Not changing
What did we hear clearly, decide against, and owe somebody a reason for?
Decisions on this list
4
each with the reason written out, in language that can be said at the desk to somebody who asks
Including the loudest thing on the form
84 mentions
the interval queue — the most-mentioned operational theme of the run, and it is here rather than on the doing list
A refusal that hides at the bottom of a page is a refusal nobody has actually made.
Mentions this list refuses
175
across the four, against 412 forms — mentions rather than people, because most forms named more than one thing
63% of every operational comment this run is answered by one of these four sentences.
What a refusal has to have
- 1The count, stated first and not softened. Eighty-four people is eighty-four people.
- 2A real reason, not a constraint dressed as a preference. “The crew needs twenty minutes” is a reason; “we feel the current interval works well” is not.
- 3A named alternative where there is one. The interval stays and the queue is being fixed, and those two sentences belong together.
- 4Wording that front of house can say out loud to somebody at the desk. If it cannot be said, it is not a reason, it is a position.
- 5A review date where the answer might change, and an honest “not before 2027” where it will not.
The heating one used to be answered with “it is being looked at”, which was true and useless. Everyone at the desk now says a hundred and ten thousand dollars and 2027, and the complaints about it have not stopped — but the arguments have.
Why this is not folded into the comments screen
Because a “no change” line sitting under a theme reads as an oversight, and four of them scattered through eight themes read as a theatre that is not listening. Gathered on one page with the reasons written out, the same four decisions read as what they are: the argument having been had.
Who this page is really for
Front of house. Every one of these is a conversation somebody has at the desk two or three times a night, and before this page existed the honest answer available to them was a shrug. The theatre cannot fix the roof this year and it can absolutely stop pretending the question is a mystery.
Four, loudest first
Shortening the interval
What we heard
Eighty-four mentions, the most of anything on the form
The interval is twenty minutes because the crew needs twenty minutes to turn the set. It is not a hospitality decision and it never has been. What we can change is the queue, and that is what is being changed.
Dropping the ten-minute hold for latecomers
What we heard
Twenty-nine mentions, all from people who arrived on time
The hold exists for one bus route and one car park, and losing it would cost about forty people a night their seats. The people it costs are not the people filling in this form — which is the whole reason the who-answered screen sits next to this one.
A cheaper programme
What we heard
Twenty-four mentions
It costs six dollars and forty cents to print. At eight dollars it roughly pays for the free cast list that is now at both doors, which is what most of these comments actually wanted.
Fixing the upstairs bar properly
What we heard
Thirty-eight mentions, up from twelve
A hundred and ten thousand dollars of roof. It is on the 2027 capital list and it is not happening before then. Everyone at the desk has been told to say exactly that rather than that it is being looked at.
None of this is published to the audience, and it probably should be. The argument against is that a list of things a theatre will not do reads badly out of context; the argument for is that every sentence on it is already being said at the desk nightly, by people who did not write it and cannot cite it.