Marketing Approaches to Community Theater

Community theater ... the name conjures up images of a stocky matron named Mabel Dunkel, wearing a bed-sheet toga, reciting "Out, darned spot," in the Northern Upper Sleepytown Dramatic Society's annual summer production, attended by the remaining 30 town residents who are not involved. Fortunately, the reality of community theater is quite different.

You're in good company. Shakespeare, Moliere, and Mozart performed for royalty, but they also wrote works specifically for community productions.

But my work is too advanced, too unconventional for community theater.

Henrik Ibsen shocked the world when his heroine, Nora, stood up for women's independence in A Doll's House. Edward Albee and Christopher Durang were once regarded as extreme and revolutionary because they broke rules. Today, they are highly respected and their plays are regularly produced by schools and small theaters. Called "too radical, too special, and too intellectual" when it premiered, The Man of La Mancha is a staple of musical theater. Perhaps half of all community theater productions are works of classic and respected playwrights.

Community theater has a good track record. Regardless of the trends and cycles of Broadway, countless amateur and semi-professional theaters around the world continue to produce live drama, as average citizens shed their everyday clothes and assume new and different personas to hear audiences laugh, gasp, and applaud. And their friends and relatives, and even strangers, enthusiastically patronize these productions.

There's no money in community theater ... it's all on Broadway.

Don't believe it. There are thousands of theater groups in North America, plus colleges, high schools, junior high/middle schools, churches, and social organizations. All of them pay royalties to produce plays, an average of $50 to perform one full-length show one time. Many groups determine their production season by researching publishers' play catalogs; reading descriptions, cast sizes, and set requirements; requesting (and paying $5 for) a reading copy; and then paying royalties for each performance, plus $5 for each additional script (purchasing one copy for each member of the cast, plus one for the director). The standard split between publisher and playwright is 50/50 for performance rights and 90/10 for book copies. (These numbers illustrate general guidelines, and may vary among publishers and markets.)

Examples

On any given weekend, perhaps 25 theaters perform The Odd Couple. Neil Simon may be earning $1,250 EACH WEEK FOR ONE PLAY.

25 theaters x 2 performances per weekend = 50 performances

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