The Challenges of Putting on a Show

This email arrived from my pal Paul Neace, who heads up the 5th Avenue Theatre Company. He points out one of the biggest problems in trying to stage a community theatre show.

He writes:

Here’s the problem we’re having at 5th Avenue right now – a lack of directors.

In my opinion and my opinion alone, there are only a handful of qualified directors for lavish musicals in this immediate area. Of those people, many of them also direct for other groups (such as yourself) and those groups take priority, which is fine.

I’ve been trying to plan a benefit show that will help the Police Dept., Fire Dept., and us at the Huntington Foundation for well over a year now and can find no one that will direct that for us. (And, believe me, I’ve asked 5-10 different people.)

In addition we’re trying to plan the rest of our year and are faced with very limited funds – the benefit would go a long way in helping us finalize those plans. But, we need that ever-evasive director to actually orchestrate this benefit show before we can continue a discussion about the rest of our season.

And then we’re faced with finding a director or two for the aforementioned musicals or even a non-musical (of which the pool of directors is a bit larger).

If you know of someone that hasn’t already turned me down, please let me know… I don’t know how the Charleston groups manage, but that’s the problem(s) that we face.

It's always a challenge to find directors and producers for shows, because it's a heck of a lot of work (though obviously it's also very rewarding creatively and a lot of fun).

If anyone would like to contact Paul to talk about directing a show (or shows) for 5th Avenue, feel free to send me an email at TheMinskers@aol.com and I'll pass it along.