Having been producer of Hand Me Down Theatre for just over a month now, I thought it was time to share some of my experiences with the role so far.
The first, simple task that I have been dealing with is booking rehearsal space. While having the LPAC at our disposal has made this a significantly easier and cheaper feat than it would be if I were to be booking space in a separate venue, it is a task that has required a lot of coordination. This is because being a cast of 9 very busy people, we do not all run from the same time table. Finding a time that is suitable for us all was therefore the first “challenge” that I came across. However, until we break up for Easter, we managed to secure Wednesday 1-3pm as our rehearsal slot, though a lot of the rehearsals in this time have had to take place in the main admin building of the university.
Below is an image of the company’s rehearsal time table for after Easter. I hope to add more dates to this in the coming weeks to ensure that the company meets at least three times a week in the fortnight before the show. This timetable is no inclusive of production meetings, which do not normally require studio space.
In order for this time table to work effectively, I have had to coordinate other members of the company to book sets times and spaces on my behalf. This is because under the LSPA studio bookings policy each individual is not allowed to book more than two hours in a studio per day. I have therefore employed the help of a number of company members to book studio space according to my planned timetable.
As well as booking space, our finance manager and I have been in discussion over our overall budget. Below is a representation of the allocated budget as it was originally forecast. However, following a meeting with Dominic and further discussions, this has now changed. The money we have allocated money to ‘copy right’, for example, has now been spread out over marketing and costume/props sectors, as we no longer foresee that we will need to buy any performance rights. This is because while our piece is made up of other people’s words, we are using so little of each speech, or changing it enough for it to be considered “fair use” under the copy right laws.
Graph by Kayleigh Brewster
The reason behind the reallocation of certain areas of our budget is that realistically the initial budget covered all of the areas of the production that we thought might require money. Having reviewed our current production ideas we can now see that some of the areas will require far less money, if any at all. This reallocation of funds has benefited departments such as marketing significantly. This is beneficial to the company as a whole, as this is our first performance as a company, and we are aware that because we are not an established name on the theatre scene, and we do not have a dedicated following, that we will need to have a strong marketing campaign to get a good audience for out debut piece.