The thing is they built their base through kids.  Kids wanted to do shows.  The parents got involved. The community wanted to support it.  After a few years the parents were hooked and wanted to do shows of their own.

 

They still try to do a big musical every summer that has a lot of kids.  It brings in big crowds and develops future talent and supporters. 

 

So you might want to consider larger kid casts in your early years.  It is especially nice if you have a play that has the opportunity for many parts like townspeople, merry men, etc. so you can cast all the kids. 

 

We started with family-friendly shows--Bad Year for Tomatoes, Maid to Order (Tom Taggart), God's Favorite, Subject to Change, Play On, Soapy Murder Case, Exit the Body, Steel Magnolias, female Odd Couple, Love by the Bolt (Feydeau), June Groom, Rumors,  Love is Murder, The Butler Did it (and Did it Again), Greater Tuna (using several actors in 2 or 3 roles each) to name a few.  Anything by Pat Cook, Rick Abbot, Tim Kelly has well defined characters and easy sets. 

 

Lend me a Tenor, Moon Over Broadway, Inspecting Carol and Noises Off are wonderful but more challenging.  We grew into them.

 

Jack Sharkey writes good farce but his plays are a bit off color/sexual for kids in the audience.

 

You can't go wrong with Harvey and Arsenic and Old Lace.  They are both men heavy. (We've never done either You Can't Take it With You or The Man Who Came to Dinner--too silly and too dated respectively.)  Other men heavy shows are the See How They Run series--set in England so there are accents.  We did them and the big classic musicals eventually.

 

Early on we did some melodramas in a tent for the local fair.  These were one acts but silly fun.

 

Later we did some reviews and finally musicals, some with children and some without.  We now have a director who will work with children so we do more kids shows.  Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, One Foot in Heaven, and I Remember Mama are straight plays that had children and adults and led to some parents getting involved.   A Christmas Carol also has some children.  These have LARGE casts.  We tend to do shows with both kids and adults. 

 

We had (and continue to have) many more women than men so all along we have tried to choose shows that have lots of opportunities for women.

 

We have done some small musicals with both adults and children:  Country Christmas Carol (Dramatic or Dramatists) and Tom Sawyer.

 

We did dinner theatre in the beginning with a local church.  They got the crowd to come to the meal, and we provided the play for so much a person. They also paid for the performance space, advertising, and royalty. We also had them help with the set building at load in and with strike.  Our risk was low.   We didn't make much money, but performing has always been our goal rather than making money.

 

My story about working with another local group in dinner theatre is that when I proposed it to a group--rural fire fighters whose most recent fund raising activity--a garage sale--had made $100.  They agreed to work with us, but one of the guys asked if he could just come to the meal and skip the play if he paid full price for his ticket!  (He had never been to live theatre obviously and was sure he wouldn't like it.)  The happy ending is that he later became one of our biggest supporters.  We worked with the group for several years, and we both made good money each time.

 

Enjoy the ride.  If you make some missteps, just learn from them.

 

What do you mean by small-cast?

 

You could always consider writing your own script as well.  I worked with a community theatre a few years ago we wrote a three part soap opera- it included lots of local colour.  It was quite low on the scale of artisitic merit, but the community ate it up.

 

The royalties are low and it comes with lots of extras.  I've copied and pasted the synopsis below:

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'The Faery's Kiss'  is a modern stageplay in the old folktale tradition!

Thomas is the new owner of a rural coastal cottage. He inherited the house from a grandfather he never knew. Everyone says the place is haunted.  He finds that the place in inhabited by a woman named Fay Sprite. She appears to Thomas as an attractive adult woman who is naturally mischievous, sexy and has a delightful personality... but she is not the girl of his dreams! She may look normal but she is a powerful Faery - and she doesn't want him there! Usually only he can see her. She keeps his head in a spin while he is trying to fit in with the townspeople of a new country. Also, she is trying to protect a secret that others are trying to steal - knowing this new owner may be duped by them. The story has been extremely well researched in Faery Lore and Legend. The tale has all the traditional elements of Celtic folktales: love, magic, elements of the bittersweet, mystery, humour and good triumphing over evil - all the things that have made storytelling so famous for a millennium!  Goto: http://faeryskiss.angelfire.com - http://faeryskiss.angelfire.com

 

 

Check out my one-act, 'Mothers Have Nine Lives', which can be viewed free on http://www.singlelane.com/proplay/mothers.html - http://www.singlelane.com/proplay/mothers.html .

 

Nine very different women explore the highs and lows of modern motherhood. Cast -- 3-12 (it works well with each actor taking on multiple roles and with adults playing the roles of children).   It premiered off Broadway, and has had a number of commercially successful productions since

 

Good luck making-theatre-happen!!

Jo

 

Learn more about the shows at http://www.joneshopewooten.com - www.joneshopewooten.com