#16. The Wrap—Lessons Learned, Settling Accounts and Moving On By Anna Nicholas Eventually, closing night will arrive. Your actors will take their final bows and the people who worked so closely with you to bring your play to life, will go their different ways. All the work, all those sleepless nights, the worry, the bleeding … Continue reading The Self Production Series with Anna Nicholas: #16 The Wrap…
#15. The Critics – Should You Care? By Anna Nicholas Save a playwright, shoot a critic? Unwise; though many a playwright has thought about it. According to Bernardo Cubria, who helms a NY Theatre podcast called Off and On, “At some point in their lives, theatremakers develop hostility towards theatre critics.” To Bernardo I’d say, … Continue reading The Self Production Series with Anna Nicholas: #15 The Critics…
#14. Getting to Opening Night or overcoming obstacles so you can have one by Guest Blogger Anna Nicholas Getting a play ready for an audience can be exciting, hard work, torturous, expensive and maybe even fun. But I don’t think it’s the producers who experience much of that last one. Understanding ticketing (the subject of … Continue reading The Self Production Series with Anna Nicholas: #14 Getting to Opening Night…
#13. Butts in Seats and Selling the Tickets to Put Them There by Guest Blogger Anna Nicholas A playwright friend told me a story about how her first play was a week from opening when she realized they hadn’t accounted for how tickets were going to be sold. That’s TOO LATE! Once you’re in rehearsals … Continue reading The Self Production Series with Anna Nicholas: #13 Ticketing…
#12. Rehearsals – Or… Making it to Opening Night by Guest Blogger Anna Nicholas In the theater, things don’t always happen in a nice, sequential and unstressful order. And in Equity-waiver theatre—read low-budget—things not going as planned is the order of the day. Meaning a playwright doesn’t often have the luxury of a wonderful theatre … Continue reading The Self Production Series with Anna Nicholas: #12 Rehearsal…
#11. Publicity…. or getting those B.I.S. (butts in seats) by Guest Blogger Anna Nicholas You’re probably thinking: Shouldn’t Anna be ready to start rehearsing this play already? And the answer is: Yes. In fact we are in rehearsals. But before they began, the publicity wheels had started to turn, so we’re going back. Planning on … Continue reading The Self Production Series with Anna Nicholas: #11 Publicity…
#10. Selecting Your Designers; or the Matter of the Couch by Guest Blogger Anna Nicholas One of the most satisfying theatergoing experiences I have had in recent years was Emma Rice’s production of Noel Coward’s “Brief Encounter.” There wasn’t much script but what her design team did to create the world in which the … Continue reading The Self Production Series with Anna Nicholas: # 10 Selecting Your Designers…
# 9. Finding Your Actors… or Do you Need a Casting Director? by Guest Blogger Anna Nicholas When you’re preparing the perfect meal, you need quality ingredients to make it turn out the way you want, right? A play is not much different. Without actors who can bring your words to life, you’re going to … Continue reading The Self Production Series with Anna Nicholas: # 9 Finding Your Actors…
# 8. AEA and the Future of Self-Production in LA by Guest Blogger Anna Nicholas This week’s post was supposed to be about casting directors but if a proposal made by Actors Equity Association (AEA) goes through at the end of this month, LA’s Theatre landscape will likely be irrevocably altered. The 99-seat plan, which … Continue reading The Self Production Series with Anna Nicholas: # 8 AEA and the Future of Self-Production in LA
# 7. Choosing your Director by Guest Blogger Anna Nicholas When a playwright finds her ideal director, she finds the person who doesn’t just “get” her play but has a vision of where the play could go beyond what the playwright imagined, someone who will interpret the script and add something to it. That’s my … Continue reading The Self Production Series with Anna Nicholas: #7 Choosing Your Director…
