Do any of your groups have an evaluation pow wow or some sort of decompression meeting after each show to talk about what happened that was good and bad?

Do any of your groups have a discussion over how well a first time or new director did or handled themselves?

I'm just looking for a model to follow. We just finished with a show that had a first time director, although he's been in over 30 community theatre productions over the past 15 years. He did a lot of things that as a board member I utterly disagree with and reported to our president (nothing happened) and as an actor had a lot of issues with. I want to discuss it at the next board meeting but I don't want it to appear as if I'm just attacking the guy.

We never really do this and I've always wondered why.  No matter how good or bad, it seems like all the meetings focus on the good.  Which I think is a really good way to never get around to fixing the things that didn't go well.

We always did this in an "informal" fashion at a board meeting following the closing of a show. Usually when the bottom line figures are in, the bills are paid, the profits are measured (assuming there ARE profits), then the discussion usually always does steer to an informal evaluation of how the show went, if there were problems or issues and what we did right, wrong or indifferently!!  It never used to wind up in negatives wherein someone or some...thing became the focus of why it failed if it wasn't as good as we had expected.  But enough was discussed that we always learned something from having taken the time to review and evaluate how it went generally speaking.

Concerning your mention of a couple bad apples.....

We do surveys as well but they end up being fairly worthless. The previous show we had a stage manager that yelled at everyone, refused to be on book during rehearsals and basically was a glorified curtain puller. Everyone complained but when it came time to fill out surveys everyone was just lazy and wrote that everything was fine. It ended up being me and the director complaining.

Our current show has a better stage manager but the director changes lines in the show, adds lines, added a couple SCENES, refused to block the show, showed open contempt for the script in general and wasted a lot of time. People are complaining backstage but I fear it'll be the same story as last Fall and I end up looking like the jerk that complains about everything.

It's frustrating.

I'm personally in favour of getting some feedback about a production from the audience, from the cast, and from the crew (including the director and the SM).  I'd like to think it would help us to avoid problems in future productions, and perhaps even to improve future productions.

However...

DISCLAIMER: the following is my own personal opinion, and does not represent the opinions of my CT or its members.

Many members of my CT resist this and/or object to it.  Their reasons?
- we're doing this for fun, and that activity is WAY too serious to be fun.
- we're all volunteers, and you just can't expect volunteers to behave the way professionals behave, and if you try you might alienate them from our CT.

I'd best describe this as:  we don't want to improve, we just want to do as well as we've always been doing (the implication being that if we try too hard to improve, it won't be fun any more).

As for "difficult" members, I think it is best to let attrition weed them out.  If they "can't play nice with others", then they will probably not be cast in roles or asked to work on a production team or on any committee.  I could be wrong, but I think the only time it should escalate beyond this is if the "difficult" behaviour becomes dangerous or illegal.  I think that my privacy and my safety should be of concern to my CT.

As for a difficult director, our CT has one board member who is the designated Producer, whose job it is to be the liaison between the director, SM, and production team and the CT board.  Our CT establishes IN WRITING the important responsibilities and limitations and scope of things before the auditions.  In the case where a director "goes out of bounds", then the board can put a recommendation on the books that this person NOT be engaged to direct again.  HYPOTHETICALLY those bounds could include everything from behaviour (no physical, mental, emotional or verbal abuse will be tolerated) to contractual logistics (no changing the play's lines or scenes without properly secured permission).

Yah, yah; okay; I know; that's enough; I'll shut up now.