Does Kansas City have too much theater?

If you add up the number of professional theater companies in Kansas City, the theater scene here is small.

We can’t claim the numbers some towns can. Like Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul or St. Louis.

Nevertheless, we have never had as many live theater venues and producers as we now have.

And the level of creativity we’re seeing from theater artists is at an all-time high.

This fall, two local companies launched their 10th seasons. But in 2004, when Kansas City Actors Theatre and Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre were founded, the city’s theater landscape was not what it is today.

Kansas City Repertory Theatre had not yet opened its second performance space, Copaken Stage, which came online in 2007. The Unicorn Theatre had yet to unveil its second venue, the Jerome Stage, in 2008.

KC Fringe was just getting started. There was no Living Room or Fishtank Performance Studio. Musical Theater Heritage was only a year old.

And the Just Off Broadway Theatre, though being used by various theater companies, was still a few years away from the rehab work that would transform the former public works building into what it is now, with a real lobby and a surprisingly large playing area.

There’s no question that the growth has been impressive. But…

“That begs the question of whether there’s enough audience to support it all,” said Richard Baker, president and CEO of Starlight Theatre.

Baker, for his part, is looking at a healthy attendance figure of about 287,000 for this summer’s season of concerts and Broadway shows. And a glance at some of the numbers provided by other theater companies and the anecdotal evidence offered by artistic directors suggest that for the moment the status quo is holding steady.

Overall, theatergoers seem to be increasingly reluctant to commit to season tickets. They prefer flexibility, and most companies sell some version of a flex pass that allows theatergoers to choose an a la carte menu from the season.

But there’s another reality, as well: Musicals are easier to sell than plays, and comedies are easier to sell than dramas.

Some companies are focused on regaining lost ground. Cynthia Levin, producing artistic director of the Unicorn, said the company would like to get back to the 1,500 season tickets it sold in 2008.

“We’ve been regaining slowly,” Levin said. “Right now, this season, we are exactly on par with last year.”

She said the first two shows of the current season have sold more tickets than any show did during the previous season.

Kansas City Actors Theatre has never sold more season tickets than in its second season: 1,000.

“We’re finding it rather difficult to get to where we were,” said John Rensenhouse, the company’s managing director.

He added that the single best-selling show of KCAT’s 10-year history was Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap” in 2012. The show chalked up attendance of 2,600.

“If we can hit the 2,000 mark for a show, that’s a hit,” Rensenhouse said.

He added that the proliferation of choices for theatergoers makes it tougher for a smaller company to find its audience.

“People are able to pick and choose more,” he said. “Word of mouth still rules in this town as far as I can tell. It’s hard when you have a limited run to build up any kind of steam behind the show. We have a very loyal and dedicated following who’s going to be there for us, but as we grow we obviously want to get more people in.”

Attendance is often a direct reflection of marketing budgets — or lack thereof.

“When you look at the number of people in the Kansas City metro area, I think there’s undoubtedly enough volume of people to support the number of theaters in this community,” said Karen Paisley, artistic director of the MET. “It’s a real struggle for the small and medium-sized organizations to invest dollars to make the public aware of their existence. I would bet you could poll 50 percent of the Rep’s audience, and they would never have heard of us.”

Indeed, the big outfits — Starlight, Theater League, KC Rep and the New Theatre — have resources to market their shows through traditional means, including newspaper ads, radio spots, TV commercials and mass mailings. KCAT does some of that, but smaller companies are generally more reliant on social media and satisfied viewers simply talking up the shows.

“We’ve been talking about what prompts people to get off their sofas and go see a show,” said Levin of the Unicorn.

Photos and videos on the theater’s website are important, she said. So is coverage in local media. And everyone uses the most ubiquitous marketing tool of the modern age: social media.

“We feel that it is huge,” Levin said. “I’m in the lobby and talk to people all the time, and it turns out they get all their information from Facebook. It’s not even email anymore. So we do more on Facebook, and we do more on Twitter.”

Another way to sell a show is hiring specific actors.

At the New Theatre, certain local performers, including Jim Korinke, Debra Bluford, Cathy Barnett and Craig Benton, can draw an audience. For the funkier midtown and downtown companies, younger actors like Vanessa Severo, Rusty Sneary and Forrest Attaway can fill the same function.

Veteran Robert Gibby Brand has developed a following through the years and has done some of his best work at the MET. If you’re producing a musical, performers like Lauren Braton and Tim Scott can help sell a show.

“It’s become like this thing in town,” Levin said. “We have our own celebrities. There are people that people will come and see.”

Levin said the Unicorn has a special advantage compared with other smaller companies: The organization now owns its building. Others, such as KCAT and Spinning Tree Theatre, perform in multiple venues. The MET rents its space. The Living Room leases a downtown building. The tradeoff? The nomadic companies avoid overhead.

New Theatre co-owner Dennis Hennessy said he wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the smaller theater outfits fall by the wayside in the next few years. But he also observed that each theater company has, more or less, developed its own constituency.

“I used to think there was a monolithic theater audience out there, but I don’t believe that anymore,” he said.

Levin said the evidence strongly suggests that more people are attending live theater than once did.

“Certainly in 10 years our population hasn’t doubled,” she said. “You know, it’s not the same 1,000 people recycling themselves.…

“The amazing thing about Kansas City right now is all the theater companies seem to be holding their own. I don’t know that anybody’s in a major growth phase right now, but there are audiences at every one of these theaters. I think if everybody is smart and is careful, and if we’re able to just continue, you’ll see a little bit more growth.”

Paisley suggested that companies in Kansas City are competing for the same viewers only up to a point, because each theater has sought to differentiate itself.

“Nobody does exactly the same thing,” she said. “And that’s really interesting. That’s one thing we’ve done very well, is not duplicate services. Have we saturated the market? I don’t think so.”

This story was originally published November 16, 2014 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Does Kansas City have too much theater?."