David Jubb defines the arts producer as those who ‘seek to connect people, and promote an understanding of the importance of process, idea, artist’ (2007, p. 6). Naturally working with my additional role as dramaturge, my role as company producer grants me the task of idea synthesis with the director, working to compound the company’s production into a ‘product’, and overseeing the development of the performers, internal administration, and the outreach of the company. The central part of the work, as Madeline Hutchins, Sue Kay and Anouk Perinpanayagam write, includes ‘decisions closely related to the “product”… managing and supporting individuals… the financial side… Marketing… contracts, copyright, licensing’ (2007, p. 13). Essentially, the producer is the head of the company outside the rehearsal room.
The theatre company producer differs from the theatre producer in their informality and freedom of venue and output. The former, as explained below by David Gilmore of St. James Theatre in London, relies on the management of a business and staff in a single, compact working environment, selecting the shows that represents the theatre’s output.
The theatre company producer, however, has the ability to create projects without having to fulfil the taste of a certain venue – their business is based on pitching their product to venues. This is especially true of our non-profit company – although we are financed by our venue, Charles Grippo writes of the non-profit producer that ‘Since his shows don’t have to show a profit, he can focus more on “art”’ (2002, p. 15). As Hutchins, Kay and Perinpanayagam expand:
This freedom to make your own job, even within existing organisations, is symptomatic of the willingness to challenge the accepted forms or the “norm”. There is an informality and a lack of definition that leaves some completely bewildered and lost, but that is “home” to others. (2007, p. 17)
This sense of becoming ‘lost’ is encased in negotiating the various administrative procedures required with creating and presenting a performative product. Working with the director and company ethos to ‘select, come up with or agree an “idea” using finely tuned artistic, contextual and commercial judgement’ (2007, p. 38), the initial occupation of the producer is to secure any necessary rights. With The Trial, this meant contacting Berkoff’s agency and negotiating the price of the licence – then organising for the venue to secure it in our name. The negotiation of the rights, along with my initial dramaturgical message to the director, is attached (correspondence), as well as Samuel French’s quotation documents (IMG_0018/ back of quotation 2013/ Method of Payment Form-1). I have also attached a copy of our edited script, which I typed out and distributed for the cast. This was originally achieved using Celtx, followed by a second, definite copy in Word (trial) – the latter being the more accessible program.
‘Putting the right team together and then “managing” them effectively and “playfully” to produce the best results’ (2007, p. 38) is another part of the producer’s task. To ensure the quality of the product, I worked with our director in the auditions and casting among our set company to allocate characters within the play. Although the director is allocated the artistic creation of the performance, as overseer of the company’s workings it was important that my judgement was necessary to character choice. I found that responding to unforeseeable problems was of high significance as producer, and in this spirit of fluidly responding to the company’s needs I helped to direct certain scenes whilst our director concentrated on one or two actors. Despite my work being a blueprint for the director to improve, the producer requires an understanding of how a performance is shaped in the rehearsal room, in order to articulate its value outside of it.
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Works cited
Grippo, Charles (2002), The Stage Producer’s Business and Legal Guide, New York: Allworth Press.
Hutchins, Madeline, Sue Kay and Anouk Perinpanayagam (2007), Passion and Performance: Managers and Producers in Theatre and Dance, Brighton: University of Sussex.
Jubb, David (2007), in Madeline Hutchins, Sue Kay and Anouk Perinpanayagam, Passion and Performance: Managers and Producers in Theatre and Dance, Brighton: University of Sussex, p. 6.
St. James Theatre (2012), ‘Video Interview – Theatre Producer David Gilmore.mov’ [online] < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcVbYkm_dC0> [accessed 19 April 2013].