Poor Richard

Okay, I'm starting to feel kind of bad.

Undermain Theater here in Dallas has my phone number because I bought tickets to see Euridyce there. And they've been calling me. Hi, we've got a show that's closing this week, and we wanted to invite you to see it before it closes, we're really excited, people like you are the reason that theaters are able to do what we do . . . The little guy just seems so sweet, and so eager. He is like a marketing secret weapon. He just sounds so sincere.

And I'm starting to feel bad for referring to the place as Behind-a-pole Theater. Seeing as when I did go see Euridyce, I ended up behind a giant 3-foot around column that blocked about 20% of my view. And if coming up with a snippy little nickname is a fairly understandable reaction to my lousy seating arrangements, it also not what one would call charitable given the plucky, not-for-profit, let's-put-on-a-show thing those kids got going on. I'm a bitch.

And I've been making excuses to poor little Richard, puppy sweet though he seems, about bad timing and busy schedules. Yadayada. Big fat liar. I just don't want to sit behind a goddamn Ionic view-blocker again. I do get it. A certain amount of inconvenience is part of the funky/groovy/indie arts thing. I'm just not that cool. But, nice try though with the direct dial ticket sales campaign. As far as it goes, guilt is not a bad marketing scheme. Better luck next time. I do feel bad enough that I'll stop calling them the Cantseeathing Theater.

I even feel bad enough to offer him money to make him go away. But giving money to performers just encourages them. And I can't tell him outright that their venue is less than entirely desirable. I don't entirely want to burn the bridge. If they come up with a show that's so good that it's worth only seeing 80% of, I'll go again. I'll just deal with the guilt until then.