Episode 38 - Venues

Hi Friend, Welcome to Episode 38 of Sally’s Performing Arts Lab Podcast Show Notes and Blog. You've got your show. You've got your team. You might even have a few set pieces and costumes. But you have nowhere to perform. Today, I talk venues! I’m your SallyPAL podcast host, Sally Adams. Every week I talk to people about creating original work for a live audience. Send an email anytime to [e-mail]. Your ideas keep great conversations coming every week. Check out sallypal.com/join for a cool free theatre resource. It’s never too late to sign up to have access to the Creator’s Notebook inserts. I’m interested in knowing what creators need as a performing arts resource. If there are things you want included in the Creator’s Notebook, let me know by sending an email to [e-mail]! I read them all… Be sure and listen until the end of the interview for Words of Wisdom from George. Finding a venue is one of the trickiest areas for the performing artist. We often think about venues as a place with a stage and lighting and seats for an audience. But there are so many other options. In fact, today it’s even possible to create a virtual venue. But we'll start with bricks and mortar. When looking around for a space where you can invite an audience into an area to see a performance, you need a couple of things: Space to perform, and space for an audience to experience the performance. Traditionally, this is known as seating. But, of course, there are plenty of examples of shows with no actual seats for an audience. This could be anything from bringing their own seats as they would at a performance in a local park, or rave seating like Fuerza Bruta in New York where the audience stands and moves around for the entire show. You’ve probably seen live bands perform for dancing audiences. For now let’s concentrate on the type of show where you're trying to tell a story to an audience and you want the audience to be focused on the story. This could be improv, dance, a play, an opera, you get the idea. When considering venues, there are two important things to consider with a story show: 1) Is the space appropriate to the production’s size? 2) Can every audience member see and hear the performance adequately? Let’s address the first question. “Is the space appropriate to the production’s size?” There are performances where the performers outnumber audience members even when there’s a full house. This happens sometimes with children’s plays and dance recitals. Every family needs a ticket to see the kids perform. This is a pretty good problem to have. If you’re worried about the size of the venue and whether it will be adequate for the size of the audience, look around for local options. Churches and schools who rent auditoriums to large groups for fairly reasonable rates. Museums, libraries, and universities will sometimes fill the gap with large lecture halls and recital spaces. More often than not, the problem isn’t having too big an audience, but having an audience that barely fills the front row. In a space is built for all-school assemblies it’s hard to enjoy a small show. A friend of mine who teaches at a public school in Tulsa, Oklahoma was able to solve this problem. A cavernous auditorium will swallow a small audience of parents and friends. My friend created seating on the actual stage. She then closed the main curtain. This created a space where the audience sat on three sides of a make-shift stage in the center of an enormous main stage. It kept the performance intimate. And the audience was able to enjoy the show without the gulf of separation many older school buildings have. Other solutions include arranging for a show in a large room of someone’s home, or a backyard stage is an option. Many coffee houses and brew pubs have small performance areas. You can often find galleries, and dance studios that will open their doors to a performance group. There are plenty of basement theaters in big cities including New York and Chicago. As a member of an improv troupe I’ve had some great experiences performing in a yoga studio. There are so many options, it’s sometimes a matter of matching the venue to the performance. In 2015, the avant-garde opera company the Industry staged it’s new opera, Hopscotch, in 24 cars on the roads of Los Angeles. Audience members were chauffeured in limos where scenes from the opera took place both in the cars and in parking lots. The company performed 24 live chapters over the course of 90 minutes. Tickets were naturally limited, so cameras and mics in each limo allowed director Yuval Sharon to live-stream the action to a central hub. Using 24 screens in the round, the public could watch the opera for free. Granted, this is