We’re about to experience an epochal change in American theater. It’s been coming for a while, and you can be co-owner of its future. We’re coming out of a period of extraordinary conservatism, which seems to universally be understood as a reaction to both an increased institutionalization of American theaters (especially non-profit American theaters) and the aging of their subscription audiences. But this seems to be in a sort of death spiral, as the audiences are starting to literally die off, and are not being replaced by a new audience.

Many of the artistic directors of these theaters are now nearing retirement age. Other theaters swap out their artistic directors every decade or so, just as a matter of course. And you could take one of those jobs. Yes, you. Because the people who are most likely to get plugged into those positions are the people who can figure out how to rebuild the audience for American theater. If you can sell seats to a younger audience, you’re going to control the future.

Because the same impulses that caused these theater institutions to retract to artistic conservatism in the 90s and onward will now force them to try something radical. Two decades ago, they had an audience, and they had to hold it. Now, once again, they have to build an audience. And they are buggered if they know how to do it. Nobody really seems to. They throw parties for people aged 20-40. They offer lower ticket prices. They have cookouts with the cast. They set up Facebook accounts and run ads on popular blogs. Does any of it work?

Who knows? I’d say we have about a decade before the system really starts breaking down, and suddenly every American theater goes into a total panic. That’s a decade you have to prepare for the moment. I am predicting what I’m going to call the “Easy Rider” moment, and I’m calling it this because, in 1969, when “Easy Rider” came out, it was the moment when the American studios felt most desperately out of touch with American youth. And then the independently produced “Easy Rider” made $19 million dollars, and suddenly the studios threw up their hands and turned over the keys to the studio to the longhairs, many of whom still run things -- Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Brian DePalma, etc.

I’m giving us a decade, and we have that time to figure out how to reach the kids. How to turn them into theater audiences. And it won’t be by doing things through mainstream institutions -- revolutions never happen that way. It will be through bold, relentless experimentation. With themes. With venues. With outreach. With casting. With how we charge for plays. We have a decade to play around. Somebody will figure it out -- theater is, after all, a medium that is forever dying and being reborn, just like Dionysus, its patron god. And that person, and those who follow them, will get to take charge when the institutions start feeling that they may be crumbling, and flail about for their saviors.

It could be you.