Bulgarian drama theater scene, focusing on the history of this art form in the country and also explaining the organizational structure of theaters and the subsidy system. The research objectives and method are presented in the fourth chapter and finally, the obtained results and conclusions – in the final fifth chapter.