Community Theater Green Room Discussion Board: How can I find a theater space?

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Topic: How can I find a theater space?
Posted: 8/29/03 at 8:14am

I, along with a friend of mine, am trying to start a theater company. We both have an immense love for the stage and feel that the companies in our area are too shallow to offer kids the full potential of the experience. We have everything worked out - dates, auditions, designers, etc. but we still have one major problem...How do we find a theater space? We would like to rent one out, but all of the high school theaters in our area require an enormously high insurance policy to use them. Does anybody have any advice as to what to do? Any creative ideas for renovating other spaces? Thanks
-Lauren

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Posted: 8/29/03 at 8:37am

For our first three years of existance, we did not have a home space and moved around each night. We have several resorts in our area and they let us use their conference and meeting rooms without charge when others were not using them. They also let us do our shows there for free - it provided something for them to offer their guests. We now have a home but the Resorts still call us to do shows for them. During most of this period we did plays that had minimal or suggested sets. Exterior scenes were particularly easy to do.

We also had two restaurants that had back rooms for group dinners. We can use them whenever we want. This worked out pretty well because the restaurant offered dinner theater. We were still doing smaller shows without complex sets.

Then, we did a full production of Neil Simon's CHAPTER TWO - two full living rooms, flats for walls, decorations, costumes and so on - took 5 vans and trucks to carry the stuff around - took two hours to set it up and one hour to break it down. Decided we needed a home if we were going to do big sets.

We were successful in renting a local theater for a show on a "book in" basis - we rehearsed away and moved in on Sunday and opened on Thursday. We made a lot of money on that show and realized we needed a permanent home where we could do more polished productions.

While we were looking for a permanent home, we used space in a mall. I went to the management company and offered them $100 a month and two tickets to the show for the space (usual rent was $850 a month). They took it with the agreement that we would move out if they rented it. When performance time came, I talked to them about our need to stay there for the run. They actually held off renting it until we finished.

Our community had a Grange for years that had fallen on hard times - it was unused and rat infested. The State Grange people came to town to sell the building but a young woman took over as Grange Master and started to clean the building and grounds. Our theater group took over renovating the inside. It is now our home and is a wonderful performance space. We raised a lot of money for technical equipment for the building. Most of our materials and all of our labor was donated.

That, in a nutshell, is how we did it.

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Posted: 8/29/03 at 2:26pm

Ha! Welcome to the wonderful world of community theaters without homes! We're pretty much in the same boat you are. There are two playhouses in our town. One is a summer theater since it is not winterized, and the other is expensive and availability is limited. Our high school is very expensive also. We did go before the school board and they waived some of the rent for one show. Our Elks Lodge has a fairly large room (seats 150) but like Doug said, you would need easy sets to put up and take down. Restaurants, hotel conference rooms, some churches have auditoriums/gyms, elementary schools and middle schools, warehouses, vacant stores, library conference rooms, etc... I guess you just have to keep looking and be creative....that's what we do.

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Posted: 8/29/03 at 7:24pm

Thank you both so much! You really have given me some great ideas that I am going to get working on right away! Thanks!!

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Author	Message
Guests Guest	Topic: How can I find a theater space? Posted: 8/29/03 at 8:14am
	I, along with a friend of mine, am trying to start a theater company. We both have an immense love for the stage and feel that the companies in our area are too shallow to offer kids the full potential of the experience. We have everything worked out - dates, auditions, designers, etc. but we still have one major problem...How do we find a theater space? We would like to rent one out, but all of the high school theaters in our area require an enormously high insurance policy to use them. Does anybody have any advice as to what to do? Any creative ideas for renovating other spaces? Thanks -Lauren

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Guests Guest	Posted: 8/29/03 at 8:37am
	For our first three years of existance, we did not have a home space and moved around each night. We have several resorts in our area and they let us use their conference and meeting rooms without charge when others were not using them. They also let us do our shows there for free - it provided something for them to offer their guests. We now have a home but the Resorts still call us to do shows for them. During most of this period we did plays that had minimal or suggested sets. Exterior scenes were particularly easy to do. We also had two restaurants that had back rooms for group dinners. We can use them whenever we want. This worked out pretty well because the restaurant offered dinner theater. We were still doing smaller shows without complex sets. Then, we did a full production of Neil Simon's CHAPTER TWO - two full living rooms, flats for walls, decorations, costumes and so on - took 5 vans and trucks to carry the stuff around - took two hours to set it up and one hour to break it down. Decided we needed a home if we were going to do big sets. We were successful in renting a local theater for a show on a "book in" basis - we rehearsed away and moved in on Sunday and opened on Thursday. We made a lot of money on that show and realized we needed a permanent home where we could do more polished productions. While we were looking for a permanent home, we used space in a mall. I went to the management company and offered them $100 a month and two tickets to the show for the space (usual rent was $850 a month). They took it with the agreement that we would move out if they rented it. When performance time came, I talked to them about our need to stay there for the run. They actually held off renting it until we finished. Our community had a Grange for years that had fallen on hard times - it was unused and rat infested. The State Grange people came to town to sell the building but a young woman took over as Grange Master and started to clean the building and grounds. Our theater group took over renovating the inside. It is now our home and is a wonderful performance space. We raised a lot of money for technical equipment for the building. Most of our materials and all of our labor was donated. That, in a nutshell, is how we did it.
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Guests Guest	Posted: 8/29/03 at 2:26pm
	Ha! Welcome to the wonderful world of community theaters without homes! We're pretty much in the same boat you are. There are two playhouses in our town. One is a summer theater since it is not winterized, and the other is expensive and availability is limited. Our high school is very expensive also. We did go before the school board and they waived some of the rent for one show. Our Elks Lodge has a fairly large room (seats 150) but like Doug said, you would need easy sets to put up and take down. Restaurants, hotel conference rooms, some churches have auditoriums/gyms, elementary schools and middle schools, warehouses, vacant stores, library conference rooms, etc... I guess you just have to keep looking and be creative....that's what we do.
	IP Logged

Guests Guest	Posted: 8/29/03 at 7:24pm
	Thank you both so much! You really have given me some great ideas that I am going to get working on right away! Thanks!!
	IP Logged

Topic: How can I find a theater space?( Topic Closed)