Theatre - Watering those grassroots

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.

The above is a well-known saying, one that can be applied to a myriad of situations and circumstances. The particular focus of my current thinking is theatre, or more broadly performing arts. I often speak to youngsters (and some adults) about their dreams and aspirations of becoming actors, singers and dancers. They speak with such enthusiasm, verve and self-belief, generally only needing help working out where best to direct their energies. These people are the grassroots of theatre. I’m not necessarily talking about primary school aged children, though I’ve had several rather interesting conversations with some about what they dream to be. The main catchment seem to be aged 13-17yrs, the ages that young people are presented with more and more choices to make, and not always given the guidance, especially if it’s not what many consider to be a ‘normal’ job.

I’ve heard horror stories about teenagers being told flat out to not bother and to pick something sensible to do. I know what you’re thinking, there is a huge amount of competition to be had in getting into theatre schools, let alone in making a living as a performer. However, generally the people that have issued these edicts of doom haven’t got the slightest stat or industry knowledge, if they had then the young person in question could consider it rationally. They could sit down and say ‘Chris, my tutor said that only 8% of UK based actors are ever in work at any given time, but I still think I could be part of that 8%”, instead the conversation normally follows the route of, “My tutor said I shouldn’t bother with acting or trying to sing for a living because it’s not a real job”. It’s the classic scenario of saying to someone they aren’t allowed to do something, therefore they want to do it more, and the latter ‘advice’ if you even want to grace it with that label is self-defeating.

I digress. The point I set out to make was that people of any age should be easily able to find suitable platforms to test their abilities and inhabit a comfortable, safe space where they can be challenged. Local to where I live in Northamptonshire, there are a number of courses that people can take to improve their skillset and hopefully prepare them for auditioning for stage school auditions. I do worry however about students being so focused on their course content that they don’t still seek out and/or have the opportunity to perform in other arenas. I’ve recently had an influx of interested people from Northampton College wanting to perform with my theatre company, C&D Productions, as the choice of play we offer is varied and it gives them experience to put on their C.V’s. Another recent person is taking a gap year and wants to gain as much experience both on and off the stage as possible and came to me with several ideas for one and two act plays. I can honestly say there isn’t a acting theatre company that holds open auditions in a good 15 mile radius that would be so open to people’s ideas (especially not relative strangers) and give them a chance to put their ideas into action.

In 2015 we will be performing more plays than ever before, participate in several fringe festivals and have had a local venue offer us ruminative work to produce the play first ever performed there as part of an anniversary celebration. I will be engaging with at least five local directors, including three that haven’t directed with us before, and working with a whole host of people in roles ranging from costume, make-up, set design and technical. 

This is one of the main reasons we set up our theatre company in the spring of 2014, we saw a huge gap regarding straight acting and no platform to offer opportunity and engagement, and then we promptly filled it. I speak on a localisedlevel to myself but I am curious what the situation is like in other parts of the country on both acting and theatre company level. I might add that the local college in my hometown of Kettering have been totally and utterly un-cooperative in allowing their students to know about future productions and auditions. I can’t offer a reason for this and as yet I’ve been met by a wall of silence on the subject, luckily we've got numerous avenues being opened up to connect with the general public which is providing very fruitful.

There is a point I was going to explore in greater detail which is whether nonprofessional theatre (or am-dram) should receive levels of funding, incentivised at uncovering new talent. It is a common disease of many am dram groups that they have the same rough pool of people in each of their shows, by this virtue the same people tend to get given the leading parts and life goes on as normal. This is wrong in my opinion, sure everyone is there because they enjoy the hobby and in the case of musicals they can sing songs from shows they’ve been to see or watched on TV, but the organisations themselves should take regular inventory of what their purpose is and who their audiences are. 

One of my key goals is to gradually build up an audience of people who will come see our productions regardless of cast size or if they know anyone in it. I don’t think it’s healthy just relying on friends and family to fill theatres as this will be fine when your cast numbers twenty, but what if you do a smaller cast piece such as Waiting for Godot? Many local groups struggle to survive, in fact I know of ones that have vanished entirely or have had to cut their activity due to a series of loses on the spreadsheets. Should these groups, the entry point for many aspiring performers, be given a reason to open the dusty casements and encourage new blood?

A key point on this topic is engagement and communication. I know of a local youth focused group that have had to cancelled shows due to being unable to attract a bare minimum cast. In this same period we’ve attracted and worked with over 80 people locally, many of whom would have been that group’s prime target, why is this? I think a lot depends on the variety of shows offered, the level of organisation and structure one might see or sense from the outside, but more importantly how the all-important message of ‘come be in our show’ is relayed to the public. We focus a lot of our efforts on social media and I’d like to think in our first year we’ve made a good job of it, with 1,000+ likes on our Facebook page and people contacting us on a weekly basis via our website. We do use traditional forms of marketing also, such as posters and word of mouth, and I think a combined approach works best. Given increased funds I am sure our reach could extend further and at some point we’ll try to decide how to cross said bridge when we find it in our path.

Back to the main point and focus of this article, who has the main responsibility to nurture our future would-be actors and performers? Does it lie with the government to increase funding to ACE (Arts Council England) so that they can then distribute the funding to projects they feel are of theatrical merit? The immediate answer might be no, with figures proving that the main chunk of funding never leaves the capital. Perhaps the answer is to create more focused regional arts funding centres which can react to geographical trends and needs, knowing their own locale far better than someone sat in an office many leagues away. They would have a more even spread of funding and therefore boost each area simultaneously, perhaps with funding being split on a ‘per head’ count of the population, with exceptions made to generally rural counties?

So dear reader.. What’s the situation like where you are? Do opportunities abound or could more be done at an organisational level to provide varied and affordable chances for people to gain that much needed experience? Please let me know by comments below, contacting me via the website (www.cd-productions.co.uk) or via our Facebook page. I look forward to hearing from you!