Are Branded Projects A Threat To Theatre… Or An Opportunity?

Ironically, this idea of shows presented by consumer product companies, while relatively rare for theatre, harks back to the days of radio and the early years of television, when brands were often intimately involved in sponsoring programming as part of their marketing efforts. It wasn’t surprising to hear that such and such a series was “brought to you by” a single sponsor – and sometimes those sponsors held sway over the content of the shows as well, sometimes resulting, as we later learned, in meddling and outright censorship.