If they really wanted to be there, they would be.

I would re-think what you are doing. 

Are you casting unrealistically large shows? 
Are you going for quantity over quality? 
Are you picking shows that don't interest your potential cast? 
Are you too hard on them? 
Are you too soft on them? 
How does the school feel about your productions? 
Are you fighting for your existence? 
Or are you taking yourself and the students for granted? 
Are you doing stuff that's too easy?  Or too hard? 
What size audiences do you normally get? 
What quality of show do you ultimately present? 
What is your purpose in presenting shows in the first place?
 Do you play favorites? 
Is this a new problem, or a recurring one? 
In a perfect world, what would you do differently than you do now? 
Can you do it anyway?

Personally, it sounds like you need a serious dose of reassessment, restructuring, and rebuilding.

At the very least, you need to answer a whole lot of the right questions in order to find the solution. -- Good luck to you.

From what you wrote before, I remember you were doing your rehearsals in the evening.  What I have found in the high school I work at, is that my students cannot be a servant of two masters.  When push comes to shove a sport will trump my play.  So I make them choose.  I schedule reheasrsal at the same time, in the prime  after school time slot.  Then there is no problem getting back to school, and they are not too tired. 

Originally posted by KeeKeeDee From what you wrote before, I remember you were doing your rehearsals in the evening.  What I have found in the high school I work at, is that my students cannot be a servant of two masters.  When push comes to shove a sport will trump my play.  So I make them choose.  I schedule reheasrsal at the same time, in the prime  after school time slot.  Then there is no problem getting back to school, and they are not too tired.

While that may work for a straight play with a smaller cast, I don't see that working for a musical in my school.  Running down all the men in my cast, I have 3 JV football players, 2 varsity football players, 2 soccer players, and one guy who only does track in the spring... and he's a freshman.  The girls are pretty similar- my three female leads are in tennis, volleyball, and cheerleading.  Moving down the line, my top non-sports student is probably a sophomore.  More importantly, I only have about three or four kids who are not in sports.  My numbers might swell to six or seven if I made them choose between sports and drama.

Most importantly, one of the things I love about a small school is how kids can try whatever they want.  My lead male decided to try soccer this year as a senior- he starts on the team now.  I like having kids who do a variety of things, and accept that those conflicts are part of the game, but they do pose a challenge.

I may look at restricting the spring play to after school.  Heck, if I do four or five days a week for a couple hours, we could put together the whole show in three or four weeks!  That certainly beats the 10 week rehearsal schedules that we have to do now.  Some of the kids will probably get upset, but they should understand when I explain that evenings with my newborn daughter are priceless.

A new conflict, my lead gal just got elected Homecoming Queen and can't make rehearsal tomorrow  :)

Originally posted by KeeKeeDee How many non-musicals do you do a year?

We do two shows a year- one musical and one straight play.