Funding school theater is always a challenge. While a few schools offer an annual budget for school productions, most drama clubs are left with whatever revenue they take in from the previous production. Ticket pricing is a challenge: you want to make the show cheap enough to attract an audience but not so cheap that it seems like a waste of time (students don't have much faith in the quality of a $1 show.) Once you get the ticket price down, there are other revenue streams to consider. Here are a few easy options for adding a couple hundred extra dollars to your next production budget. Concessions Concessions don't have to be a daunting task. If you have absolutely no budget to start with, you can ask parents to bring cupcakes and cookies from home. Parents who don't have time to bake can offer to grab a case of soda and a bag of ice. All you need is a table, a cooler, and a cash box-- oh, and a volunteer parent to run the table. Do you have a little padding in you
Last year, when I directed Romeo and Juliet , I printed off a few dozen audition packets. When I ran out and couldn't make it to the copier, I worried that the kids who came by to get them would meet that obstacle and decide not to turn out again. I worried that if I wasn't in my room at all times, that someone with potential might miss their chance. I worried an awful lot, but you tend to do that when launching an endeavor as big as a full-length Shakespeare play at a new school. Then I got an idea from my colleague, our choir director. He suggested for our musical that we make all of the audition tracks available in a Google Drive folded. The benefits? We don't have to individually share the link with students who are interested People who aren't part of our school Google network can't access it We can leave a URL on the call board and we won't miss anyone who isn't in one of our classes Since then, my school has gone to Google Drive for all Perf