Hello,

This is my first time posting to this board, but my board and I are a bit stumped.  We're a small community theater beginning its second season, and with that, the very start of what we hope will be an ongoing actor education program with a basic monologue/audition workshop.  We plan to extend eventually to include improvisation and meisner technique, among other things.

Monologue/Audition is a two session class that focuses first on staging and feeling comfortable with a monologue and second on taking that solid monologue and working in proper audition aesthetic.  There are two colleges in the area whose students are are biggest target draw for this workshop.  I would appreciate any input and advice that you may collectively have about the best pricing for a workshop like this or any other tips you may have.

Thanks!

Wow.  That's a lot more than I was thinking.  That's a pretty good idea.  I'm not sure how big of a market there is for this stuff where I am... still trying to get a feel for it.  So I was thinking about a smaller scale of an hour or two per session and being as reasonably dirt cheap as I could. 

But you bring up some very valid ideas.  Wheels turning here too.

65 dollars for one class seems extremely expensive to me. At least I'd never pay that but I'm pretty frugal and live in a small town. Unless the teacher has some impressive credentials.

I'd say $25 would be the high end for what you're talking about but, hey, if you can get 50-60 dollars for a class like that go for it. One of the other communty theaters in our area gives an audition workshop for two saturdays before an audition but it's free. I've thought about trying that as a strategy for increasing attendence and getting a look at people ahead of time.

I think workshops are a great idea.

Here's what you could think about doing. As tonyboling mentioned there are many aspects you could touch on.

Originally posted by tonyboling how a show is put on, what blocking is, techniques to memorize lines, touch on audition technique but have the audition class after this one) stage directions and so on.

You could break down each topic into it's own seminar. Go in-depth into each. E.g. blocking - What is blocking? How is it used? What are the stage directions? etc.

Once you have everything mapped out. You could offer the first workshop for a nominal fee, (whatever that happens to be in your area.) Then charge more for the more advanced techniques.

Set it up in a sequence, like school. You can't move on to the next workshop until you've completed the prerequisite.

In fact, if you got enough interest you'd be educating the community on the theatre and building relationships for future productions.

It'll take a bit of work on the front end so you have a valuable workshop. But once you lay the foundation and get feedback you'll know how to make adjustments and get more people involved.

D.