We found a business that wanted to donate two hundred pounds to our performance. We also managed to sell some advisement space in our programs to local businesses including dance, vintage fashion and vinyl shops, a taxi rank and local garage this generated a revenue of five hundred pounds. We have designed the programs ourselves and printing costs will be one hundred pounds to produce, therefore making a profit of four hundred pounds on programs.
For our own advertisement we have contacted over fifty businesses and twenty schools who have agreed to let us put posters up in their windows and leave flyers. We have agreed with a print works that the total cost for one hundred and fifty posters and five thousand flyers on 150gm paper will be one hundred and fifty pounds. Four weeks before the performance we will put posters up in as many shops and businesses as we can in the surrounding areas of the theatre. Two weeks before the performance we will flyer every day, again in the surrounding areas to promote the show.
We have found actor that will work for free as they want the experience on their actors CV, however we will give a one of payment of fifty pounds as a thank you gift. They are from Yorkshire and so have the correct dialect as written in the production. They only ask for their transport and accommodation to be provided. We have allowed for fifty pounds travel expenses per actor and we will provide accommodation for them at our student halls of residence. We are going to provide our own stage management and lighting designer. The theatre comes with a fully functioning lighting desk which is included in the price. We will assemble the majority set ourselves as it is very simple the theatre provides one technician for four hours a day, included in the price so they will run the tech rehearsals and help with any heavy duty set.
Like A Virgin - Evaluation
We feel that the production we have chosen will work well and we will make a profit. We choose the play as it is fun and has a large demographic, women who grew up in the eighties will want to come for the nostalgia and they will want to bring their children who will also want to come as the eighties fashion and style is coming back into trend. One of the weaknesses that we found was that although we did have a large demographic we felt it could be seen to exclude men as the main characters are women and it has a somewhat feminine plot line. Therefore we may have cut out prospective audience down quite considerably.
We choose to do an amateur production because the rights are much cheaper and it is a much more realistic aim. It also allowed us to save costs on actors and set design. It also meant that our tickets were cheaper encouraging more people to come. One of the weaknesses of choosing to do an amateur production in London however, is that there is such a wide range of professional work to compete with that an audience might expect a high budget performance the likes of which an amateur performance can’t achieve.
We chose a one hundred seat theatre as this is a reasonable and achievable target audience figure, we chose the Cock Pit theatre as it was the right size, in a popular location and has reasonable hire costs. It is a good location as it is in central London; however it is not in the West End where people expect to go to the theatre so we may lose custom because of this. It was also a slightly larger theatre than we were hoping for which means we will have to do of advertisement to ensure that we get a good return on the ticket sales.
Another one of our strengths is that we found actors willing to work for minimal cost, that actually have the regional accent that is appropriate for this play. They are post-graduate students; they therefore have experience in working hard towards something, and taking direction. They were also members of the drama society and so therefore have theatrical experience. They are all currently working part time jobs, which means they are flexible when arranging time for rehearsals. However we will incur extra cost by having actors that are not in London, such as transportation and accommodation. It will also mean that they will have to travel quite frequently down to London for a five to eight week rehearsal period.
We have found that lots of people are willing to donate items for the set, which means we were able to keep costs low and meant that we could find lots of eighties style items for the set. Choosing a play with an eighties theme meant that sourcing costumes was relatively easy as the eighties trend is currently back in fashion. However it also meant that eighties fashion is more desirable and so more expensive. We also told everyone that we bought the furniture and costumes from that once the play has finished we will sell the items and give the proceeds to the Teenage Cancer Trust, this encouraged people to give us further discounts. Nevertheless this good deed will leave us out of pocket for the set however we will make enough money from ticket sales to allow for this and we may encourage ticket sales if people see that we are supporting the charity.
We felt that choosing to have the performance on a bank holiday weekend would mean that people will have a long weekend off and will be looking for things to do to fill their time. However realistically it means that a lot of people will be going away for the weekend which may cut our potential audience figures down. If we were to reschedule the performance perhaps during summer would be better although then we would have been faced with similar issues.
by
sc_josieb123 (student)
