When the COVID-19 pandemic changed business dynamics in the United States, entertainment businesses felt the painful impact of lower in-person attendance at movie theatres, concerts, and other venues. Theatre stands out in the entertainment industry as typically the least-discussed for various reasons. According to Civic Science’s data collected in 2022, as many as 70% of U.S. adults rarely or never attend a showing of live theater. When most people think of live theater, they think of Broadway, with its ability to utilize renowned actors and charge more than one would like to pay. Seeing live theater in renowned institutions can be a wonderful experience, but so much more theater exists than big-name, big-cost national theatre.
In a time in which Broadway tickets have become more expensive, young people should look to explore live theater offered by local institutions. The city of Lancaster offers students amazing opportunities to see live theater. To think about why college students should explore more live theater locally, I reached out to Prima Theatre for some insight.
Prima Theatre is located on Wheatland Avenue, just southwest of Buchanan Park, though the earliest shows were put on at Prince Street Café. Mitch and Diana Nuget started Prima to bring to people theatrical experiences that “invigorated lives.” The Prima puts on theater, concerts, and experiences that propose questions and navigate identity, purpose and possibility. Performances and experiences at Prima prioritize the importance of the audience’s presence, making for an entertainment experience more interactive, reflective and enjoyable than seeing a movie or a production. Prima views its audience as the heart and soul of its purpose. Why, according to Prima, should students be a part of their audience, or a part of any live theater audience?
Because, says Prima’s Patron Connections Director Megan Witkovsky, “In a world of screens, scrolling, and constant noise, live theater asks something rare: presence.” To Witkovsky, live theater creates unique and valuable entertainment for audiences because theater audiences “listen, react, and feel” in real time and together. Theatre creates a shared experience for audience members, and that shared experience can change the very way that audience members interpret and enjoy entertainment. Witkovsky goes on to say that live theater “sharpens empathy, stretches imagination” and reminds us that stories don’t just entertain, but connect us to questions, ideas and discourses. Live theater, according to Witkovsky, stays with you because you watch it and experience it. By joining in a live theater audience, one becomes a participant in the performance—and such participation fuels lasting memory. The theatre experience, Witkovsky notes, is especially important to college students: like theater, “College is a season of becoming.” Becoming is not a solitary process—to become something, one must experience or undergo influence, or else no change will occur. Go see live theater because, unlike watching films alone, live theater is an activity that combines experience with community, two potent forces of change.
Franklin & Marshall students should find themselves fortunate to be so close (within a fifteen minute walk) to institutions like Prima Theatre. College truly is a time of becoming and development, and participating in local arts and entertainment helps one facilitate a unique and memorable development. Prima Theatre is currently undergoing refurbishment, but will open again on April 17 for its showing of “Complete History of America (Abridged).” This spring, if you’d like to become more familiar with Lancaster, Prima Theatre is an excellent place to begin.
Junior Charlie Burns is the Editorials Editor. His email is cburns1@fandm.edu.