If you decide to do a show in a house that is 99 seats or less, you have already entered into competition with hundreds of other companies. You're up against the companies that have their own space, the group of college kids that decided to do a revival of All my Sons (Oh wait, I think someone else has that already), and, of course, the guy who has decided to do a show where he wears a rubber ducky suit and smears peanut butter all over himself (don't laugh, it happens).
Believe it or not, you'll have something in common with all of these people. Guess what it is? The need to FILL SEATS.
Let's take a second to do a little math. You normally rent a theatre space for a week at a cost between $2,000 and $5,000, right? If you decide to do an AEA Showcase (which most people do) your top ticket price is $18.00; if you decide to go non-union you may be able to charge up to $20. So now let's say you have a 50 seat house and a modest six show run . . . got your calculators out?
AEA Showcase
50 seats sold out run X 18 = $900 x 6 = $5,400.00
NON-AEA Showcase
50 seats sold out run x 20= $1,000 x 6= $6,000.00
This means selling every seat (that means NO comps) you MAY cover the cost of your space and if you're an AEA showcase, AEA actors get in for free on a stand-by basis making that number go down considerably. So right at the beginning you can see the numbers are against you. The bigger your house, the more expensive the rent will be, and you can't get away with charging too high of a price because the rubber ducky guy is probably down the street charging ten bucks a head. So it stands to reason that in the 99 seat or less arena, you have to go for big houses or go home.
When I first started producing I was the hype man. I made phone calls, sent postcards, left postcards in the mailboxes of fellow faculty members, stood on the street outside my show and gave people fliers and, even then, I was lucky to fill half the house. It wasn't until later in the game I realized that as much as I wanted to, I couldn't do it all and I needed help.
If you want to make sure you sell your houses, you need to have a team. That team starts with YOUR cast and crew. As a producer you are the hype person, but your time is better spent hyping up your cast and crew about a show. Nobody sells a show better than the people who know about it and are proud of it. If you get your team hyped, they will help sell your show and you will have more success. Now, does this always work? Will they always sell your show?
NOPE. Sometimes your cast won't do much at all, but you never know unless you try. AND if you're passionate about your product, they will be too and if you find the right team of passionate people, you may end up like these guys.
Excelsior!
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