I am working on the final draft of a Production Guidelines manual for our new non-profit Community Theatre.  I started off with a five page booklet from another theatre group in a nearby town and have expanded it to 18 pages (since we do larger productions than they do).  I also went on-line and did a search for other guidelines.  I found one that really helped give me a direction to go in:  Actorsingers Policies and Procedures. They are a professional group and have a FORTY-TWO page manual, but it was very helpful to see someone else's guidelines.  I also looked at the Bay Area Educational Theater Company's guidelines.  Both are on-line.

Our Manual starts with The Board of Directors and goes through Pre-Production, Production, and ends up with who takes care of the Wrap-up Party.  We have descriptions of everyone's duties but also who picks the plays, who should be at auditions, etc. 

We are also developing a Policies and Procedures for the Board of Directors.

Thanks,K8tt, I'll check out those tips.  It's going to be a labor intensive, time consuming project so somebody else's model would be greatly helpful.

G?donya Kathy - Great idea now I know what?s missing to finish my books & sew them all together!

?Behind the Pro?, ?Before the Pro? & ?Beyond the Pro?. Or I may dovetail it into to the new one ?The Naked Chook? - They will never be published - but it does give me something to do &/or a purpose!

We actually have a set of by-laws. We have a council called the Tipton Arts Council which sets all of our policies concerning the Ruffin Theater and other arts in Tipton County. If you are interested feel free to call our theater at (901)476-3439 and we can tell how to set a council up or at least how we did it. It helps a lot.

One thing we try to do with the Council is have committees for each production. In other words, a committee for tickets, ushering, concessions, etc. Each council member is expected to be involved in some way with each production. It doesn't always work but it is a good place to start.