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Producing

In professional theatre the Producer is the person who has the vision and drive to see a potential success, and then pull together all the people and the resourses needed to make the production happen. This is usually quite a task as producing a play is generally considered to be the hardest job in theatre. In amateur dramatics the Producer often doubles up as Director, which makes things even harder.

The job of Producer in amateur theatre is all the more challenging because of the more limited resourses. If the society doesn't have a midget, you can't cast a play that needs one, you can't dictate to the cast or the crew what you want and when you want it because the chances are that everyone you need has a whole raft of things calling on their time, and the next production is only one of them.

For these reasons Amateur Dramatics can be far more creative than professional theatre. The people can work harder, they can be more open minded, more receptive to new ideas and more willing to work around problems than many professionals. Despite the commitment and inherent professionalism of the members of each Amateur Dramatic Society, the job of Producer is still a hard one, and we think it runs something like this:

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Choose and Cast The Play

This is probably the greatest difference between Amateur and Professional Theatre. In professional theatre you can choose a play and then cast to precisely match the physical descriptions of the characters you want to portray. Most actors are out of work, so the chances are that if you want something then it's out there, it's available and it can do everything that the script demands - be that real tears, anger, fear, stutters or whatever accent or inflexion you need.

In Amateur Theatre, you have a pool of people, say about thirty. They can usually act, because people who can't act don't get cast, but they aren't always available, they aren't always the right height, weight or age. Sometimes you have to make sure that absolutely everyone can do a convincing Welsh accent before you can cast a Welsh play - one cast member below par is one too many. More than anything else, the restrictions on casting influence the shape of the final production.

The amateur producer will typically need to read through a handful of pre-screened plays before they can decide upon one that they can plausably cast. Once that's done, the producer's selection goes to the directors of the society, who, each looking from a different skilled perspective (lighting, set, sound etc.), confirm that they think they can make it all happen - even if they haven't worked out exactly how.

Now the hard work really begins...

Direct The Action

Directing is the most time consuming part of producing, which is why it's always a luxury to have a Director separate to the Producer. Stannington Players sometimes separate the roles for very large productions, such as for our pantomines. Directing is also the most delicate task as the actors are the people most likely to have tears before bedtime, and the one's hardest to replace. Typically a producer will run two rehearsals a week, but unlike the actors, they won't be able to duck out of any of them. The producer, in the role of director, will need an intimate knowledge of the play and will need to pick out how each part ought to be played witnout offending the often delicate egos of the cast, who more often than not, will need a nudge in the right direction - especially if their characters are less than glamourous or have to duck out of the limelight while someone else takes the biscuit.

A good director will cast people who will research and think about the roles they have to portray - thereby saving the Producer the job of thinking about charactorisation. The director then just has to sit back and watch the Production unfold as the actors create it, while retaining the power of veto over anything that clearly doesn't work or goes against the grain of what the script demands.

Good producers and directors treat the cast the same as they do the crew; they assume that they all have a skill in which the are reasonably technically competent and leave them to it. The Producer always retains the authority and the vision of what the production ought to look and feel like, but leaves the details to the people who are focussed on those aspects of the production and those alone. Within a month of rehearsals the chances are that almost every actor knows their charactor better than anyone else and the secret of good direction is to recognise that, use it, take a balanced view of the suggestions that come your way, and not be frightened of either accepting or deferring them. The best directors say " ... just try it, if it doesn't work, we'll try something else ...", they get what they want, and make the actors feel as if they haven't been directed at all ...

Oversee The Publicity

Publicity is important. There's no point in running a play if no-one want's to come and see it, and no-one is ever going to know about it unless you tell them. Usually a publicist will have an armoury of posters, local newspaper contacts, leaflets and other media with which to promote your production, and they'll have a mass of well tried and tested avenues which should not be interferred with without runing the risk of damaging the overall penetration of the production.

But ... the thing about publicity is every idea is a good idea, everything works and nothing should be discarded. The Producer's role in publicity is to oversee, to suggest new things or to appoint new people with new ideas, and to make sure that the posters, information and literature that goes out is consistent with the overall message the producer wants to send. Another difficult job, but there's no point in Producing if you just want to maintain the status quo, is there?

Approve The Wardrobe

As soon as a member of the cast walks on stage then the audience forms a picture of their character based on the way they walk, their body language and the way they dress. Of these things, the producer and the wardrobe manager have the greatest control over dress and so should work to ensure that the audience read into the dress of the characters on stage what the wardrobe manager and producer write in their costumes.

Approving the wardrobe isn't often a difficult task, sometimes it can be as easy as suggesting styles and colours to members of the cast and asking them to construct stereotype outfits from their own wardrobes for you to approve, but more often than not that isn't the case. Period productions are difficult, as are those where cast members are required to wear items that the cast themselves don't own or that eager hands of the society can't create. Sometimes the only options available are to hire, in which case the producer should oversee the expense.

Underestimating the impact of wardrobe is the error of the inexperienced Producer, so pay attention!

Talk To The Technical People

The back of every script has a lighting and an effects plot, in which the writer lists the sound, lighting and other special effects they imagine the play should be produced with. These can be as simple as "Bang", "Thud" and "Crash, the "Telephone" or "Doorbell", a "Gunshot" or a "Scream". The ubiquitous "Rumble of Thunder" and "Flash of Lightening", the less common "Seagull and Surf Sounds", "Picture Jumps off the "Wall" or the damn near impossible "Peter Pan flies away" or "At that moment, the kettle comes to the boil".

Whatever happens, be that a props assistant clopping coconut halves together offstage, someone getting sprayed with tomato ketchup out of a box, smoke bollowing up through the floor or some very expensive and difficult audio-visuals, someone has to make it happen convincingly and in a way that doesn't allow the audience to see the cards up your sleeves. At the earliest possible opportunity the Producer needs to talk to the technical people who make all of this happen, and explain precisely what the scripts demands in order to make the production convincing.

Then, they laugh at you and tell you what you can have and you adjust the script to accomodate. Then they do the impossible and without any warning at all, they deliver something truely remarkable that you didn't even know could be done. The people who do this have a hard enough time, so make sure that you talk to them as soon as possible, so they have the maximum planning, thinking and building time. It's well worth the effort.

Work With The Set Designers

In the back of every play there's a few pages on the set describing the key features the writer sees as being essential to put the production on. Sometimes there's a detailed plan showing what ought to be where, sometimes there's a brief description and sometimes there's just a list of what furniture and exits need to be available to the cast. A good producer will talk to the people who design and build the set as soon as possible after the play has been selected - this can take place even before casting has been formalised. The set designers will take a look at what's practical for the house, and may advise a different layout, or alternately they may be needed to confirm that what the producer has in mind is techical deliverable in the production timescales.

Once the overall structure of the set has been agreed then the cast can be advised of how it's going to look - be that exactly as described in the script, or horizontally inverted, with exits shifted to match the design of the theatre or maybe even completely redesigned. Once the cast have this information, they can start to build a framework in which to set their characters, and once the set designers have it they can start on building the damn thing. The impact of a good set on the audience is always clear to see as soon as the curtains go up. Another benefit that's sometimes overlooked, is the impact a professional, well designed and well constructed set can have on the cast, and what it does for their performance ...

Choose The Music

Choosing the music to accompany a production is one of the few pleasures a Producer can have without any interference from anyone else in the production team. Except maybe the Sound Engineer and the Account who deals with the royalties. Enjoy this activity safe in the knowledge that with the possible exception of a few multi-millionaire musicians, no-one is going to be upset by your selection, and listening to it when the curtains go up for the first time, knowing that all the work is done, is a very great pleasure indeed.

Signoff The Web Page

In the twenty first century the internet can play a big part in the overall success or failure of a production. People with access to the internet can take a look at what's coming up, what you've done before, what other people have done and what the play's like. They can check out who was in or working on the last production they liked and whether or not those people are working on the next one. They can see what we're planning months before any other advertising is out.

Stannington Players place great empasis on the power on the internet, which is why own home page is usually devoted to giving the surfing public a taster of our next production. We are constantly evolving our web content, but the Producer needs to make sure that graphics, tag lines, font, styles and overall presentation of the web page match their overall direction of how the production is to be presented. This activity should not be underestimated, as increasingly, more and more astute members of the public are book marking our site and receive from it their first notification of what we have planned ...

Plan Everything

Plan everything. Have meetings with everyone. Do a rehearsal schedule with agressive deadlines for learning lines, buy a big book and loads of pencils and prepared to do a lot of writing in it; Just in case you missed any of that:

Firefighting

No matter how well you think you've planned it all, things can go wrong, and when they do it always seems like it happens at the worst possible time. In theatrical terms this always means the last minute, and when things go wrong at the last minute the only things a Producer can do is:

The bottom line is, no matter how bad is seems, the show will go on, and there will NEVER be a production that goes completely right. Expect a few hiccups, but don't expect to have to deal with them on your own.

Keep Listening

The biggest mistake new producers make is wanting to control everything. It's very easy to upset cast and crew by ignoring the suggestions of the very people who are going to be doing the work. The job of producer is to tie everything together, to get everybody paddling the same canoe. Preferably in the same direction and on the same day. To do this and make it work, a Producer has to let everyone do their job and to listen and be receptive to peoples ideas. As a rule of thumb, if you're knocking back more than half the ideas you receive from the team or from individuals then the chances are you're not doing a good job. They may stop coming to you with good ideas or they could just go ahead with bad ideas without asking because they're tired of the negative feedback and the Production will suffer.

The absolute worst thing a Producer can say is "I'm the Producer and I don't want it doing like that" or "I don't like that so we're not going to use it". Good Producers are charactorised by the healthy flow of ideas and suggestions from the people best placed to comment on the areas they claim responsibility for. In the professional theatre, it isn't uncommon to just ask just ask auditioning actors to read and interpret the characters, and just pick the interpretation that works best, without any intervention. So far as is possible, this should apply to every area. Good Producers are charactorised by making everybody feel important, and that means listening to them!