There’s No Business

Like Show Business

Like No Business

I know . . .

How to Put on a Play

My former life as a stage manager

Three Take-Aways

I. Have a VisionII. Choose the Right Team

III.Satisfy Your Stake Holders

Have a Vision . . . the Goodman is committed to producing both classic

and contemporary works, giving full voice to a wide range of artists and visions. . . . By dedicating itself to three

guiding principles—quality, diversity, and community—Goodman Theatre seeks to be the premier cultural organization in Chicago, providing productions and programs that make an essential contribution to the quality of life in our city.

Have a Vision The Neo-Futurists are a collective of wildly productive writer/director/performers who create:

•Theater that is a fusion of sport, poetry, and living-newspaper.•Non-illusory, interactive performance that conveys our experiences and ideas as directly and honestly as possible.•Immediate, unreproducable events at headslappingly affordable prices.

We embrace those unreached or unmoved by conventional theater-inspiring them to thought, feeling, and action.

Have a Vision

Choose a play

Romeo & Juliet Contemporary Piece

Musical

Improv

Situational Comedy

Develop Vision for the PlayClassic set in modern

times

Slapstick HumorPeriod Piece

Minimalist

Choose the Right Team

Pre-ProductionBefore auditions and rehearsal, the director works with designers, possibly

the music director & choreographer to develop the vision of the show.

Set Designer Lighting Designer

Pre-ProductionCostume Designer Wigs & Makeup Designer

Sound Designer

CastingWhat

Posting auditions

Hosting auditions

Call-backs

Final casting

Who

Director

Casting Director

Choreographer

Musical Director

Hopeful Actors

The right people for the part to build a good ensemble

Rehearsal

RehearsalWho?Director

Actors

Designers

Stage Managers

Voice Coach

Rehearsal Pianist

Musical Director

Fight & Dance Choreographers

What?

Read through & table work

Design Presentation

Blocking

Acting

Dancing

Singing

Mean While . . . Set is getting built

Props are getting found and/or made

Costumes are getting bought, rented, or sewn

Lights are getting planned, prepped, hung, and circuited

Sound is getting designed

And hopefully Tickets are getting sold!

And back at rehearsal . . . Director is asking for more . . .

Props are getting added . . .

Questions about how the set will work . . .

More Singing, Dancing, Blocking . . .

Actors learning lines . . .

Actors forgetting lines . . .

Actors are remembering their lines but getting them wrong . . .

There are notes about props, sound cues, lights, the way costumes work

Someone’s got to be tracking and communicating all of this, right?!?!

Technical Rehearsal“the costumes, the scenery, the make-up, the props . . . “

All elements come together at once for the first time on stage.

Technical Rehearsal

Dress Rehearsal

Confident no one will dieAnd Open . . .

Satisfy Stake Holders

Everyone!!

Satisfy Stake HoldersDirector

AudienceActors

ProducerDesigners

Technical People

People do theatre because they love it.It sure ain’t for the $$.

No Business Like Show Business

Except maybe software development?

I. Have a VisionII. Choose the Right Team

III.Satisfy Your Stake Holders