As part of STAMP Theatre’s advertising and marketing team, one of my initial tasks was to produce a company logo. Our logo needs to correlate alongside our company mission statement and manifesto, and summarise who we are as a theatre company. As we are planning to contact local press about our performance on Friday 17th May, our logo will appear on many letters, emails and documents throughout our process, so we believe it is a vital step in establishing ourselves as an organisation.

We brainstormed ideas together surrounding what we thought our logo should include, some of these included..

• A footprint – as if we are phsyically stamping on traditional genres of theatre.
• A photo frame – a central element to our performance will be the use of photo frames hanging from the ceiling – we thought perhaps this could be a central element to all of our work if we were to carry on with future productions.
• An ink stamp – this could maybe have had STAMP Theatre printed within it.
• A letter stamp – we then had the idea of including the traditional theatre masks within the stamp instead of usual stamps, as if we are stamping our mark on traditional genres of theatre.

Logo idea 1.

Above is our first attempt at the company logo for STAMP Theatre, however, we did not decide to use this as we felt it did not give the impression of a theatre company, on the contrary we believed it looked more like a sports/adventure type of logo. The main concept behind this logo was the idea of us as a group literally stamping on traditional genres of theatre, therefore creating our own genre by combining Grotesque and Phsyical Theatre. We did not feel this summarised us as a company, so decided to go in a completely different direction.

Logo idea 2.

Above is our second and final logo concept, and we believe this is much more successful in summarising what we stand for as a company. We took the traditional image of the two theatre masks (one happy and one sad), combined them together and emphasised their emotions to signify our work in Grotesque Theatre. We also altered the edges of the image to make it look like a stamp you’d get on the front of an envelope. I believe this is a striking image that links in well with our company manifesto and mission statement, and makes a powerful impression on audiences before they have seen our performance work.

Caitlin Clark

“A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged” (Brook 1990, p. 11).

This simplistic concept of theatre is something I much prefer to a performance heavily adorned with elaborate costume, set and theatrical spectacle. I prefer theatre that focuses on the actors on stage, and not additions such as the use of multi-media, extravagant lights and props. This preference is what initially brought our group together, and is what STAMP Theatre aim for throughout our performance of Berkoff’s The Trial. As our mission statement declares, we aim to create an intelligent and thought-provoking performance simply and clearly through multiple theatrical styles.

“In the theatre, every form once born is mortal; every form must be reconceived, and it’s new conception will bear the marks of all the influences that surround it” (Brook 1990, p. 19). A second approach we all agreed on was infusing different styles and genres together throughout our performance, thus creating a new one. We plan to use the concept of Grotesque Theatre and extreme phsyicality throughout to create a distorted and absurd atmosphere for the audience, whilst taking great influence from the work of Peter Brook.

STAMP Theatre’s manifesto outlines our ideals of a pure theatre, and our mission statement an innovative way of creating our story for an audience. I believe each reflects our values well, and we will continue through the rehearsal and production process with these in mind.

“Marketing the arts involves not only the day-to-day work of attracting audiences to events and activities, but also the  need to understand and promote more widely the value of an organisation’s work” (Hill et al 2003, p. 1)

As well as acting in STAMP Theatre’s rendition of ‘The Trial’, I am also part of the advertising and marketing team, alongside Joe Pope, Tom Cliff and Becca Ward. One of our initial steps within creative arts marketing for STAMP Theatre was meeting and discussing our objectives surrounding how to spread the news of our performance. From the offset we desired to not only attract students from the LPAC but various other audience demographics outlined in the Arts Council England online documents. Our marketing and advertising work will be split into numerous groups…

• Online advertising via social media – we are going to create a company Facebook and Twitter profile to advertise our performance and document our rehearsal process, the benefits of social media will be outlined in another blog post.
• Advertising through promotional images and teaser trailers – we are planning to produce at least two teaser trailers and various promotional images leading up to our performance to spread awareness.
• Advertising to local press – Joe Pope is going to write a press release surrounding the LSPA final degree showcase and information on both us as a theatre company and our performance of ‘The Trial’, this will be sent out to numerous local organisations such as the Lincolnshire Echo and Lincolnshire Radio nearer the date of our performance.
• Flyers/Performance Programme – we want to create an extremely powerful flyer which will give audiences an impression of what to expect from our performance, we will also create a programme including a showcopy, directors notes and information about our company.

Joe, Tom, Becca and I are very keen to start advertising our work early on in the rehearsal process to maximise ticket sales to its full potential. Our first plan of action is to create and utilise social media to our advantage, as this cost free form of advertising can potentially reach the largest audience demographic before the public know anything about our theatre company.

Caitlin Clark.

Works cited.

Brook, P. (1990) The Empty Space, London: Penguin Books

Hill, L. O’Sullivan, C. and O’Sullivan T. (2003) Creative Arts Marketing, The Evolution and Context of Arts Marketing, Oxford: Butterworth Ltd