In the never-ending quest to engage audiences, several artists, entertainers, filmmakers and producers are willing to try anything. In recent months, viewers have been captivated by the motioncapture technology that James Cameron used in “Avatar,” and the decidedly lowtechnology approach of Marina Abramovic’s “The Artist Is Present” show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where she sat and looked into the eyes of thousands of visitors.

Paramount Pictures is trying a different approach to attract new viewers to “Grease,” the 1978 musical starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, The Times reported. By adding lyric subtitles, the company hopes to inspire audiences across the United States - clad in period 1950s costumes, preferably - to visit movie theaters and sing along about teenage summer romance.

“The goal is to create a true event,” Adam Goodman, president of the Paramount Film Group, told The Times. “How do you get groups of young people going to the movies and having a great time?”

With the film business struggling, marketers are trying to create excitement that was once generated by the films themselves. But because audiences are more sophisticated than ever, the idea could backfire, said Matt Britton, the managing partner of Mr Youth, a New York social marketing agency.

“You don’t want to force a cultural habit on people, especially young people who are very savvy about being manipulated by marketers,” he told The Times. “But it’s definitely savvy to try and make the moviegoing experience less linear and more interactive.”

Sometimes the audiences will make the connections for you, and are happy to travel great distances to do so. This habit has been a boon to the tourist industry in Switzerland, which Bollywood directors and producers have favored as the pristine backdrop for their movies.

For their honeymoon, Vishal and Jagruti Purohit traveled to Switzerland from Mumbai to find the small village church that provided the backdrop for a scene in their favorite movie, a 1995 Bollywood blockbuster called “The Brave Heart Will Take the Bride.”

“The moment you cross the border it is something else,“ Mr. Purohit told The Times, “where the scenario changes.”

In New York, a new generation of Broadway Babies is being drawn in by an old formula that is suddenly hip again: musical theater. With the hit television show “Glee” leading the way, producers have capitalized on young audiences who were weaned on television shows like “High School Musical,” where it is perfectly normal for the characters to burst into song and dance.

Fred Hechinger, a fourth grader at the Manhattan School for Children, has seen, among others, “Gypsy,” “South Pacific” and “Hair” three times. “When I was 5, 6, 7, there weren’t as many kids seeing shows, but now most of them do,” he told The Times. “There are maybe, like, three kids in my school who don’t like theater.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum, at a recent Los Angeles screening of “Grease,” Inthia Seabrooks wore a silver smock and fashioned a headdress out of an empty bucket of takeout chicken. “If you’re going to get all dolled up and go out to the movies, they had better offer you something special,” Ms. Seabrooks, 28, told The Times. “This is special.”


TOM BRADY


Arts marketers will do anything to get customers in the door. Audience members in ‘50s dress for a “Grease” sing-along in Hollywood. / MONICA ALMEIDA/THE NEW YORK TIMES