Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Producing on a Shoestring Budget

As we're all recovering from Hurricane Sandy, many of our Off-Off Broadway comrades are having to scale our theatrical ideas down a bit to compensate for the week of work that most of us are losing - not to mention the greatly reduced support (both in attendance and donations from our community).  A couple of people have reached out to me to ask:

How do theaters produce on a shoestring budget?  Luckily, I'm an expert on the subject (or unluckily, but I'm an optimist). 

We seem to have this lingering idea in our society that we need to wait for something to make art.  From what I can gather, this concept is based largely on our commercial theater marketplace.  In calling it "commercial theater", I am including all of us - because our society has set a bar that everyone is judged against.  Essentially, we have been brought up to understand that art is only worthwhile when it is commercially viable.  This is a trickle-down effect that starts at the top.  In the theater world, the top is Broadway.  They get the big sets, the great lighting, the good directors, the known actors, the critical response, the most money, the most respect, and the greatest financial support from individuals in our community.

"Financial support?  But people can't donate to for-profit ventures", some of you may be thinking.  However, what's on the top ten list of things to do in NYC: See a Broadway show.  So, everyone is willing to pay for the experience of Broadway.  Good or bad, it's something we should all live through, society tells us.  No one is running to Off-Off Broadway - or even Off-Broadway.

When we think of what is "good" or "professional" or "accepted" or "successful", the paradigm always starts with the pinnacle of commercial theater.  Building upon that concept, the best regional theaters are all trying to land shows on Broadway, so everything is set up for future success in the world market.  The best theatrical programs are going to prepare students to work in these markets, so they also have the kinds of systems that are comparable to the best of what our country can boast.  Even our high schools try to give their students that leg-up.  On every level, our country is trying to measure up to these standards in our industry.

No wonder it's become so difficult to find the heart in our business.

You didn't come here to read about what's wrong with our system, though.  You didn't come here to learn the backstory.  You came here to find out what we can do about it.  First of all, we've got to start thinking about theater as though it's an art form.  That may sound like an obvious statement.  And yet...look at other, more obvious artists and ask yourself:  Does a songwriter need the best guitar to write a song?  Does a painter hold out for the expensive paints in order to alter a canvas?  Does a writer wait for the book deal to begin writing?  In all of these examples, the artist begins with having something to say - and then they carry it out in the best way they know how.  The World will let us know if our art is viable.  That's not our job.

Now, what are shoestrings?  They aren't laces.  They are pieces of string, holding shoes together.  Shoes are meant to operate with more support.  So is theater.  The next step is in realizing that in a race that depends on the sturdiness of your shoes, you will always lose.  So, you have to change the game around.  If your shoes are going to compete with everything that our society tells us is good, it has to offer something other than fancy footwork.  The first step towards producing on a shoestring budget is to realize that YOU make the art.  The spectacle doesn't do it alone.  No amount of panache can substitute for what you bring to the table.  Your message has to be at the forefront. 

The biggest thing you can do is to come up with a concept for your play that rests on human storytelling.  We've all heard this, but it seems that very few of us believe it.  At the core of the theater is a person on a stage.  Without a person on a stage, there is no theater.  Theater can exist without a written script, without a director, without a light board, without a stage manager - even without a building.  The requirements for theater are: actors, story, audience.  That's it.  So, place your focus on that person-to-person communication.  How can the people tell the story?

It takes some practice.  I was lucky.  My theater program in my high school had no money.  We had a lot of passion and drive.  We had a black box.  We had a lot of old paint.  But all we had to fall back on was our collective creativity.  And we did a lot with just that.  My first theater company was called Poor Players for a reason.  Keep in mind that acting is primarily the suspension of disbelief, anyway.

Minimalism isn't easy.  But here are some benchmarks to help the fledgling artists in us all as we try to make art in these trying times:


Use your imagination.  Ask yourself how your story can benefit from a bare-bones staging.  It is generally good to pick plays that don't require multiple sets.  The more conceptual you can make the show, the better.  We told the story of our production of WAITING FOR LEFTY, using only Union buttons (which had our Seeing Place Eye on them), apple crates and a sepia color scheme.  Rather than telling the story as vignettes in reverie, we kept the Union Meeting alive the whole time.  The lights stayed on over the audience, and we set up the scenes as though they were skits that the committee had brought to convince the taxi drivers to take action.  When audiences entered the theater, the cast was already improvising their way into the play for the first half an hour until "curtain time", when we started Clifford Odets' written play.  Our focus was the life on stage.

Start from where you are.  See if what you already have can work.  In our production of THREE SISTERS, we knew from the get-go that we were not going to be able to create a 1904 Russian Mansion realistically on stage.  But rather than aiming for the moon and falling short with shoddy costumes and the like, we opted to create a concept for what we wish we had and do our best to suggest that concept.  We set up the production as though it were a designer run of the show that still had elements of rehearsal, so that the seams of our work were showing - literally.  Costumes were half-finished with some elements from the present.  Some props and set-pieces were represented by signs.  We had a wooden block that said "Clock", pieces of paper that said "Book" or "Picture frame".  We had a ladder with "Stairs" written next to it.  There were realistic elements from both the present time and 1904.  We had a real Russian Samovar.  And we also had Whoppers that my Andrey was stress-eating.  We had a violin onstage that I practiced in concert with some of the greats on our soundtrack during scene changes and intermission.  We had our Stage Manager onstage, calling cues.  The concept was to meld our current time with the past, so that our audience would associate with Chekhov's characters in the present time, rather than holding them as a distant relic from our history.  We could have made our show pretty realistic - much more than we originally thought.  We actually opted to remove several elements toward the end to make sure that the concept was clear.  We didn't want to seem like we were offering the pared-down version.  It had to seem intentional.  And so it was.

Cut corners wherever you can.  Save your money for the stage.  The biggest hurdle is rehearsal space.  It usually costs almost as much as the performance space.  But that's not the only place you can save a lot of money.  Use as much wardrobe and props as you can from your actors.  On the showcase code, you can't require any AEA actor to loan their own clothing or props, but you can always make a request.  Most actors prefer to wear their clothes if they make sense within the concept, because they know their clothes will fit.  And then your major cost is in weekly laundry.  Our Props and Costumes Manager, Gabrielle Loneck, is currently on a mission to find as much as possible for our entire Fourth Season from within our company and their resources.  Re-use everything you can.  Ask other theater companies, who have recently produced the shows you're doing, if they still have any odd props, costumes, or set-pieces in storage.  They'd probably much rather get a few bucks for it than take up their space with it, when they might not use it again.  Look into Build It Green for your construction needs.  Look on Craigslist.  Go to second-hand stores.  Don't buy top-dollar anything unless it is your last resort.

Be creative.  You need to think outside of the box.  When we started The Seeing Place, I took a shot in the dark.  A regular at my old restaurant was leaving for Paris and didn't want to clean his $4,000 a month apartment and get rid of all of the things in it.  I offered to do it for him.  As a result, he donated his apartment for 2 months for our rehearsal period for THE CREDEAUX CANVAS three years ago.  We rehearsed a good amount of our production of WAITING FOR LEFTY in St. Nicholas Park.  We've rehearsed in our living room, donated living rooms, my bedroom, you name it.  We took over my old apartment and used my living room, hallway, bathrooms, kitchen, and several bedrooms for various entrances and backstage areas on many of our initial productions.  I've worked with theater companies that used office lobbies, museums, libraries, churches, courtyards, exercise studios on off hours, you name it.  Just keep in mind that The Group Theater had passion and craft.  They rehearsed (and lived) in an apartment for much of their beginnings.  It doesn't take as much as you may think to make art together.


Ask for help.  You'll be surprised at how much you'll get.  Try to get everything possible donated.  In-Kind donations are essential.  What are In-Kind Donations?  Donations of goods or services.  Most people can donate a lot more than they think they can.  This is a tactic I learned from our Managing Director, Erin Cronican.  And I have to admit that I was doubtful.  But we've been donated paint, rollers, ladders, vacuum cleaners, flooring, printer ink, doors, windows, even scripts (that's a big one for people with office jobs) - just because we asked.  Even donations of time are a big deal.  Get your friends to help you promote your show if they can't afford to do anything else.  It all goes a long way.  At Erin's suggestion, we reached out to everyone we knew to help spread the word about our last production of DANNY AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA.  As a result, we nearly sold out our entire Off-Broadway Debut.

Get your community involved.  Make postcards and leave them everywhere you can.  Don't just rely on rehearsal spaces and audition rooms.  You want the theater-going world to know about your show.  So, get your postcards in every theater you can.  Don't stop there.  Go to pizza places, laundromats, bars, bike shops, libraries, ANYWHERE AND EVERYWHERE.  Let people know what you're doing.  Post your show online everywhere you can.  Talk about it on the social networks.  Ask every blogger and reviewer you can get ahold of to come see your show.  You don't need a publicist.  You just need a diligent group. 

Yes, you will need more money than you have.  But you don't need to rely on Kickstarter and IndieGoGo - though they are great resources.  You also don't need to be 501(c)3 to receive tax-deductible donations.  You can apply to become a sponsored project with Fractured Atlas (as we have) - which is an umbrella organization that offers fiscal sponsorship to upstart companies and projects.  But you can also make it fun.  Have a party to fund-raise for your show.  That will help you build some excitement around it as well. Lots of bars are willing to host events and give your crew a discount or kick back a dollar for every drink.  Or you can hold your own.  Spaces are hard to find, but we've used a lot of artist flats in the past.  We've also rented theater spaces and done staged readings as fundraisers, where we've taken donations for Hot Spiced Wine and novelty drinks. 

IN FACT, The Seeing Place will be holding our SEASON FOUR LAUNCH PARTY this Friday night from 7pm-2am.  If you're in the NYC area, come join us!  We'll have Dancing and Drama and the cheapest Drinks you're bound to find.  And all of the proceeds go to making great theater happen.

Thanks for reading.  We'd love to hear your stories and ideas.  Please leave a comment and tell us a story about a show that you've seen or done that built something out of nothing.

I'd tell mine, but you've already read my stories.  Now, I wanna hear yours!

25 comments:

  1. This doesn't really count because it doesn't involve full productions or audiences, but... in 2010 I founded and still produce a monthly musical reading series for actors/singers who want to enjoy the art of reading & singing through a musical.

    So often, we focus on doing art so that we can get somewhere in "the biz" so that when we finally "make it" in the biz we can do that art we dreamed of. (Got that?) Meanwhile, a good majority of my time with musicals was consisting of 2 minute EPA auditions and singing the greatest hits in my bedroom. I got fed up with waiting for that perfect project to come along, so I created these musical readings.

    Now, once a month, 20+ actors (from an overall group of about 90) throw in $20 each to cover the costs for a space & a pianist and we plow through a "cold read" of a full musical. These readings are private - no industry, no agents - no one but our fellow performers or close family members are allowed to attend. It's a place for fun, a place for growth, and a place to cherish the art of playing.

    So, for me, I guess a "benchmark" is never believing that your idea is too small to make happen. Sometimes we think, "Oh, this is just a silly thought. Who would care?" But you never know how many people have thought of the exact same idea and not had the courage to take action. Find out what's missing in your life that, if it were possible, would make a huge difference for you, and make it happen!

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    1. Great advice. Thank you. I think it also works the other way - in never believing your idea is too big to make happen. Because daunting as those ideas are, those are just as scary. And there are at least as many people who would benefit - who are just looking for someone else to believe in the same thing.

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  2. I'm reminded of the opening lines of 'The Empty Space' by Peter Brook: "I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged." I'm also reminded of a professor in college who constantly asked if we were getting together at 4 am to talk about what had happened in class that day and make discoveries of our own.

    Art happens when and wherever there is passion and dedication. Some of the greatest work I have seen and have been a part of was "minimalist" though I hesitate to use this term as I often thought during and afterwards, maybe this play doesn't actually need any more than this. Though he makes me angry and I disagree with much of his content, David Mamet might be right when he says there are only lines on the page and the job of the actor is to tell the story.

    However the story is being told, as long as it is true, art happens, budget or none.

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    1. I'm glad that David Mamet said something that intelligible. I totally agree. Uninterpreted words don't mean anything. And the playwright can't tell a story on stage. That is the actor's job. The playwright can't even tell a full story on a page - and plays that seem full in writing, usually hit the nail over the head too much onstage and seem to regard their audience as dimwits.

      I often have difficulty with Mamet, too. He seems to cut through a lot of acting training to say things that only apply if you were a trained actor with your work in place. He's all about just saying the lines. And that works if you have something going on with you to express.

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    2. I remember that book so well! Thanks for bringing it back to my memory, Max.

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    3. For as long as I can remember...... and that's loooooong! I had made the decision to seek out "black box" theater productions because it became glaringly clear to me that it was in theaters like those that I would find some inspired and, yes, some awful theater. It was that delightful surprise when it was good that drew me to those productions. Mnimalist or shoestring productions actually are encouraging to artistic productions, because the monetary risk is so much less that people are more willing to take that kind of chance. NO producer is going to spend his Broadway bucks on experimental work.

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  3. This post is incredibly inspiring. I recently have been tickled with the "producing bug" as I am currently looking for a potential home to produce my first play as well as a friend's script with a very minimalist set... I love the idea of pulling from your own resources and just getting up onstage and doing it. For me, my favorite part of the process is getting folks together to read. I love readings. Community, for me, is the huge payoff from working in this industry. Getting a bottle of wine and some talented jokesters together to bring their A-game to a script brings me great joy... The problem I find is getting folks to commit to it. I don't have a company to back me (yet) but I aspire to have one. Any feedback or advice you can offer would be great. Otherwise, keep doing what you're doing.

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    1. I'll write a post about this. Thanks. But in the meantime...that's the big difficulty about our city. Commitment is the most difficult thing to find to anything other than dreams.

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    2. Looking forward to it! Thanks Brandon!

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    3. Yes and YES! Getting together to read is amazing, especially when magical things happen that were unplanned. And, YES - it's VERY difficult to get people to commit. In my experience, very few people are willing to put in the work to get what they say they want. I don't have any clear answers except to have a point of view and to act on it.

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  4. Great post Brandon. You are absolutely right that we need simply an actor/actors and people willing to suspend their disbelief. And if our audiences are willing to suspend their disbelief, why can't we? Why can't we suspend our disbelief that we in the Off-Off and Off-Broadway community are limited in what we can do. We are simply limited if we believe ourselves limited. On a blank stage we have the world at our reach. And with an empty bank account we also have the world at our reach. Let's suspend that disbelief, and fill that account, fill that audience, and fill that stage. I can see it now.

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  5. Hey, Brandon, enjoyed the piece. For about a year now I've been kicking around the idea of creating my own works, doing my own theater, just getting it out there. And a lot of the hesitations I have come up against are all those things you spell out as such simple tasks: asking for help, being creative about budget, embracing minimalism. I also really keyed in to what you said about viable art, "The world will let us know if our art is viable. That's not a job." Even from a non-financial standpoint, these are such great words to hear. Personally, I know I always question my motives, asking myself if the world will want to hear what I have to say even before I put it down on paper! But you're right, that's not my job. The world will do its thing; I need to do mine.
    And, as always, I appreciate hearing your enthusiasm for relying on storytelling. I think many of us in the off-off world can forget that we're in this world because we're beginners. And often the best practice we can get as beginners is just focusing on telling the story, becoming deeply involved with the characters rather than a concept. After all, that stuff seems to come much easier once we have a firm grounding in studying character and plot. Thanks for all the great advice, Brandon!

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    1. Great points, Javan! It's vitally important that we find a purpose in our work, and it sounds like you're on your way to making that happen. So excited to be working with you this season!

      I wanted to add one quick thing - the Off-Off world may include some beginners like you said, but it is not FOR beginners. My very first Off-Off Broadway show had 6 actors, 3 of whom had been on Broadway (I felt strangely out of place with my "piddly" regional credits.) The AEA (Equity) Showcase code, which The Seeing Place currently operates on and is large part of the indie theater scene in NYC, was designed to allow Equity actors more access to work in a city that is saturated with talented people yet not enough jobs. Producers can then take advantage of the code by use union actors in their projects without paying typical union wages. It means that many professional actors with major credits are making less than nothing in the name of their art.

      That's why producing at the Off-Off level is so difficult in terms of developing an audience. Audiences are conditioned to think that Off-Off Broadway are filled beginning level actors doing sub-par productions. And there certainly are some of those. But just as often there are really great, dedicated theater companies who are using the AEA Showcase code as their stepping stone to a long-term Equity contract, and hiring actors with a fire, ambition and hunger for learning and sharing. This is what we're aiming to do, with what few resources are available at the level at which we operate.

      Thanks again, Javan!

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    2. Who are you calling a beginner? :O)

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  6. I really enjoyed this piece. I think it hits on a truth that isn't explored as often as it should be and that tends to be overlooked a lot in the theater here in nyc. We associate successful theater with theater that puts butts in seats. Theater that tends to forget meaningful storytelling because of a preoccupation with glitter and lights and exsqusite costumes. While nothing is wrong with the above, I'd be willing to bet Thespis had no amazing budget or production crew behind him when he took those first steps in front of the audience to tell a story, yet we continue to honor him. He adhered to the simple truthful act of standing up and saying something, an act that seems to get forgotten easily but is beautiful and powerful on its own without glitter and glam.

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    1. Thank you so much. And thanks for commenting!

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    2. I love your mention of Thespis versus the glitter and glam. This is why we named our company The Seeing Place - we're not here to "wow" you, though if you're wowed that's wonderful. We're here to show you yourself through the stories we tell. If we can do THAT, we've can be proud of something.

      Thank you so much for your thoughts!

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  7. Inspiring words. A blueprint for direct and immediate action.

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  8. Terrific post! I personally understand and have experienced all that you've described. In 2009, during the financial crisis, a friend of mine and I decided to produce our own cabaret show. We both have "day" jobs and the frustration of not being able to focus on what we love to do, performing, led us to agree to undergo this task. We actually had met in a vocal performance/master class the year before. The conversation came up that, certainly when dealing with performers, people give each other hugs and pats on the backs and say, "we should definitely work together!" and then do nothing to follow up and make that come to fruition. My friend and I discussed how we could utilize the talent and individuality of the people in our class; let's actually put that talent to good use and create something. Then came the question, how do we fund it? And, during a massive financial crisis? We ended up partnering with ASTEP (Artists Striving to End Poverty- awesome organization!). It was amazing to see people being so kind and giving during a naturally "tight wallet-ed" phase. To your point, specifically, if you dream it, follow through and make it happen. They will come. No worries about space. The idea is to experience the joy. Yes?

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  9. I have a term that I like to use, that I stole from my professor Tom Martin: "shiny turd". Most of the play I see are big, shiny turds: lots of money, lots of gadgets and whirligigs and glizty costumes, but very little in the way of truth or recognizable human behavior. I don't go to the theater to be impressed by spectacle; I go to be rocked, to be smashed to smithereens, to remember why humans are so beautiful and awful, to have my heart beat fast in recognition as the play before me reveals truth about my life. I'm sick of shiny turds; I'm sick of auditioning for them, I'm sick of being in them, I'm sick of feeling shitty when I don't get cast in them. That is all. Over and out. Seeing Place Theater for President.

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  10. A big thing I got from this post was "stop waiting around." As an actor, it is so easy to fall into that trap of just hoping someone else will make big things happen for you. But it is not only up to us to create those opportunities, but give them the love and respect they deserve. I feel that how an actor defines an opportunity is how he or she will approach it. Does opportunity mean commercial success or artistic fulfillment? If the answer is the latter, then do matter how "small" or "low budget" the project is, the actor will do everything they can to help make it a success because their goal lies in growing as an artist. And this post gave some amazing ways to help do just that.

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