planning a preforming arts event

The following steps are a brief summary of the stages of planning a theatre production, although some of the steps may vary depending on the place of event.

·         Decide on what it is you wish to achieve through hosting this event is it just for financial reasons or is there a deeper reason for this event is there an underlying message that you wish to get across to the audience as the producer.

·         Talk to people who have put on your production in the past ask how they went about it and the problems and issues they came up against and how these resolved them, if we are holding the production we could do what we did for we will rock you and simply Google the show and look at past concepts online.

·         Sort out funding for the performance so that you have a budget to work from is it being funded by the receiving house i.e. college or do you need to go out and raise funding for it yourself?

·         Initial assessment of the space that the performance is going to happen in decide on what needs to be done with the space and decide if this makes the space irrelevant or can you edit your piece to suit the space, also does the space have all the facilities you will need for putting on a show such as toilets.

·         Project management certain timescales need to be agreed on so that deadlines are not missed and the show runs as a success such as:

·         Consultant Selection

·         User Group Survey

·         Building Program, Design Development, Specifications and Tendering

·         Financial Re-Planning

·         Fund Raising, Marketing, Programming and Construction

·         OPENING! ....Programming, Operations (and Financial Planning....)

·         Decide on a project manager who has good organisational and people skills who make sure that all deadlines are met.

·         The management team should then meet to decide on goals and a timescale and what needs to be done by when.

·         To achieve funding an outside visitor may be required to decide on the viability of the production to decide on what kind of funding it will need i.e. in college this will be one of the governors.

·         Make a business plan of income outcome times of shows ticket prices budgeting and hospitality cost to make sure your production is not a financial loss to begin with.

·         Make a chart detailing all of the deadlines so each department knows what needs to be done by when(the notice board in P110)

·         Hire a team for the show i.e. stage manager, set builders, lighting operators, sound engineers, and front of house making sure each of them has the skillset required of them, in my experience this generally does not need to be done at Priestley college as there is a course that does production arts that can take the place of this team.

·         Sort out budgeting for the production team to build/hire sets costume props etc. and decide on a time scale for this to be completed to.

·         Decide on a layout for the scape i.e. audience and performance space.

·         Technical rehearsal

·         Dress rehearsal

·         Front of house and production teams take over running of show for run period

"No matter how much wisdom may go into planning... the measure of its success always will be in the spirit and mettle of the individuals engaged in its execution.

No matter how much treasure may support a project, or how elaborate its organization, or how detailed and farsighted its operational scheme, the human element is always the central one."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower