Want to start a community theater.
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Topic: Want to start a community theater.
Posted By: Guests
Subject: Want to start a community theater.
Date Posted: 2/14/02 at 2:16am
I know this will sound funny, but me and a group of 10 college age adults want to start a community theater. We are looking at making a proposal to send off for grants and investers. We are hoping people can send us some information on bugets, where you get grates, and all the other things you do not think about that hit you in the face. If you can help us plase send us a email at trk123@msn.com
Thank You,
Jeremy
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Replies:
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 2/15/02 at 5:27pm
Why do you want to start a community theater? That is issue #1. You need to define your reason for being. What theater needs are not met in your community? How will you meet those needs? How is your group going to be different than other outlets? Will you be an actors theater or directors theater or audiences theater?
Who is your audience? What age group do you want to target? What do they want to see? How will you attract people to your theater?
Where are your actors going to come from? Will you need to provide training? What ages can you find?
Build it and they will come does not work in Community Theater.
You will compete with other, more established theaters, TV, movies, the bowling alley and so on - families have just so much expendable money and they pretty much know how they want to spend it now. How will you change their minds?
In general, the competition for grants is extremely tough. Not very many places will give you a grant without a track record - you know, the chicken and the egg. Investors are also hard to find - people do not give money to the theater if they expect to get it back - donors is a more accurate word.
Now, with all that said, starting a community theater is a very rewarding experience - our group started in the fall of 1999 - we are still growing today and it is a far cry from our original vision. We started small and my wife and I agreed to cover any losses on our first production. We made $1,000 and we were off. We formed a non profit corporation, got our 501(c)(3) status along the way and a grant for some equipment. Now we do full productions, readers theater productions, training, musical evenings, dinner mystery theaters and more. We have been invited to do shows at other theaters. It is a good life. There are not many weeks in the year when we are not doing someting.
If I can give you a couple of pointers from experience: Expect to come up with all the money and do all the work yourselves. That way, if anyone helps it will be a pleasant surprise. Insist on quality in every facet of your organization - quality directing, quality acting, quality sets, quality scripts, quality training and so on. Start small and make your reputation as you grow. Look for low cost, no cost venues - they are there if you look for them (we do a lot of our work at local resturaunts which pay us to do the shows there). If you rent a storefront for $1,000 a month, all you will do is worry about paying the bills. One time I was looking for a plae to rehearse Neil Simon's Chapter Two and found an empty store that wanted $850 a month rent. I offered then $100 for two months and two tickets to the show - they took it!!!
Figure out who your target audience is and do material that will appeal to them consistantly. If you bounce from Psycho Beach Party to Neil Simon to musical comedy you will confuse your audience because these are going to appeal to very different audiences. Once you are established you can vary your material more than you can when you are new. It takes ten good productions to wipe out the stigma of one really bad production.
Your first two years are the most important to the success of your organization. You don't do anyone a favor by going out of business because you ran out of money so don't be afraid to do popular material to fill seats, you can do material to stretch the audience when you can afford it.
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Posted By: Mike Polo
Date Posted: 2/15/02 at 6:03pm
I'll have to second Doug's points... especially the questions about "why". We get a lot of questions on this subject, quite a few from people who are merely disenchanted with their own group. Much of the time it's better to work from within an established group... unless, of course, you want to do avant gard stuff in a group that has been doing Neil Simon for years. At that point, it's time to start out on your own.
It's a lot of work, and until you establish a track record, it'll be tough to finance, unless you pick up an angel.
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 2/19/02 at 11:12pm
Been in the same shoes you now find yourself in. Much of advice you've had given to you the previous replies are true. I don't know what kind of venue you will be performing in or the type of productions you plan on doing. We started out with $50 in cash and charged an actor's fee and staged a well known comedy (Neil Simon's Odd Couple) that way the audience could have an easily recognizable title to go by and be more inclined to attend. It worked for us and we made a profit of $425 off the production. Our next show was even more successful nearly tripleing the profit of the first show and made our life much easier in going with lesser known show titles. In our case we didn't need a lot of money and so we were able to cover our preproduction expense for any show we choose to produce. I will say that for that first show the more donations or volunteering you can round up towards it will help out a lot. We were forunate in that a stage was made available to us for half the rate since we we're just starting out and that made a world of difference. For rehearsals I would suggest checking out any churchs or schools, most would be happy to let groups use there fellowship halls for rehearsals for a very small donation or free. This helped us out big time.
Break a Leg
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 3/13/02 at 2:36am
You know, i want to do the same thing...so if you have any ideas/tips please pass them on my way.
Thanks
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