Originally posted by tonyboling
Has anyone here done them?
I've been thinking of holding them monthly at a local indie bookstore/coffehouse to drum up support and interest in community theatre. I don't think I'd want to charge admission, maybe just a donation jar for scripts and whatnot. I was thinking of selecting some familiar plays and get a cast together to do the first staged reading and announce that if anyone would like to participate in the next one to contact us. Seems like that might be a good way to have something for free and to gain more community support.
What do you think?
|
I think it's a great way to introduce folks who might not other go to theater to a little taste.
The best way to get around the royalty issue is to see if there are some local playwrights who would share their work. it is part of the script writing process to have reading of your material so that you can hear people actually speak the lines - they don't always sound the same in real life as they do in your head. Granted the plays might be unknown and might not be really great, but it may be a way for you to start to build a following.
We had the Paper Bag theater at our college - staged reading at lunchtime you'd bring your lunch and listen to some theater. We had to be careful to pick things that were short, or we would do excerpts so that there would be time for a Q&A session (usually about 10 minutes) afterwards. That ran successfully for about two years before the audience (and willing actors) just petered out.
Good luck!
Charlie
|