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Producing Your Own Play - 2003

© Dave Brandl

Two years ago I presented three articles on how to produce your own play (Producing Your Own Play, Part 2, and Part 3). The articles described the various components needed to mount a production, and ultimately concluded that one way to achieve the production without spending significant amounts of money was to team up with a local school and present the play as part of a fundraising event for the school.

End result: The play gets produced and viewed by a paying audience; the facilities are obtained without out-of-pocket costs from the playwright, director, or producer; and the school is delighted to have money raised on its behalf.

At that time I had produced such shows for three years at a school my daughters attend. Two years and three more productions later, our productions have become a school tradition. Here's the update.

The first production was in the spring of 1999. The most recent was spring of 2003. Six separate productions were mounted during that five-year span. Most of the productions consisted of two plays, and sometimes three. I had eight scripts produced, along with one of my wife's. Some were full-length; some were short one-acts.

As for the school, we were allotted school facilities for rehearsals and productions at no cost. The school benefited from us raising about $2,500 from those six productions, net after production costs and royalty payments. While that may not seem like a huge amount, during these days of unstable finances, the administration eagerly welcomed the money.

The productions saw considerable growth, too. Probably 150 different actors have participated in these shows. Two of my daughters and three other kids from the school were in each of the six productions. Since the school otherwise had no drama offerings, these children (and in some cases, their parents) had theatrical opportunities they would not have had otherwise. Also included were neighborhood kids who went to other schools, and parents from the communities, too. In short, we have created a living and growing theatrical community. During the last three productions, I was traveling out of town a lot on business. Two different directors volunteered to help out, so I acted mostly as executive producer. However, this way those two directors also got opportunities to work on their craft.

From my perspective as a playwright, all these productions have had a very positive effect on both the scripts and my own experiences. For one thing, I like to have someone else direct an initial performance of one of my new scripts so I can determine whether I achieved what I wanted in the printed page.

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