Hey.. you theatre gypsies.. I want to organize a cross country theatre tour. 

So anyone interested?
I mean really interested?

Travel by a bus and/or motorhome, pulling behind us a portable stage. We would visit cities, town and places where people meet and entertain them.
A theatre of fun.

Needed: Actors (m/f), technicians (lighting/sound, carps, painters, props), wardrobe, make-up,stage managers, front of house and more.

Looking for adaptable people capable of performing several of the aforementioned areas of expertise. The more you can do and the more adaptable you are, the more I want you.

Now to get this rolling you, yes you.... need to help me. 

You need to get the word out. 

So tell everyone you know about this. No more talk, but action. 

What you do not know about theatre you will learn from those around you that do know. 

And I can teach you as well.

Break a leg everyone..

Cash in on this

Box office (gross) sales ... $32,400.00 per week .. Too bad it was a slow week.

Audience size 120 (happy people).
Cost per ticket (average) $45.00.
Number of shows per week - 6.
Type of venue - dinner theatre.
Show - Comedy and/or musical.

Nothing there is out of the ordinary.. and your houses (number of people in the audience) could be higher.
There are a lot of variances here that we can go into later.

BUT...

But for your theatre company, this whole scenario, well this is not happening is it?

You're a group of people just starting out.
You've always had this idea to start your own theatre company.
The dream of it anyway.

OR

Maybe your are a community theatre company already and you want to strive for bigger and better shows.

One thing here I never use the phrase Amatuer Theatre.
Amatuer, the word I mean... suggest that you are not serious.

PROBLEMS

There are problems of course.
Some of these you feel hinder you and yes they actually do.

• You have too many people who think they are in charge.
• Your stage is not the best area.
• Your lighting sucks.
• You can't get anyone to come out to rehearsals.
• Some people have connections and avoid being involved in the dreaded audition.
• You can't find a way to make your audiences want more.
• Your audiences are small, and most are friends or relatives.

Okay stick with this kind of attitude, this formula and well. I can tell you plain and simple you are going to go anywhere.

BUT

All of this is fixable.

HOW?

You need help... 

You need help from someone (possible me) and others like me that will not charge you anything to do this.

We will though require that you have our complete attention. You must follow the way we do things or this will not work. You must allow us to take charge, so to speak. Then we can work with you to create a wonderful and special theatrical experience.

Interested?

more to come later..

Making Money, lots of it

Theatre is hard work, but I love it.... I have been involved in theatre many times over my lifetime and I am not done yet... 

 It was always fun.

 Then I learned how to make money doing it...

Make Money doing theatre???? 

Yes... thats right and guess what? A lot of money.

Why not?

To do that, make money doing theatre you have to take off your creative hat and put on your business hat.

When I first started out with my theatre company I had no idea (on a business level how to do that... )

I had to learn.

Well for one thing when you first start out no one knows you, so why would they ever want to pay to see you entertain them in the first place?

So you put on your sales hat and your marketing hat.. They sort of look the same.

You need to convince everybody (well a lot of people) and make a name for yourself, yes you do if you want to do shows and a lot of them.

Promotion is the key here. You have a show and it's the best show ever. Now you need to sell it. 

One trick is to do free shows. Actually what you do is part of a show, or a short piece to showcase your talents.
You can also volunteer your efforts for free..

In the beginning when I had a venue lined up, I tried to do a percentage of the ticket at first, but that only works if you have a show everyone wants to see.  If no one knows about you, then very few people will come to your show and that ticket percentage will be small.

Forget that, period.

You have to decide what your worth, what the show is worth. You have to take into account all your costs that need to be covered. You need a break even point and a profit point.

Then you need to advertise and cheaply to keep your overheads down. You have to do a lot of knocking on doors, talk to as many people as you can and get someone to listen.

But there is another way to get people to see your shows.

I remember once with my theatre company someone told me that they had heard of my theatre company two years before I ever created it. Was I going to correct that person. NO way. I just let them believe their version of the truth, in hope that this person would continue that story to other people she knew. 

Look at your audience and give them want they want. Look at the demographics of your audience, their age group even, their moral beliefs, what part of the country are they situated in.

Big city folk are usually more tolerant than smaller more isolated centres. Ask yourself what are you doing this theatre business for. Yes the love of it of course. But are you willing to sacrifice what you want to do against, some abstract black comedy or, what your (paying) audience wants. Once you are established, well then you can be more choosy in what you want to do.  Not in the beginning that is if you want to make money doing this.

Lets look at demographics for a moment.

My theatre company worked out of Calgary, Alberta and we travelled out in a roughly 100 mile radius of that city. 
This was prairie country, with lots of large ranches and farms of all sizes. Part of our territory would take us into what is loosely called the Bible belt. In other words some (not all) of these people had certain moral feelings that would not accept certain types of theatre storytelling or language.

Scripts sometimes had to be toned down, language altered as we did not want to offend anyone in our audiences. We mostly used comedy as our performing platform as everyone likes a good laugh. We kept the shows squeaky clean.

The first step to make money in theatre is to insure that a lot of people come to see your shows.

If the theatre house holds 200 people, well you want to have 200 people in the house. In other words each house has to be a full house.

 That is very possible if you follow my way of doing business.

Oh yes since it was the prairies the theatre company I started and operated was called "Prairie Dog Players" and I was the chief gopher...  you know go for this, or go for that.. wearing many hats..

more to come.....

SHOW BIZZzzzzzzzz

Theatre Anyone????

Do you ever get a driving urge to be totally creative and a need to experience and to live your dream beyond anything you have ever experienced before?

I do and it's happening again and right here and now.
So if you're with me lets do this...
Join me... and let's start up another theatre company here and right now!!

This is something that is in my blood. I cannot get it out of me, so why not do it again. Here in this Blog I shall keep all of you up to date as to how it is unfolding and of course you will get that feedback on how to start your own theatre company up.

It is never easy.

It involves a lot of work.

For me at this moment I am planning to produce and direct a musical theatre extravaganza that involves lots of hot dancing, great music and colourful lighting schemes. It is based loosely on a story I wrote fifteen years ago. It has the sexy movements of salsa dancing filtered all throughout it.

It is a love story. It has humour. It has serious moments... 


The Venue.

The venue drives the show. The venue is all important and a necessary first stage in the production of a theatre show.
The venue can be a professional stage or not.

In fact for this production we will need a bar setting or a restaurant, or just a space that we can be transformed into what we feel we will need.

Timeline

The timeline is important as it drives the energy to make everything work on schedule.

Performers

I always look for raw talent in performers. From my experience there is always talent everywhere. Yes and great talent as well.

It just needs to be released. So I know you're there... and you're really ready?

Let's do this... as this can happen anywhere... 

Keystones and Corner Blocks, Teasers and Tormentors

Keystones and Corner Blocks, Teasers and Tormentors

Break a leg.

Keystones and corner blocks.

In theatre certain dialog is used to explain the different parts of the scenery.

A heavy canvas or muslin or scrim (open weave fabric) stretched over a frame is called a "flat." Flats can also be solid.

The uprights of a flat are called "styles."

The top and bottom cross pieces of a flat are called "rails."

A mid brace that goes between two styles is called a "toggle."

The triangular brackets that hold the four corners of a flat together are called "corner-blocks."

The wedge shaped bracket that hold a toggle between two styles are called "keystones."

Teasers (Boarders) and Tormentors (legs)

Borders and legs along with main drapes, cycloramers (a flat or curved white curtain stretched tight that can be lit to produced the effect of a day or night time scene), scrims (open weave material that can be painted or dyed and lit from either the front or rear to produce special visual effects), travelers (teasers that fly), false prosceniums (hard legs and border flats that cover the opening space of a stage to create a smaller opening), all make up the drapery that hide and reveal stage scenery from the audience.

Legs, some drapes and scrims can be flown.

Flown scenery, or flying (it) refers to scenery that can be lifted up and away from the stage, using either a counter weighted system or a series of hand pulled ropes.

Flown scenery requires a tower above the stage that receives the scenery being flown. A tower has a series of pipes that scenery attached to cables is lifted with. Lighting can also be flown this way. Some lighting is fixed and does not fly.

If space is limited in the tower, then scenery can be designed to fly part way, and folded out of view.

Flown scenery is controlled or flown from either the deck (stage) or a fly rail (Platform above the stage on either stage left or stage right.

Stage Left - This is performers left, facing the audience.

Stage Right - This is performers right, facing the audience.

Up Stage refers to an area away from the audience. 

Down Stage refers to an area of the stage closer to the audience.

So "upstage right" is an area looking at the audience that is on the right side of the stage and away from the audience.

"Downstage right" is an area of the stage looking at the audience that is to the right and also towards the audience. 

These terms are used by both performers and technical people running a show.

Break a Leg 

There are a couple of very different meanings for the term "Break a Leg."

One is that you wish the very worst for a stage production or the members of that production to indicate the very best. It's like wishing someone the worst when you really meant the best. But wishing someone the best could mean bad luck.

Another and very different meaning for the term "break a leg." has to do with luck again, but this time when scenery is flown in from a high tower above. The LEG coming in (down) fast, hits the stage (deck) hard and the material is said to break.

But keeping it simple, you will need very little of these parts to a stage.... 

You will certainly need someone to say to you "Break a Leg."

Keeping it Simple.

Some very different basic aspects have to come together to all create a theatre company for you. A theatre company that will work for you.

There are the physical aspects, as in a building to put on a show, a stage area, lighting so people can see your production, sets for performers to play in, costumes for them to wear and props to add to everything and all of these are there to enhance the show itself.

There is the subject matter of what you are doing. Is it a comedy, tragedy, mystery, or a musical, a dance production, or has is some form of multi-media platform? 

Then we need those performers, from one to many.

Now..

Having a great theatre space is wonderful. Perfect even, but certainly not necessary at all. Certainly not that important in the beginning... and maybe never.
What you basically need is a space and that is all. 
So..
Keep it simple.

Subject matter is important but in the beginning I have found it is better to keep things simple. I chose comedy, in fact three one act comedy plays. You can choose anything you want to do of course.
So..
Keep it simple.

Performers, yes the talent is everywhere and one will never ever get into a short supply there.
So..
Keep it simple.

Keeping everything simple in the beginning and you will make it easier on yourself. There will be more work than you have ever experienced anyway, so keeping it all simple, just makes that work a little less. A lot less easier to work with.

When I started my theatre company, I basically thought that I knew it all. Wow was that an eye opener. Yes I had been in professional theatre before and as well had been involved in some community level theatre. I had acted. I had designed sets. I had built and painted sets. I had made props. I had worked in wardrobe departments. I had designed, set up and operated lighting. I had run shows backstage. I had worked in theatre schools teaching what I knew. 
I had done it all. 
But in reality, as I found out,  I had also not done anything at all.

I had never owned, operated or produced a show that was mine and mine alone to create. 

I knew the mechanics of theatre, but I also had a lot to learn. 
Doing it the hard way, meant that I had to find out all of that the hard way. 
You will also need to learn and that is why I am doing this, offering what I know to anyone that wants to learn.

Break a leg...