Joe Egg in today's West

If this is any help at all, I am a reporter and spent many, many years writing about arts for local papers. We get piles of illiterate press releases every day. The arts section is often written very quickly and frankly, if you can put together something very straight-forward and legible with a clear local angle (something new is always good, not offering up the same old face for a pic) you'll probably get a guernsey. Give a phone number for an actor or two, list which suburb they live in and you increase your chances. If your cast/crew is drawn from a wide area then provide a cast member relevant to each paper. They'll probably localise a version. (NB, they won't interview your stage manager or lighting guy... don't offer them up... it makes you look desperate). Plan ahead. Not months ahead. Maybe two/three weeks out. Too early and you'll slip off the radar or be seen as annoyingly keen. Arts is usually written earlier in the week, freeing up the reporters to write the news in the last couple of days before publication - that's surprisingly worth knowing. Arts copy deadlines are much earlier than published news deadlines. Send the presser and a few days later give a follow up call. But don't say "are you going to do anything with it?" because you'll get the reporter off side. Just say you're there if you can help get people for pics etc and mention you can resend the presser if needs be. Local papers are usually keen enough to run something but you're more likely to miss out because there are a few too many theatre stories around that week and "arts is a broad church" than anything else. Seriously, make it as streamlined and uncomplicated as possible. We seriously do not care about artistic pretension or squabbling. If you're proving difficult or annoying and something easier comes up, we'll usually take it. We usually just want to quickly fill the back pages.