Running Your Theater: Board layout

Print Page | Close Window

Board layout

Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Theater Administration
Forum Name: Running Your Theater
Forum Discription: General questions about how to make it work
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4584
Printed Date: 11/22/24 at 4:50pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 8.05 - http://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Board layout

Posted By: kaigei
Subject: Board layout
Date Posted: 4/25/10 at 12:40am

Hello,

I have been with a small Community Theatre for the past 10 years and we are getting ready to look at the layout of our Board of directors and the management layout underneath to see if there are improvment that can be made.

I would be interested in hearing from other Community Theatres on how you have your Board of directors or your theatre organization setup and what type of management that is placed under the board such as Managing Director who would have the responsibility of handling of the business side of the theatre and the Artistic Director who would handle the Artistic side of the theatre such as season and director selection.

Thank you for the information that you can provide.

Kevin G.

Replies:

Posted By: JoeMc
Date Posted: 4/26/10 at 8:47pm

This probably won't help as we don't normally have a board of directors or the like. We just simply have an elected commitee headed by office bearers.
However one thing I initiated prior to evaportating from my old theatre group, was each of the 3 office bearers sets up a sub commitee of apionted members or otrherwise to carry out a designated portfolio. These were Production, Promotin & Finance. These commitees could meet anytime & take thier proposals & present them to the monthly commitee meetings to be voted on or further disscused prior to ratification.
This in turn allowed as much input from more members & other people within the comunity.
It seems to be working as the group is now working well, with a strong membership & community base.

-------------
[western] Gondawandaland
"Hear the light & see the sound!
TOI TOI CHOOKAS
{may you always play to a full house!}

Posted By: SeanReidLaw
Date Posted: 5/24/10 at 1:45pm

This thread could be interesting depending on the amount of responses. It's worth pointing out that I am offering this information based upon my experience in working with various types of organizations and businesses both for profit and not. Many have found it helpful in the past.

The first thing it seems worth pointing out is the difference between the role of the board of directors under state law, and the day to day operation of ANY organization. This should give you a basic idea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_directors

Now, there are plenty of theater companies that use the same board of directors to run the day to day operation of the company, but there are also plenty that don't. What you choose is up to you, there are positives and minuses to each choice.

When it comes down to organizing and running your organization I generally describe it in this manner. Once you file with the state to become some sort of organized company, for profit or not, you are in a manner of speaking creating a brand new being that will have its own identity. It helps to imagine you are creating a person.

The board of directors under the law is generally in charge of overseeing that this person is created, and making sure that this person remains in good health. So if you are on the board of directors, you need to decide first what you want this person to do. Generally this means you probably want a person who can walk, talk, breathe, eat.

So in this sense, You want someone that will walk. Okay so you need to have some mechanism in charge of making sure that your theatre company is able to select plays, reherse them and do so in a place where they are allowed to reherse them, performs them, and does so in a place that they are allowed to perform them.

Next you're going to want it to be able to talk. This means in the context of a theater company you probably want to be able to communicate auditions, market upcoming shows, and communicate with potential donors.

I hope you get the idea. Breathing would be volunteers, and employees that carry out these functions. Eating would be taking in money.

Its also worth considering that I generally suggest that two unseen parts of this person need to be sure to be created. The irculatory system making sure to support the work of each independent function, and making sure that the functions are working together, and the brain, in charge of making sure that all functions are being performed on a regular basis, carrying out new efforts on the boards behalf, and sounding the alarm if an area becomes impaired.

Hope this helps.