Theatre Management 6 & 7

The 6th chapter is about Community Theatre, which got its roots in America in the late 1600s/early 1700s. Some things that people need to consider when opening (or re-opening) a community theatre are leadership (who will be willing and able to be leaders), membership (what type of community it will be based in), capital (how much income is likely to be generated), and a constitution and by-laws by which the theatre must be run. The chapter also includes a helpful list of the administrative structure of many community theatres. A part I found interesting was when the author compared community theatre to professional theatre. He says that the quality of the community theatre depends on what level of professionalism their members are willing to be.

Chapter 7 is about College Theatre. College theatre began as early as 1871 (The St. James Theatre in New York); which unfortunately followed a 45-year gap between the introduction of schools to train professional actors and the 4-year college theatre program. Between 1914 and 1950, the growth of college theatres was large. This was the largest growth in American history thus far and is partially because of the two World Wars that America was facing. These wars attributed to the liberalizing effect that foreign countries had on youth. After a brief history of American college theatre, the chapter begins to explore the method of managing a college theatre. It mainly depends on the theatre's roll in the institution; a college devoted mainly to science and mathematics would have a very small theatre (if any at all) compared to a college dedicated to liberal arts. The chapter also discusses how to chose plays for your college theatre to produce. Various factors for these include: budget, audience, actors, technical aspects, and many others.