Making Shows

You're learning lines in the bathroom again. We can tell from the drippy bits on your script.

The audition is next week and you're not sure you're ready. In fact you're sure you're not ready. Or maybe you've just been cast and you're thrilled and terrified in equal measure. Or you're directing for the first time and nobody warned you that half the job is being a child minder for adults, and the other half is pretending you planned it that way all along.

Community theatre asks extraordinary things of people. You've got a day job, a life, and somehow you're also trying to build a character, learn blocking, construct a set, or hold a rehearsal room together on Wednesday evenings with whoever can make it.

You're not alone in any of this. You're just usually too busy to find that out.

Making Shows is a free newsletter for the people who make community theatre happen on stage and behind it. Performers, directors, designers, crew. Every issue is built from real experience: audition craft from both sides of the table, rehearsal techniques that respect your time, staging on shoestring budgets, and honest talk about what to do when it all goes sideways.

Stories and practical wisdom from people who've been in that rehearsal room, probably arguing about the same kind of difficult actor or impossible lighting effect you are right now.