Unit 11

The difference between amateur and professional theatre. 

There are many differences between amateur and professional theatres. Both working in them and as an audience member. As an audience member, you can spot that the costumes may be ru-used or re-cycled in an amature show and sometimes can look a bit mish mashed, whereas in a professional show the costumes often are new or have been modified to the show and are cared for and kept to a high standard. This is often because professional shows run for much longer so the costumes have to last a long time.

~ Add more information
~ Refer to personal experiences
~ Start by an opening 

Firstly, the main difference being that professionals get paid and amateurs do it all for the love. Despite this it doesn’t alter the effort levels that are put in. Having experienced both myself I can say that I think sometimes more effort is put in to amateur shows because they run for shorter periods of time so there is less time to get bored, whereas with a professional theatre shows can run for years, even decades, so this can become boring if you’re doing it 8 shows a week. 

~ Explain a difference
~ Some get paid, some don’t
~ Effort levels may vary
~ Length of shows 

Personally I feel that I experienced more working with amateur dramatics companies because I get to experience the whole show. Right the way from handover night, to rehearsals, the get in, show week and then the get-out and another handover. Whereas 2 nights in the west end (on different shows) was the same as the night before. Yes there may be slight alterations but it’s likely to be the same. 

Despite this the professional theatres have a lot more equipment and kit that I have never personally used before to getting to learn about this was very exciting. A draw back to amateur theatre is that there is always a very small budget so the set is often made from old set, repainted and given a face-lift.

~ Add conclusion
~ Give opinions

A personal reason why I love amateur theatre is because there is no one else in the theatre like me. I’m a 17 year old girl, surrounded by adults, often men far older than me. Despite this I can still do the same as them and put in the same amount of effort and work just as hard. A lot of the time doing backstage theatre for amateur groups you go very unappreciated and this is a feeling you get used to over time. I don’t think it’s fair, because there’s a lot of effort that goes in to what we do. We’re there before everyone setting up, we’re there after everyone’s gone prepping for the next day and cleaning the stage and auditorium. 

I have decided to change my essay title, after my first draft I realised that the subject is too wide of a topic to research. There are many varieties of am dram and professional theatres, making it difficult to convey the range within an argument.

The role of women in stage management

Proposal:

My essay is about women in stage management. The topics I want to cover are:

·         History of female stage managers

·         Statistics

·         Training, how do people train, what percentage of students are female following on to what percentage of stage managers in the industry are female

·         Is there any controversy or a glass ceiling surrounding female stage managers, historical and current?

I will look for information on websites such as The Stage, survey of current west end stage managers, interview with female stage managers. I will have a brief introduction about stage management and what is involved within the roles. Below is some research that I have done about female stage managers.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1987-09-29/news/0150120175_1_song-of-bernadette-seaton-mayor-of-beverly

http://stage-directions.com/10175-women-in-stage-management-revolutionizing-history-with-inclusion-2.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/theater/25mailals-OURTOWN_LETTERS.html