My crazy small-town melodrama idea
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Topic: My crazy small-town melodrama idea
Posted By: magic612
Subject: My crazy small-town melodrama idea
Date Posted: 7/23/08 at 3:09pm
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I live in a small town of about 3500. Many of the "things to do" in town revolve around sports for kids and/or parents. When the new high school was built a few years ago, they (fortunately!) put in a very nice theater that I'm drooling to use for a "bigger" show someday. As a theater major, I've helped with several of the high school productions, and discussed with high school staff the idea of starting a community theater group. The closest ones to us are 20 miles away, north or south, and gas prices being what they are... well, you get the idea.
Well, having a fair amount of theatrical experience myself (onstage, offstage and backstage), I'm thinking of getting a small theater group started in town. I'm certain there are enough folks to do, at minimum, a small-cast melodrama of 6 to 10 people to start. And I know high-school aged kids that are willing, plus many of the home-school kids' parents.
The theater at the high school is a bit big for such an intimate kind of show for now, but our American Legion in town has a small stage and an area to hold about 100 or so people. I though about putting on a low-cost melodrama from Pioneer Drama, so our initial out-of-pocket could be covered by me personally, or several people. Props and set would be simple, and most costumes we could certainly scrounge up or make as-needed for little money (my wife sews!).
So my idea is to market the show by advertising it as being FREE to get in the door. But how we'd make some money is to sell popcorn for the audience to throw at the villain(s). 5 to 10 minutes before "curtain" the cast would go into the audience and sell popcorn bags for $4 or $5 each (sure, some people would share, but if they're small bags they can't share much) plus drinks sales (people get thirsty eating salty popcorn), and we ought to be able to make a few bucks on the show, AND put on some good theater for the folks in town. And if I can convince a really good piano / keyboard player to help us out, we could have a huge tip-jar for the pianist too.
Any thoughts on issues I need to be aware of? Any other ideas? Bad idea altogether? Brilliant idea? Any and all thoughts welcome! ------------- Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness how genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. ~ often attributed to Goethe |
Replies:
Posted By: neilfortin
Date Posted: 7/23/08 at 4:16pm
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In our town, free things never attract that many people. I think people equate free to lousy and just never come out in the droves that we wish they did. Charge 5 bucks, make them beleive that they are actually paying for something. USE YOUR COMMUNITY, ask for donations from local business with a promise that they will get an ad in your program. Use every available resource that you can to gain free stuff, especially if this is your first year. Write to your banks, your grocery stores, your dry cleaners, your local fabric stores, department stores, see what you can get just by using the people in your community. Many times when starting you people don't think about all the contributions that local businesses are willing to make!!! Take all your media sources and FLOOD them with information on your show, newspapers, cable access telivision, the internet, word of mouth, soliciting in front of the grocery store, you gotta build up a BIG WORD about this new theater group in town!! Give yourselves a name too, groups with a more formal sound will attract more people into believing that it's something legit! Actually hold auditions for you show, put them in your local newspaper, see how many people come out to audition, if you don't get enough for your show, then turn to a list of people that you can use! Make sure you involve everyone in the show, from the lighting, costumes, set, consessions, ticket sales, and parent involvement. The more people you can get the word out to, the better! ------------- Community Theater makes us smile |
Posted By: magic612
Date Posted: 7/23/08 at 5:19pm
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neilfortin - thanks for the feedback! As a sales person, I'm pretty well acquainted with the folks to go to in the community, so the reminder for the ideas of who to talk to in town is certainly appreciated (though not overlooked - my wife and I know many folks to go talk to here). And being as small a town as we are, it's more a matter of "pounding the pavement" and talking to them rather than writing letters. But yeah, that's certainly already on the agenda of things to do. All that said, I do see your point about offering the show for free. Perhaps if I turned the idea around - offer the POPCORN for free, and charge admission? I think that might even work better. And highlighted appropriately on marketing materials, ought to make for a better marketing angle. ------------- Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness how genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. ~ often attributed to Goethe |
Posted By: bbpchick
Date Posted: 7/24/08 at 11:33pm
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We do a melodrama every summer and we charge admission, but give the popcorn for free. This seems to work very well for us and people seem to appreciate that they get the throwing materials for free.
What ever you do though, stick with popcorn! We did peanuts one year and it was just bad juju. Even with warnings not to aim for the head, they did anyway. Popcorn is MUCH safer. I agree with neilfortin though and charge admission. Remember you need to recoup the cost of renting the hall, the royalties, costumes, the set AND publicity so depending upon the sales of refreshments and popcorn might not be a good idea anyway.
Jut out of curiosity, what Melodrama are you planning on doing? ------------- Kendra http://www.murphysblackbartplayer.com - www.murphysblackbartplayers.com You are NEVER too old to dress up! |
Posted By: Kathy S
Date Posted: 7/25/08 at 3:20am
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I will second the idea that charging SOMETHING for admission is important... It is hard to give somethign away and then later start charging for it... also, carefully consider what you will charge because you can't discount a ticket that is already too inexpensive (for example, for group sales) because you have nowhere to go. Also, there will be a monetary threshold that your community will not cross at the upper end. |
Posted By: magic612
Date Posted: 7/25/08 at 9:08am
Yeah, good call on that one! That's why I was thinking popcorn - hard to hurt people, even if kernels get tossed.
Well, hall rental might not be an issue (still working on that), royalties and script purchase we figure will be under $100, costumes we can either make or already have, and publicity... yeah, we'll have to spend some on publicity.
Actually, we're not even that far along yet. We're planning on something for next summer, and are pulling together as many ideas as we can right now. This was one that was "higher up the list," so to speak. And Pioneer Drama appears to have some decent ones (I recall doing one of them in college), and the scripts aren't expensive, so we'll order a 6 to 10 scripts and determine what would be best as our first production. Plus, they offer rights for local cable to come in a videotape the production for one extra royalty, which will help boost awareness of the group. ------------- Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness how genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. ~ often attributed to Goethe |
Posted By: magic612
Date Posted: 7/25/08 at 9:10am
Thanks for the thoughts Kathy - duly noted!!  ------------- Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness how genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. ~ often attributed to Goethe |
Posted By: Dave Charest
Date Posted: 8/08/08 at 11:32am
Hi magic, I think this would be your best bet. Here's why: If you offer the show for free, as neilfortin mentioned, people can equate free with lousy. You obviously don't want your shows thought of in this light. By charging for the show you're also putting expectations on it. The expectations of your audience will be higher since they've paid for the show. They'll also be more present at the performance since they've actually put money down. Giving the popcorn for free is an added bonus for the audience. This will help 'butter' them help. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) It also avoids that 'you've got me trapped, now I have to pay high prices' for the popcorn and drinks. If you charge for the popcorn people are going to be expecting some damn good popcorn, instead of being happy about getting it for free. So by charging for the show and giving the popcorn for free, the whole dynamic of the interaction is changed to your benefit. People expecting a good show and being pleased by the free popcorn. Not to mention you'll be putting people in a fun and playful mood since they get to throw it. Hope this helps. D. |
Posted By: magic612
Date Posted: 8/08/08 at 11:59am
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Dave -
Good points, all. Thank you for your thoughts - much appreciated! ------------- Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness how genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. ~ often attributed to Goethe |
Posted By: whitebat
Date Posted: 8/29/08 at 12:15am
| Ah, yes, the joy of vacuuming up popcorn after the melodrama. Our dearly defunct CT did "Wash Your Troubles Away or Dirty Deeds Come Clean" and "On the Bridge at Midnight" among others. I think the first was a Tim Kelly script, although I don't know if it was from Pioneer or some other outfit. It does come in a musical and non-musical (straight) version. They did a lot of melodramas, but eventually died out, due to (I think) the regular actors and director getting old, and losing their performance space. |