[wickedgrin]

Although I am not directly involved in Amateur Musical Theatre, I do know many who are and I have been a supporter of the amateur theatre all my life.

From speaking to many friends I gather amateur musical production is having a very hard time.

1. Rising costs of theatre hire and professional services and the expense of the orchestra and royalties etc. Costs for mounting productions can be from £20k to £80k plus! There are no subsidies and a society relies solely on it box office receipts to cover thie cost of the show.

2. With theatres far from full (apart from perhaps the Sat evening) it is difficult to raise ticket prices to keep ahead of these rising costs.

3. Finding a show with sufficient "box office appeal" is increasingly difficult with audiences reluctant to go and see anything they have not previously heard of. This is true in the professional theatre too. But really how many times can a society do Annie or Oliver? Audiences for amateur shows are on the decline.

4 Availabilty of shows is problematic. So many shows are restricted or unavailable. Lloyd Webber for example seems not to release anything to the amateur market, and as he has had many of the hit shows over the past 20 years - Sunset Boulevard, Evita, Cats, etc none of these are available, forcing amateurs back 50 years to the days of Rodgers and Hammerstien - Lloyd Webber now holds the rights to the Sound of Music now apparantly which is also restricted due to the pro tour.

So what does the future hold? Standards can very enormously which I think is a problem in itself - I have seen some amateur productions which have rivalled pro productions many times with big budgets and very high standards. I have also seen some truly appalling shows which have not been worth the price of admission!! I know many societies are struggling, are folding or merging. But if they cannot produce shows of a standard which the general public wish to see (gone are the days when a casts relatives can fill a theatre for a week) then I think the future is bleak.

I know many others on this board are involved in amateur theatre. What are your thoughts on this and your experiences? Any soloutions?

[Michael H]

Blimey, if I knew the solutions, I would have brought it to the committee meeting two years ago!

I have heard all of these problems raised recently, and even what we thought were "safe" choices are turning out not to be selling so well - with a budget (with an orchestra that gets paid below market rates, but isn't as big as we'd like) towards the lower end of the scale you quoted. Even then, the morale of the ensemble is a big factor in how hard people are prepared to push ticket sales for their relatives and friends.

The only really rich society round here is one where they had a large bequest some years ago.

Single-piano, modern-dress, no-set versions of The Pirates of Penzance. That's the only thing I can think would raise money. But not enough people in the society have done G&S to realise how much fun it is to do.

Right, I'm off to put some more posters up.

[VelmaMaureen]

I help at a youth amateur theatre group, where we recently did Footloose. Of course it's not the most popular show, but all of the three performances were pretty much sold out, probably because the cast was made up entirely of children aged under 20. The show was actually better than some proffesional things I've seen, and the budget was £12,000 (I think) including theatre hire and orchestra. Of course, because it's a children's thing, they had to pay to do it so this could have helped out with the budget/

Parents and relations of children will always come to see a show, but it's surprising what kind of shows children can do - not just Annie and Oliver. I do think that the unavailability of rights is a problem - I love going to see amateur productions, but seeing one wouldn't stop me seeing the proffesional version, so why do composers, paticulary ALW, think this?

[Lez]

A few years ago I was involved in the running of our local Youth Theatre and at that time there was not as much competition as there appears to be now (Stagecoach, other young people's theatre groups etc) but even then we struggled to fill a 400 seat theatre for more than 3 nights. Children all want to perform but they are not keen on people seeing them do it so they would not push ticket sales - mums had to do that. They put on some fantastic shows such as Smike, Fame, Calamity Jane & of course Oliver! with full sets and costumes and a number of ex-members now work in the industry either on-stage or behind the scenes.
Unfortunately, these days this Youth Theatre only fills the theatre for one night and use backing tracks or a keyboard instead of a band. Standards are lowered and the experience for the cast and audience alike is reduced - I wonder how many current members will go on to an acting career.

[Lynette]

A few years ago I was involved in the running of our local Youth Theatre and at that time there was not as much competition as there appears to be now (Stagecoach, other young people's theatre groups etc) but even then we struggled to fill a 400 seat theatre for more than 3 nights. Children all want to perform but they are not keen on people seeing them do it so they would not push ticket sales - mums had to do that. They put on some fantastic shows such as Smike, Fame, Calamity Jane & of course Oliver! with full sets and costumes and a number of ex-members now work in the industry either on-stage or behind the scenes.
Unfortunately, these days this Youth Theatre only fills the theatre for one night and use backing tracks or a keyboard instead of a band. Standards are lowered and the experience for the cast and audience alike is reduced - I wonder how many current members will go on to an acting career.

I thought the kids all tried for X factor these days - instant fame.

[wickedgrin]

It appears from the lack of views and responses this thread has had (340 and 4 ) it seems very few people are interested or concerned about the future of amateur musical theatre. If there is apathy on a theatre discussion board no wonder the general public are not interested.

The future is not brigtht or orange!!!!!!!!!

[Matthew Winn]

It appears from the lack of views and responses this thread has had (340 and 4 ) it seems very few people are interested or concerned about the future of amateur musical theatre.

See Warnock's Dilemma.

[Job]

4 Availabilty of shows is problematic. So many shows are restricted or unavailable. Lloyd Webber for example seems not to release anything to the amateur market, and as he has had many of the hit shows over the past 20 years - Sunset Boulevard, Evita, Cats, etc none of these are available, forcing amateurs back 50 years to the days of Rodgers and Hammerstien - Lloyd Webber now holds the rights to the Sound of Music now apparantly which is also restricted due to the pro tour.

Availability and unexpected withdrawal of shows is a perennial bugbear for those of us who put on musicals (worth noting, though, that Jesus Christ Superstar has just been re-released to amateurs after a few years' lock-up). But there are some gems out there that go way beyond R&H, L&L and Annie. I've recently had the good fortune to direct Chess, JCS, The Hired Man and a couple of Les Mizzes (school edition, because I can - although I realise how lucky that makes me) and I've got Sweeney Todd, City of Angels and several other juicy shows waiting on my 'to do' list. And that's just from someone who avoids choreography-heavy shows like the plague. If you factor in the big dance shows, there's no end of good stuff out there.

It can be frustrating to want so-o-o much to put on, say, Martin Guerre (my own big 'want'), but nevertheless there is life beyond My Fair Lady. So long as it's not The Likes of Us.

Job

[Michael H]

There's actually quite a limited amount of shows that are feasible to do in a large suburban 700-seater theatre rather than a 150-200 seater, with a dwindling society bank account and rival companies that also want to put on shows in the same space.

And shows always seem to come in gluts. There seem to be a lot of Wizard of Ozzes (Wizards of Oz?) round here at the moment. Next year, the world and his wife seem to be putting on Beauty and the Beast - which has led to plenty of suggestions of "why don't you cast X as the Beast, then we won't need the mask, ho ho ho". But I digress.

I'm sure we'll survive somehow. We have done before during worse downturns, and we've actually got really exciting plans over the next 12 months. But they all have to be well-known shows to guarantee the ticket income. The Society couldn't afford the kind of loss I made myself on Edinburgh!

[Red Momma]

There's actually quite a limited amount of shows that are feasible to do in a large suburban 700-seater theatre rather than a 150-200 seater, with a dwindling society bank account and rival companies that also want to put on shows in the same space.

And shows always seem to come in gluts. There seem to be a lot of Wizard of Ozzes (Wizards of Oz?) round here at the moment. Next year, the world and his wife seem to be putting on Beauty and the Beast - which has led to plenty of suggestions of "why don't you cast X as the Beast, then we won't need the mask, ho ho ho". But I digress.

I'm sure we'll survive somehow. We have done before during worse downturns, and we've actually got really exciting plans over the next 12 months. But they all have to be well-known shows to guarantee the ticket income. The Society couldn't afford the kind of loss I made myself on Edinburgh!

Maybe I am way off the mark here but if you are using a large suburban theatre, with its massive overheads, staffing levels, accoustics etc, perhaps you should consider using a smaller or different venue for a season or two, maybe a school hall, which is probably cheaper.

Many years ago, whern I was first involved in theatre, I started off by helping out at a youth theatre. In order to guarantee a level of tickets, every child who wanted to be in the production had to buy 10 tickets. It was then up to them to sell them on to family and friends, and although I wouldn't want to bar anyone from joining in a youth theatre production for any reason, you may find you cannot mix compassion with funding especially if they are particularly talented. "Private" arrangments can always be made.

Another thing is to do an everpopular "Songs from the Musicals" type production, so you can virtually do anything you want and to suit your cast. It would not be neccessary to have a licence as long as there is no movement and the excerpt from any show is limited to 20 minutes.
You could then ask a local dancing school to join in to do some dance numbers-to vary your programme.

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Finally take a look at this site -

http://www.guidetomusicaltheatre.com/showtypes/youth.html

I am sure you know it quite well anyway, but it contains a list of shows suitable for Youth Theatre.....not forgeting the very talented Stiles and Drewe shows.

Good Luck