How long should a run be?
Mon, 13 Sept 2010, 04:01 pmGordon the Optom10 posts in thread
How long should a run be?
Mon, 13 Sept 2010, 04:01 pm There was a show a few weeks ago that I had seen, which had odd faults that I thought would sort themselves as the season went on, however they didn’t, and the show was later described as ‘dire’. Recently a couple whose opinion I respect told me, that another comedy that I had really enjoyed and highly recommended was awful. This presentation was by a well-established and respected company. On the night that I saw this play it was at it’s best for timing, pace, interaction, visuals etc, yet according to my friends, with their performance nothing worked. Even the story was hard to follow, and the cast appeared to be floundering - there was certainly no magic there.
Every company has the odd bad performance, but what I am wondering is, with community theatre especially, does ennui set in towards the final show?
In the UK the pantomime season runs for up to three months, even the Curtin pantomimes used to run for 32 shows, by the end of which the cast were exhausted – now it is around only 12 shows. Recently ‘King Lear’ was on a long national tour, but the cast still kept up the quality. Should the audience, or the producer, be prepared to accept large variations in the nightly standard of amateur theatre?
Because a play or its writer is well known, or the show has a famous TV background, does this mean that the number of performances should be increased to meet public demand? Should the season be set at what the cast are capable of handling? Or are some runs simply too long?
Every company has the odd bad performance, but what I am wondering is, with community theatre especially, does ennui set in towards the final show?
In the UK the pantomime season runs for up to three months, even the Curtin pantomimes used to run for 32 shows, by the end of which the cast were exhausted – now it is around only 12 shows. Recently ‘King Lear’ was on a long national tour, but the cast still kept up the quality. Should the audience, or the producer, be prepared to accept large variations in the nightly standard of amateur theatre?
Because a play or its writer is well known, or the show has a famous TV background, does this mean that the number of performances should be increased to meet public demand? Should the season be set at what the cast are capable of handling? Or are some runs simply too long?
If you look at it purely
Wed, 15 Sept 2010, 12:56 pmIf you look at it purely from a monetary point, no club is going to do 12 half full shows if they can play to the same audience over 6 performances. Why pay the extra $1000 in rights?
It's not quite that simple though. From my experience, audiences tend to avoid opening weekend, as they think in comm. theatre that the show will be underdone in the first weekend. I was recently involved in Away at Old Mill, where the first weekend played to half full houses, and the rest of the season was almost sold out, and people were turned away. Should they have come on opening weekend?
Down the road at Melville, we are currently standardised on 9 performances over 3 weekends. This gives the actors a decent break to recharge, and gives our audience a fair chance of picking a night that suits them. Sometimes houses are full, sometimes not - it's hard to pick.
Our current one act season is only 6 performances, as it tends to draw less numbers historically. Next year, our first season is Zastrozzi, which few people will be familiar with, so we have decided to run it for 7 performances over 2 weekends.
Conversley, we think our final season for 2011, The Mousetrap, will draw good audience numbers, hence we have scheduled 12 performances over 4 weeks.
If you take Tom's 4-5 performances, there is the risk that prospective audience members will miss it due to being unavailable at any time during a short run.
Horses for courses.
www.meltheco.org.au