In the UK there are many community theatres still with the archaic title of 'Sometown Amateur Operatic And Dramatic Society' (or similar).

I replied to a thread on the www.amdram.co.uk forum suggesting that if these theatres wanted bigger audiences one of the things they should do is to upgrade their names to sound a little bit more professional.

My questions to the US Community Theatre fraternity are ...

1) Would your potential audiences be put off if they saw the word 'amateur' on your posters and playbills?

2) Is there a naming convention chosen by many or a large percentage of CT's which is seen as beneficial to ticket sales?

3) Has anybody got a story to tell about the name of their CT affecting sales (either improving or reducing sales)?

I thought this was an interesting topic, so I did an analysis of the names of the theaters on the AACT member list looking for word frequency. Here are the results from the 686 groups on their list. This shows the top 17 words found in the theater names with thier frequencies.

Theatre        321    
Community    142    
Players        121    
Little        59    
Playhouse    43    
Theatre        41    
Civic        35    
Company        34    
Theater        33    
Arts        32    
Center        21    
Association    20    
County        20    
Guild        18    
City        17    
Stage        15    
Performing    12   

... and how many times did the word Amateur appear? ZERO!!!

Dan

1. Yes

A very good piot David & analisation of the generic name choices Dboris. Mind you I'm sure every group wants to have a recognisable & descriptive name, yet do tend to fall into using generic terms  to identify themselves. Such as the 'AODS' hook in the UK. There is a tendancy here lately to hang up less geographical shingles & more odd non descript handles. Though there still is a few of the traditional  marque names floating about, such as the 'Lyric' & others.
My mob was the Pheonix Senior Theatre orginally. Which covers a geographical locality. However when I coined it & formed the group, after my last stroke. I thought of calling it after most City orientated endeavours, starting with 'Co' for the designation of Cockburn City [Pronounced Coburn City, because of the puritan edwardian founders.] So I thought of the Cockpit Theatre However it would be pronounced as the Co'pit or copit theatre?
Thinking about the orginal Cockpit Theatre in London, which after burning down was rebuilt & resurected by Indigo Jones as the Pheonix Theatre. Which fitted both the Pheonix Allotment & connection to Cockburn City.
However because I got a grant from the Government Department of Seniors, to start the group, A lot of the members wanted to use 'Seniors Theatre' in the name. I put this to the Govt Minister for Seniors of the time, who strongly suggested to drop the word senior, as it would pidgeonhole the group. But in hindsight I think I made a complete blue, as wee should have retained it.
As our most reliable & backbone members are from the blue rinse set or the old farts like me. Who are always there to get things done, unlike the younger fly by nights, who are all mouth!
But this is not answering you question David.
So yes I believe in thinking about the 'senior' handle, it may have the same effect as the word amatuer being used, as was feared by the Minister, But looking at the lack of bums on seats anyway, it would not hurt. As it is promoted as a community theatre & we might get more, by reverting back to using the 'Seniors' in the name.