For the past two weeks I’ve been interning at a commercial theatre producer’s office. As might be imagined, what I’ve actually been doing is the boring stuff: filing, making tea, proofing contracts, making more tea, and errands for film stars. Sadly, only one film star. And, no surprises for guessing what the errand was (it involved tea).
However, despite that, I do feel that I’ve learnt a lot about how commercial producing works, in particular, how erratic it can be. And by that I mean you can never know exactly how busy you’ll be. For example, there was one show I was working on (involving the star!) that had been in development in the office for two years. With the prospect of casting coming together and a theatre being available, it is now being put into rapid production. Things change fast. A show closes early, or a show extends, and suddenly what you had planned won’t work anymore.
Which is exciting. But also manageable for a big producer with several shows on, and lots more in development. But for a new producer who doesn’t have productions he can drop into theatres as and when they become available (or the money/contacts/knowledge) it’s rather more difficult.
I’m currently developing one show for production in 2011. But realistically, if I’m to make it through the bizarre circumstances that inevitably come up when producing theatre, I’m going to have to start developing a few more. Even if several of them don’t ever make it to life, I’m going to have to start casting the net out for new productions. Which means reading more plays. The other main thing I did in the office was write script reports. Seems I’ll be doing that inside or outside of an office.
The plan is to read three plays by next week. We’ll see...
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