best door of the past 3 years
Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Play Suggestions
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URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4071
Printed Date: 11/25/24 at 6:49am
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Topic: best door of the past 3 years
Posted By: gelcat
Subject: best door of the past 3 years
Date Posted: 6/12/09 at 1:30pm
With the economic situation such as it is, I want to be able to send some good suggestions to our playreading committee for suggestion to the directing pool that have had good audience turnout.
We have a 245 seat house, with a small stage and no fly space, so REALLY huge productions are difficult (though we did Wizard of OZ and Music Man in the last 12 months) but otherwise, we need good straight play ideas as well as good smaller musicals.
Therefore, I am requesting the 'annual report' of what shows made the most money for you in the last few years.
Thanks!
------------- www.actorsguildonline.org Actors Guild of Parkersburg Parkersburg, WV |
Replies:
Posted By: gaftpres
Date Posted: 6/12/09 at 6:11pm
|
Grease, Nunsense I and II, The Diary of Anne Frank (New edition by Wendy Kesselman) any childrens show, Peter Pan, A Christmas Carol
These have recently been successful shows for our CC... Break a leg.
Our Board has discussed having opening night considered as a *Stimulus Night* and have people attend and donate what they can afford opposed to purchasing tickets. It helps those that may be out of work pinching pennies etc and as opening night, it is great advertisement for the other performances. Just an idea we have kicked around to get butts in the seats. ------------- Old volunteers never die, they just get recycled! |
Posted By: Scott B
Date Posted: 6/14/09 at 2:26pm
| As does Nunsense ... Forever Plaid has a great following. I think we could do that every year and fill the house. |
Posted By: gelcat
Date Posted: 6/15/09 at 9:11am
|
Our Board has discussed having opening night considered as a *Stimulus Night* and have people attend and donate what they can afford opposed to purchasing tickets. It helps those that may be out of work pinching pennies etc and as opening night, it is great advertisement for the other performances. Just an idea we have kicked around to get butts in the seats. [/QUOTE]
We recently reinstituted Buy One Get One Opening night tickets for general admission, and I believe we now allow season ticket subscribers to have one free with 2 season tickets on nights other than Opening Night, just so we get butts in seats, and hopefully this allows our season ticket holders to invite a friend to come experience live theatre where they might not have before, and the 2 for 1 Opening appeals to those with more limited income, while getting early audiences getting the word of mouth out about the show.
The opening night Buy One Get One had been discontinued for a while on the thought that we were losing money by not charging full price, but has been reinstituted in the interests of getting people to come opening night and get the word of mouth going, as our theatre in particular lives or dies on word of mouth.
Marsha ------------- www.actorsguildonline.org Actors Guild of Parkersburg Parkersburg, WV |
Posted By: imamember
Date Posted: 6/15/09 at 10:26am
| 'Holes' did well for us. Has a lot of teens as well as adults but not all on stage at once so you can work with a smaller stage. We spent about $3000 on it or so and profited $2300 |
Posted By: tristanrobin
Date Posted: 6/15/09 at 7:22pm
If you are attracting the same numbers at half price who would be there anyway paying full price, you are losing money. But if you're getting higher numbers of seats filled, you're probably breaking even - and it's alway better to have more in the house IMO. ------------- http://tristanrobin.blogspot.com |
Posted By: gelcat
Date Posted: 6/16/09 at 9:20am
Yes, we have seen an increase in opening night attendance, and like I mentioned above, that translates to better word of mouth and further attendance increases through the run. We just had the best Sunday matinee attendance we've had in a long time for Anne of Green Gables.
------------- www.actorsguildonline.org Actors Guild of Parkersburg Parkersburg, WV |
Posted By: Ogreking4
Date Posted: 6/19/09 at 1:58pm
| We've had a great deal of success with "Funny Money" and "Run for your Wife" (Ray Cooney) and "Squirrel Lake" and "The Big Five-Oh" (Brian Mitchell) |
Posted By: John Luzaich
Date Posted: 7/09/09 at 12:56pm
|
We have no fly and only 11 feet of wing space. Shows that sold well include: Neil Simon's Rumors, Ken Ludwig's Lend Me a Tenor, and M*A*S*H. Oh yes, and Steel Magnolias. ------------- John cfct@cfu.net http://www.osterregent.org http://www.facebook.com/osterregent |
Posted By: mvp1114
Date Posted: 7/15/09 at 12:24pm
|
We did an oddball this year - "Disco Inferno - the Musical." Personally, I lived thru the disco era as a working musician so I was having WAY too many flashbacks, and the story is kind of soft (a "Faust" sendup) but it was one of our biggest successes audience-wise.
Sets are pretty simple - several scenes based around the same physical stage with different decoration - drop me an email off-site and I'll send either our drawings or a link to the original show's website.
mailto:mvp1114@ameritech.net - mvp1114@ameritech.net
Mike ------------- schlechy techy |
Posted By: GracieLea
Date Posted: 7/15/09 at 5:26pm
| We've also had great luck in the past with M*A*S*H and Steel Magnolias. Our most recent success though was with Pride & Prejudice. |