Community Theater Green Room Discussion Board: best door of the past 3 years

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gelcat
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Topic: best door of the past 3 years
Posted: 6/12/09 at 1:30pm

With the economic situation such as it is, I want to be able to send some good suggestions to our playreading committee for suggestion to the directing pool that have had good audience turnout.

We have a 245 seat house, with a small stage and no fly space, so REALLY huge productions are difficult (though we did Wizard of OZ and Music Man in the last 12 months) but otherwise, we need good straight play ideas as well as good smaller musicals.

Therefore, I am requesting the 'annual report' of what shows made the most money for you in the last few years.

Thanks!

www.actorsguildonline.org
Actors Guild of Parkersburg
Parkersburg, WV

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gaftpres
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Posted: 6/12/09 at 6:11pm

Grease, Nunsense I and II, The Diary of Anne Frank (New edition by Wendy Kesselman) any childrens show, Peter Pan, A Christmas Carol

These have recently been successful shows for our CC... Break a leg.

Our Board has discussed having opening night considered as a *Stimulus Night* and have people attend and donate what they can afford opposed to purchasing tickets. It helps those that may be out of work pinching pennies etc and as opening night, it is great advertisement for the other performances. Just an idea we have kicked around to get butts in the seats.

Old volunteers never die, they just get recycled!

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Scott B
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Posted: 6/14/09 at 2:26pm

As does Nunsense ... Forever Plaid has a great following. I think we could do that every year and fill the house.

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gelcat
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Posted: 6/15/09 at 9:11am

[/QUOTE]

We recently reinstituted Buy One Get One Opening night tickets for general admission, and I believe we now allow season ticket subscribers to have one free with 2 season tickets on nights other than Opening Night, just so we get butts in seats, and hopefully this allows our season ticket holders to invite a friend to come experience live theatre where they might not have before, and the 2 for 1 Opening appeals to those with more limited income, while getting early audiences getting the word of mouth out about the show.

The opening night Buy One Get One had been discontinued for a while on the thought that we were losing money by not charging full price, but has been reinstituted in the interests of getting people to come opening night and get the word of mouth going, as our theatre in particular lives or dies on word of mouth.

Marsha

www.actorsguildonline.org
Actors Guild of Parkersburg
Parkersburg, WV

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imamember
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Posted: 6/15/09 at 10:26am

'Holes' did well for us. Has a lot of teens as well as adults but not all on stage at once so you can work with a smaller stage. We spent about $3000 on it or so and profited $2300

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tristanrobin
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Posted: 6/15/09 at 7:22pm

If you are attracting the same numbers at half price who would be there anyway paying full price, you are losing money. But if you're getting higher numbers of seats filled, you're probably breaking even - and it's alway better to have more in the house IMO.

http://tristanrobin.blogspot.com

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gelcat
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Posted: 6/16/09 at 9:20am

Originally posted by tristanrobin

Yes, we have seen an increase in opening night attendance, and like I mentioned above, that translates to better word of mouth and further attendance increases through the run. We just had the best Sunday matinee attendance we've had in a long time for Anne of Green Gables.

www.actorsguildonline.org
Actors Guild of Parkersburg
Parkersburg, WV

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Ogreking4
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Posted: 6/19/09 at 1:58pm

We've had a great deal of success with "Funny Money" and "Run for your Wife" (Ray Cooney) and "Squirrel Lake" and "The Big Five-Oh" (Brian Mitchell)

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John Luzaich
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Posted: 7/09/09 at 12:56pm

We have no fly and only 11 feet of wing space. Shows that sold well include: Neil Simon's Rumors, Ken Ludwig's Lend Me a Tenor, and M*A*S*H. Oh yes, and Steel Magnolias.

John
cfct@cfu.net
http://www.osterregent.org
http://www.facebook.com/osterregent

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mvp1114
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Posted: 7/15/09 at 12:24pm

We did an oddball this year - "Disco Inferno - the Musical." Personally, I lived thru the disco era as a working musician so I was having WAY too many flashbacks, and the story is kind of soft (a "Faust" sendup) but it was one of our biggest successes audience-wise.

Sets are pretty simple - several scenes based around the same physical stage with different decoration - drop me an email off-site and I'll send either our drawings or a link to the original show's website.

mvp1114@ameritech.net

Mike

schlechy techy

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