DramaSmith: Community Theatre Forms

Saturday, February 16, 2019

Community Theatre Forms

For Free (or pay what you wish)

As I have (slowly) pursued my hope of finding or founding a local New Play Development Centre, I have drafted several forms for future use, and have decided to share them for free (or for whatever donation a theatre might wish to make for their use). You can find the PDF files (& PayPal button) at:

Form I: Actor’s Code
https://www.zanthymhouse.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/ActorsCode.pdf

Form II: Audition Tips, Procedure, & Casting Policies
https://www.zanthymhouse.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/AuditionTips.pdf

Form III: Auditioning Form || Auditor Notes
https://www.zanthymhouse.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/AuditionForm.pdf

I hope you will find these forms helpful in increasing professionalism and efficiency in your theatre administration.
.

Quotes of Note

Sophocles: I depict men as they ought to be, but Euripedes portrays them as they are. (quoted in Aristotle's Poetics, p. 68)
Thomas Heywood: The world's a theater, the earth a stage, Which God and Nature do with actors fill.
Francis Hodge: Good plays move men's minds and encircle their spirits.
Harley Granville-Baker: … behind the action, be the play farce or tragedy, there must be some spiritually significant idea or it will hang lifeless. (More Prefaces to Shakespeare, p. 146)
Hugh Nibley: Tragedy: What people do for power. (Teachings of the Book of Mormon, 1:3:7)
Oscar Hammerstein: I see plays and read books that emphasize the seamy side of life, and the frenetic side and the tragic side, and I don't deny the existence of the tragic and the frenetic. But I say that somebody has to keep saying that that isn't all that there is in life. … We're very likely to get thrown off our balance if we have such a preponderance of artisits expressing the "wasteland philosophy. (quoted by Mark Steyn in Broadway Babies Say Goodnight, p. 72)
Gary Garrison: Most our countries greatest dramatists, lyric composers, and librettists never had a formal education in their discipline. (The Dramatist magazine, July/August 2007, p. G2)
George Jean Nathan: Opening Night: The night before the play is ready to open.
Peter Ustinov: I think that first nights should come near the end of a play's run—as indeed, they often do.
Oscar Wilde: The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster.

About SMS

~▪ member of the Dramatists Guild of America Inc. since 1988.
~▪ member of Theatre Alberta since 2001.
~▪ member of Alberta Playwrights Network, 2004-2011.
~▪ volunteer with local community theatre 1996-2006 and board member 2004-2006.
~▪ minor volunteer with a summer theatre 1998-2000.
~▪ extensive self-directed study in writing, playwriting, theatrical history, and dramatic production.
~▪ Education: BA (1970), AS (1974), JD (1980).
~▪ Some favorite productions seen: The Birds (Aristophanes); Damien (Aldyth Morris); The Canadian Badlands Passion Play (Drumheller, Alberta); The Scarecrow or The glass of truth: a tragedy of the ludicrous (Percy MacKaye); Measure for Measure, Hamlet, King Richard III (Shakespeare); The Devil’s Disciple (G.B. Shaw); Our Town (Thorton Wilder); Walsh (Sharon Pollock); Into the Woods & Sunday in the Park with George (Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine); Evita (Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice).
~▪ Some favorite plays read or listened to: Antigone (Sophocles); An Enemy of the People (Henrik Ibsen); Murder in the Cathedral (T.S. Eliot); Royal Hunt of the Sun (Peter Shaffer); The Crucible (Arthur Miller); Abe Lincoln in Illinois (Robert Sherwood); Life of Galileo (Berholt Brecht); A Man for All Seasons (Robert Bolt); The Barretts of Wimpole Street (Rudolph Besier); Under Milk Wood (Dylan Thomas); Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett).

DramaSmith

Saturday, February 16, 2019

Community Theatre Forms

Labels

Blog Archive

Quotes of Note

About SMS

EU Cookie Notice