Community Theater Green Room Discussion Board: Is it always nerve-wracking...?

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magic612
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Topic: Is it always nerve-wracking...?
Posted: 8/05/08 at 11:44am

So I'm in the process of getting a small theater company started in my area. We'll be starting off small - initially with a 3 person cast for an elementary school production (no tickets required - and the school will pays us directly), and the next will likely be a reader's theater that we hope to do at local libraries - again, no tickets needed, as the libraries will be promoting it, and we would be reimbursed through their Adult Programs budgets.

But after that, we hope to do a melodrama in the summer, and then a holiday show. Each will require a larger investment overall - more props, more costumes, hall rental fees, more investment in royalties / scripts. Obviously, we're not looking to lose any money! I did some "back of the envelope" figuring last night, and with some tight costume (which was a complete guess) and set budgets, we would still make a little bit of decent money even if our productions sold an average of 1/3 of the seats per performance.

Is this a reasonable minimum to assume? Is this going bigger a little too fast? The first two shows will be VERY budget conscious, and are guaranteed to make us money provided we keep the costuming and any other overhead to a minimum. And of course, we plan to do a lot of "word of mouth" marketing (easy to do in the small community we live in), as well as lots of other low-cost, guerilla-style publicity (again, less expensive to do in our small communities) before the shows.

But is it always this nerve wracking looking at the actual numbers, and wondering if enough people will show up to at least cover your costs?

And an additional costuming question (if someone can provide some guidance): Given that we have almost no costumes to start out with, and although we have the ability to make many of the "lesser" roles' costumes, how much should we expect to budget per character (assuming one costume each) if we had to rent all or part of a costume for them? I haven't the faintest idea how much that might run to set any kind of budget whatsoever!!

Thanks for any and all thoughts.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness how genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. ~ often attributed to Goethe

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ahadon
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Posted: 8/05/08 at 1:18pm

I know your feeling about it being nerve wracking..... I too am in the same boat, however, we have an advantage that wasn't thought of... Our town does an annual play to help celebrate our heritage, our historic depot, which is our venue for the group.

Our first production took 3 months to get a cast due to the negativity of the previous group. He was horrible, and took it upon himself to bash anyone and everything about theatre in general in our area... leading people to assume that theater was dead here.

We opened our 4 person cast show, "The Glass Menagerie" with a record breaking opening night attendance, and saw a hit happen.

As far as costuming, what we did was to allow the cast to put together their own costuming since it was pretty simple and nothing needed to be made special for the show. They all brought their own clothes and we tried to make them fit into the time period.

Fortunatly, we were at the disposal of having set pieces and such that belong to the historical society, so our flats, and most furniture was easy to come by... those that we had to have special (such as the menagerie) we made, or cut advertising deals. Our show shirts were done by a screen printer in our town and a deal was cut for advertising and we got a cheaper rate. Alot can be cut by promoting ads in your program and sponsors for productions. What we have found as far as corporate sponsorship is they want to see the 501 status first, then they will throw a couple thousand at you to do the show.

Our season is being done show by show at the moment due to the lack of intrest in our area... making it easier to chose shows that fit the "mentality" of the area.

We have looked at doing things such as rent, and other big name shows that would set a bar, but due to the topics these shows would be a waste of money, even though there are movies out there that i know people run with from the shelves... aka. Rent. (Our local video store can't keep it in still after 2 or 3 years of release).

our venue seats at fire codes 125, we have never sold out any production at the venue, so we assume that 50 is our max and use that when we set up the folding chairs.... Not to mention we have to set up lighting and sound and remove it as well after each production. then go thru the whole get it set up again for the next.

We plan to have 4 main stage shows a year and a childrens show to help with the summer reading program at the library system in our area. Usually it will be something that goes with the theme of the program that summer.... next year its bugs and creepy crawley things... so we are planning a prodution of "The Magic Well" (ie clark holds the rights) its a cute show with a frog in a well.....

but i best shut my mouth.... i might just jinx us this time around.... lol

hope i was of some help.... (BTW, its been a year since we started from concept to show....)

HTH

Don

Prez, Silhouette Theatre Company

www.silhouettetheatrecompany.org

Currently at Bartlett Community Theatre, Bartlett, TN

Technical Director
Set Design

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jayzehr
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Posted: 8/05/08 at 2:24pm

Originally posted by magic612

, we would still make a little bit of decent money even if our productions sold an average of 1/3 of the seats per performance.

Is this a reasonable minimum to assume?

Being conservative, if you have no previous information to go on, then an average of 1/3 of the seats is nothing more than a guess. I wouldn't count your chickens before they're hatched regarding "decent money" but that's just me.

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magic612
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Posted: 8/05/08 at 3:09pm

Don - thanks for your thoughts; much appreciated. I'd like to try and plan enough things ahead that when others inquire about future shows, I can talk to them with a good deal of enthusiasm. Yet... I don't want to get too far ahead of myself either.

Which makes for a nice segue to Jay, I think...

I realize what I am assuming is little more than a guess. But given that the space for the melodrama holds about 150 people, and the auditorium at the high school where the holiday show would be holds 300+, I didn't think it was exactly "counting chickens" yet - merely trying to determine if putting on the productions in the first place could be profitable - or at least break-even - based on fixed costs (not to mention helping to set some sort of ticket pricet that's reasonable).

So considering that the high school plays and musicals regularly sell 1/3 to 3/4 of the house for their shows, I was hoping to get some feedback from others as to what I might want to expect from a "start up" situation. If more information about my area and spaces were needed, I'd have gladly shared. But I'm having trouble understanding the idea that doing a projected budget and seeing if we could even make any money with small audiences constitutes "counting my chickens before they hatch."

I was merely requesting some idea of what to possibly expect in the way of audiences for a start up situation.

For the first two shows - heck, first three, for that matter, we wouldn't be putting out any money we couldn't afford to lose in entirety anyway. It was looking ahead to the costs involved with the holiday show that started the nerves fraying slightly.

But perhaps we're misunderstanding one another, too...?? I guess I'm not sure how you figure I'm "counting chickens" yet. Isn't it wise of me to at least formulate some kind of budget? And starting from scratch, how else do you suggest I determine an audience size? (Genuine and sincere questions all.)

If there are better methods to determining this, I'm all ears, and any insight you can share would be most appreciated.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness how genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. ~ often attributed to Goethe

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jayzehr
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Posted: 8/05/08 at 4:43pm

Sorry if I offended you with the "chickens hatched" line. There was a fantasist on here a while ago who was talking about hiring people and then paying them out of the profits from the show so I guess that's where I was coming from. If you're only spending money you can afford to lose anyway then there's no problem and you'll find out what sort of attendance you'll get.

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magic612
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Posted: 8/05/08 at 5:49pm

No offense taken - just wanted to understand the context. If there was another on here with "delusions of grandeur" that colored your thoughts on the matter - well, that's understandable.

I hope to not be under any such illusions - or delusions, as the case may be.

Thanks for clarifying - I do appreciate it.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness how genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. ~ often attributed to Goethe

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belle
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Posted: 8/05/08 at 11:06pm

We started a community theatre in a town of 7000 thirty years ago. We got the local Lions Club to donate $100 to allow us to build flats. A teacher from an area college gave a workshop on how to do it. We stored them (and still store them and our costume collection) in a local school. Of course, we loan items from the costume shop to schools and individuals in the community and entire area.

We used school stages for our early performances. The first year we sold snow cones (using a borrowed machine and donated ice) at a 4th of July festival and made $100. That was more money than we made on any show that first couple of years.

The director would "front" us the money for our scripts and royalties; then, she would be repaid out of the gate. We did only shows that didn't call for other than contemporary costumes. We did only straight plays with basic sets for ten years. We rehearsed in free, borrowed spaces (usually a school where an actor worked and had keys to big spaces.)

We wrote human interest stories for the newspaper and got them published free. (Later, when we had more money, we also bought ads, but we still have 3-4 stories on the front page of the local daily paper for each production. A CT person writes them and the paper takes pictures. The paper has won awards for its support for community arts in the state press association.)

We did dinner theatre as fund raisers for local service groups--Girl Scouts, Women's Shelter, Presbyterian Church. They paid our royalty and so much per ticket they sold. They paid for the performance space. They made their profit on the meal. We still do one dinner theatre show a year using this plan.

As you can tell, we were fortunate to have community (especially school) support. Our actors were active in the community--worked for the newspaper, taught in the schools, volunteered for civic organizations. Those connections allowed us to get a start and have continued to provide a network of support. Having board members with strong community credentials also helps get support. Isn't that the purpose of Boards?

We still don't make much money, but we have enough to do musicals (just finished Tom Sawyer--not the Broadway one. We've done Sound of Music, Cinderella, Joseph, and Guys and Dolls among others). We do about 3 plays a year right now--usually two straight and one musical.

About 15 years ago the community refurbished a small theatre (140 seats), and we use it for our rehearsals and productions. (There are plans in the works for a big community theatre space, but I'm not holding my breath.) Both of these theatre space projects happened (or may happen) as a result of having an active CT.

We have purchased lighting and sound equipment for times when we perform in school gyms (dinner theatre) without such equipment. To start, we purchased about 4 lighting instruments at once and about 4 body microphones. We have built that up considerably over time. One of our shows is now sponsored by a local arts group. We have never sold ad space in our program or solicited local businesses for support. There are many school organizations in the community that solicit them. We try to give businesses a break.

We also invested in perusal scripts. We use funds every year to buy 6-10 perusal scripts for different shows. If we don't use the script for the specific show we are reading for, we have it for future reference. We probably have 350 scripts now, a very valuable resource.

I would recommend seeking help from community service organizations that your core group of actors/tech people are already involved in. Lions, Rotarians, Kiwanis and other service organizations are often looking for projects. You can find actors/tech people there, too.

As many here will tell you, children's shows always make money. You get parents involved, too. Families fill the seats. We use both adults and kids in our shows, but an all-kids show draws well (if you have enough help with enough patience for that).

I look at my involvement in CT like a hobby. It costs me money, but all hobbies, do. It doesn't cost nearly as much as sailing or photography but is just as much fun for me.

We are not a big CT. We didn't apire to be. We like to think we do good work with what we have. (We are planning to do Rumors as our fall show.) Good luck! I hope in 30 years, you can share your experience with another novice.

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magic612
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Posted: 8/06/08 at 9:50am

Hi Belle -

Thanks for the great post! We're on the same kind of track - just about 30 years earlier than you. The American Legion in town has a small stage, and we're looking to see if any members there would be interested in sponsoring the melodrama, so that's a start. I personally spent about $70 to get some perusal scripts about a week ago - between my wife, my friend and I, we've decided which two to do as our "starting out" shows, and several other scripts will make good "down the road" shows.

Our paper in town has very little arts info in it (so including anything from us won't be hard to do), and my wife knows the reporter for the "big" area paper (and I know the arts writer from being in previous shows in the area), so we've got some good "in's" at the papers in the area.

One of the places we've looked to initially is the school. In fact, it was discussions with people there while I was helping build sets for the high school shows that prompted the idea for a local community theater organization. I spoke with the tech director and the vocal director, and each expressed an interest in such an idea. I also think that the shop teacher - who also helped build sets - may have an interest. And since my wife works at the library, she knows lots of home-schoolers (parents and kids) that have an interest, too.

I don't figure we'll make much money either, but if it's enough to purchase some basic items that we don't have laying around presently (body mics and lights come to mind), that will help. And I know that children's shows will be more likely to garner involvement - that's what we're planning for a bit down the road. But we don't want it to solely be for the kids either, as the school is doing a better and better job at theater each year. (That said, a summer-time musical or melodrama open to kids won't hurt.)

The main thrust of what we're doing is trying to "fill in the gaps" that the two closest area community theater groups don't do. They do the big, well-known musicals VERY well. Duplicating that from our end would be suicide. One of them also has a VERY good and very active children's theater group - which always, ALWAYS has more kids audition than they can cast. Since we're on the north edge of their general area, we're positioned well to do some smaller children's shows that aren't of the "MTI-Big-Musical-Jr." style.

I think looking at this as a hobby is a good way to view it, but I'm also thinking of it as a service. Our town is very big on sports - and there's nothing wrong with that. I played sports as a kid, and I enjoyed doing so very much, and I still do. But we have almost NO artistic opportunities for both kids AND adults in town. I think there's a market for it - it just needs to be tapped.

Thanks for the encouragement. After some thought about the number-crunching, we may not do a holiday show for 2009 (that'd be the really expensive one), but all the rest I could personally front the money (and not have to worry if we didn't make a dime). I'm sure there will be speed bumps along the way, but I know it's a worthwhile undertaking that will fill an underserved market, both for the area residents, and from an artistic perspective.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness how genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. ~ often attributed to Goethe

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Topic: Is it always nerve-wracking...?( Topic Closed)