125
« on: Jan 21, 2011, 01:58 pm »
My Junior year, the theatre teacher quit, unexpectedly, in the middle of the year. A few friends and I decided that we were not going to go without a spring show, so we did it ourselves. We were told that we had $0 for a budget, but if we could do it without money, we could use the (laughingly called) theatre space.
We did The Importance of Being Ernest, in modern dress, borrowed furniture from our parents' homes, and a set whipped together from flats already in existence, painted with half-dead paint from the paint closet. We used our own money to photo-copy flyers and posted them everywhere allowed, including asking students in wheelchairs if they would put them on the backs of their chairs and be rolling billboards (I remember a guy, named Chris, who had a basketball chair, was thrilled with this idea, and thought it was genius!). For some reason I cannot recall, the wrestling team adopted our little project and came in to do heavy lifting, on occasion.
I played Cecily, and was one of the co-directors, and TD for the show (we did not get a large response to the audition notice, or the call for tech help). I was completely exhausted, but very proud that we had full houses all three nights of performance, and raised about $500 for use for the next show.
By standard theatre protocols, it was a hot pasty mess. But, we got good reviews, learned a ton, and really, a couple of 1/4 trained, 16 year old girls put up a well received show with no budget and no faculty support or advice. I can be proud of that, forever!
Moral of the story: If you can convince your administrators you can do a show on no budget, and with only a nominal faculty advisor, go for it. You'll never learn more!
Show Posts
