We all know that we have shorter attention spans than we used to.  In fact, according to this, goldfish can pay attention to stimuli longer than humans can.

And this is even more true for all the pesky whipper-snappers out there who were practically born with a digital device in their cute little fingers.  They are the multi-tasking generation.  And they’re pretty damn good at it.

So if it’s hard to get a pesky whipper-snapper to pay attention, just imagine how hard it’s going to be to get the next generation (termed “Generation Z”) to sit still before they want to move on to the next thing.  (I wonder how many pesky whipper-snappers have already stopped reading this blog . . . or clicked over to check their Facebook real fast before coming back here to finish this article.)

You know where I’m going with this, right?

The theater more than most other forms of live entertainment, demands that an audience sit down, shut up, and shut out all other attention seekers.  At a concert, or a sporting event, you can scream and yell and take pictures on your phone, and chat with your buddy sitting next to you . . . or on the other side of the planet, and it won’t bother anyone.  But at the theater, or the symphony, or the ballet, or any of the, ahem, “High Life Entertainment Arts,” you gotta be still.

And it’s getting harder for people to do that.

What does this mean for the theater?

We’re already seeing shorter running times on Broadway, as you may recall from this study we did.  That’s the most obvious repercussion from our new goldfish like brains.

But over the next ten years, we’ll see even greater changes to help satisfy what our new audience needs to get them to focus.  Here are some things that I think will change:

• Shows will get even shorter.
  • 90 minutes will be the new two hours and twenty minutes.  Same amount of story-telling stuffed into a smaller box.
• We’ll have more lighting cues.
  • Every time light changes, it’s like a little palette cleanser on the brain, forcing it to reset and start paying attention again.
• Expect more sets and more spectacle.
  • The days of the “Drawing Room Drama” are coming to an end.  The next audience will need more stuff on the stage to keep them engaged.  And that stuff will have to do stuff.
• Tech will be key.
  • Tech is practically a food group to the pesky whipper-snapper set.  So the next gen?  They’re going to want it everywhere.
• Classics will face challenges.
  • How will Death of a Salesman be told to the next gen?  What about Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, any of Shakespeare’s plays?  We’ll need some creative directors for shizzle.
• Dialogue and direction will get quicker.
  • Expect more Mamet and Sorkin-styled plays in the future.

Is this changing audience a bad thing?  Will it have a negative effect on the theater?  I’m a big believer in that the audience decides on what’s excellent and what’s not, and as they change, so must the art.

And if you’re worried that we won’t be able to handle these changes?  Don’t be.  See, the trick is as the audience changes, so does the artists who create the art for that audience.

Generation Z will create art for Generation Z.  That art will be different. I expect it’ll be awesome in its own right.

(There’s another way this attention deficit may affect the theater that I don’t think anyone is thinking about . . . see tomorrow’s blog for my follow-up.)