I recently got the chance to march with ComedySportz Chicago (CSz) in the Chicago PrideFest 2014 parade. Having never been on the other side of the parade partition, I was stoked to be a part of a Chicago staple. I also was stoked to just be part of the CSz inner family for a little…
How many times have you spent precious months finding a great venue, assembling a competent crew, director, and cast, rehearsing your show, drawing up expensive posters/flyers, blasting announcements on social & traditional media just to play to nearly empty houses each night? If you're in independent blackbox theatre, this unfortunate scenario plays more often than…
Alec Baldwin posted up on HuffPo an opinion piece regarding how Broadway has changed. After reading it, I felt I had to share some advice to my fellow producers as to how to deal with reviewers and how to deal with the consequences of having been reviewed.Getting Reviewed In The First Place
Press releases are the…
Civilians (non-producers) tend to like to give me their thoughts on what they think improv is all about:
It's stand-up comedy.
That Drew Carrie show thing, right? Whose Line? I watch it all of the time on TV.
Where you make EVERYTHING up!
Contrary to popular belief, there's a lot of…
Ever heard that "it's a small world in theatre"? It's true. You can be in a major metropolitan city or small town and eventually, you will know just about everybody "in the scene". It's important that you maximize every interaction you have with people so that you can take advantage of your relationships to make…
A few days ago I exchanged email with a fellow producer who was having a lot of trouble getting a production up and running and asking for a little bit of moral support while dealing with Herculean roadblocks such as flaky actors, unsupportive management, and a ton of drama. Here are some excerpts from the…
When looking at places to do your show, start thinking outside the (black)box a little bit. For example, Chicago has many old, venerable theatres that at times were major hotspots back in the day to see theatre or movies. Many of closed down for some reason or another - unpaid taxes, owners trying to sell…
In the age where there are so many avenues of entertainment - the Internet, cable TV, movies, festivals, cellphones - trying to get butts into blackbox theatre seats has become even more difficult. For the patron, that requires them to have to buy tickets, physically have to travel and be somewhere for a while, semi-disconnected…
You've booked the venue. You got the best director your budget could afford. You've been rehearsing twice a week for 2 months to get your original show up on is feet. You're ready to entertain the masses. Yet nobody knows a thing about all of this work, you've got rent to pay for 6-8 weeks,…
YES! It does!
With the advent of "Web 2.5" (we're still in the middle of 2.0 and starting to head to a new revolution of 3.0 but are not quite there yet ;-) ), it's become a lot easier for people to use new social media tools to promote their shows and event. Facebook & Twitter…