Consequently, its board of directors voted last week to change its name to Venice Theatre.
The name change had been kicking around the organization for several years, said Artistic Director Murray Chase. But with the impending retirement and replacement of Maureen Holland as publications director for the theater, VLT decided to conduct an independent marketing study. Over six months, several focus groups of ticket buyers, donors, community leaders, volunteers and people with no connection to the theater met to share their impressions of the theater.
What they said surprised Chase and the board of directors.
"No. 1, people thought we were a children's theater," Chase said. "People had no idea about the breadth of our programming. Here's another one: Community people who knew us very well were not aware of any nonprofit organization's constant need" for development and fundraising. "That was an eye-opener. The other thing was that some people thought it was a theater for old people solely."
The first step in changing community misperceptions about Venice Little Theatre is to drop "little" from the name.
"Little theater" once meant a particular form of community theater. But, Chase said, "'Little' has become increasingly pejorative in people's minds. 'Children' or 'small' or 'limited,' 'amateurish,' all of those things kept flying by."
The organization has long since outgrown any of those meanings. With two stages and an annual operating budget of $2.39 million for 2008-2009, Venice Theatre presents plays, musicals and concerts year-round and supports a full theater curriculum for students starting at age 5. It routinely wins awards at theater festivals regionally and nationally.
"So looking at it pretty hard, the No. 1 suggestion that came back was to change the name," Chase said.
Among the new names considered were Venice Theater Arts Center, Venice Stage and the Stages of Venice (in a nod to Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice"). But rather than complicate the organization's identity, the board decided to keep it simple.
"We have Venice Symphony, we have Venice Arts Center, and now we have Venice Theatre," Chase said.
The theater's mission will not change at all, Chase said. The staff is developing a new logo, "very simple, very clean, kind of dynamic. It lets go of some of the quaintness and tradition, which is a bit of a shame."
The name change is the first step in a process of getting people "to understand what it is we do now," Chase said. "I believe that actually getting people to understand what we do now will draw people with ideas for helping us reach a greater vision. It's a thing that kind of builds upon itself."
Within the next couple of years, Venice Theatre will begin a capital fundraising drive to expand its current facilities at 140 W. Tampa Ave.
Chase said the response among donors and volunteers to the name change has been almost entirely positive.
"Among donors I had no negative reactions," he said. "Among volunteers, I had two. It's not going to be as big a hill to climb" as it would have been "if we had done something more radical."
HeraldTribune.com
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