Well I am at the end of my frazzled wits with this one. We are a 35 year old CT. We are known for the quality of our shows and SO's at the majority of our performances are the norm. The majority of our shows are comedy's with and occasional musical or comic/drama mixed in. Our space does not allow us the ability of easily doing musicals. We just finished Oklahoma!, though we produced this show at a local H. S.
Participation has been dwindling over the last several years and we now struggle to stage a cast of 6. We came close to canceling our fall production, we normally do winter, spring and fall and will often do summer or Christmas if we can, but decided to try Love Letters rather than cancel.  We are very user friendly, concentrating on a work hard play hard philosophy. We have a very easy rehearsal schedule, Mon. Tues. and Thurs. for 8 weeks until hell and tech weeks.
Participation has never been an issue but it seems that everyone has prior commitments with family, friends, work, school, etc. Our community is 12,400, with the nearest college with a theatre program 30 miles away.
Are we seeing a sign of the  very busy and changing times? Are other theatres experiencing a drop in participation?  The few of us left cannot continue to do everything on every show. We have an active governing Board and a steady membership base. We perform to 600-700 per production at 6 shows performed on Thurs. Fri. and Sat. The local economy is sagging but not bottomed. Any insight????

I think you need to look at how you advertise auditions.  Whatever it is, isn't working.  Think outside the box.  Send press releases to newspapers in a larger area outside of what you think your market area is.  Send P.S.A.'s to radio stations outside of what you think your market area is.  People will drive a further distance for rehearsals and shows if it's something they really want to do.  Work on growing your e-mail list of performers.  Grow your web site.  Send info to TV stations that also have web site info and ask to post it.  Send info to your chamber of commerce - some of them have their own lists and ways to get info out.  Send info to the closest Tourism & Visitor's Bureau.  Have a booth off site at a mall or a fair and display and share info about auditions coming up.  Develop a facebook page and twitter page and put info about auditions on there.  You'd be surprised how many people will "find you by accident" on there.  (people that you wouldn't normally think of)  Besides just sending press releases and P.S.A.'s, contact a writer at a newspaper and ask them to write a story about auditions coming up and include a pic or graphic.  Become friends with on-air DJ's at several radio staions and get on the air interviews to talk about auditions coming up.  Have a trade deal ad about auditions in some other playbill/program, even if it's 30 miles away.

No easy answer, just continue to develop lists, especially e-mail list of performers from your past shows.

It completely depends on the show and the director.  We have found though that we generally find what we need, but some times have to beat the bushes a little.  I encourage our directors to make some personal calls before the audition date, I hate the idea of not being able to cast from auditions, but we have had to make those calls post auditions as well, basically begging people to consider doing the show.

Have you considered a more condensed rehearsal schedule, our volunteers really like a shorter process, even if it means more nights per week. 

Best of luck, it is hard to get volunteers.

In response to Nanette, I am finding that most theatres have the reputation of being closed to some extent no matter what the reality is.  We spend a lot of time trying to publicize heavily every cast list, especially highlighting new people whenever possible.  Do you have any insight on how to avoid the issue, especially when there is no truth to the closed theatre reputation?

We just had open auditions for our fall show this past week and I lacked a cast for the show.  We advertised on the website, created a FB page, hit the local papers, news stations, posters, handed out fliers, and did a lot of online advertising.  We did our best to pick a show that would appeal to those auditioning, had a director that is very popular to work with, and made phone calls to everyone to encourage them to audition.  He does not cast the same people, he casts those that are right for the part.