How to Start Producing a Play

Series Summary

“You need three things in the theater - the play, the actors and the audience.” This quote is undeniably true. In order to make a good production, you do not have to have the expensive props, the professional actors, or the grand performance space. While this may give an extra edge to a production, the most important elements in theater is the effort that is put into it. All you really need is a dedicated cast, a creative set, and a eager audience. Theater is the cornerstone for appreciation of the arts. When a group of people bond together in the task of creating something with great enthusiasm, the true spirit of theater is manifested.

In this expert video series, learn about how to produce a play. Steve Caverno shows you how to produce your own play. Get tips on playwrights, script writing, finding actors and developing characters. Get started today with these easy instructional videos from the experts at ExpertVillage.

Video Transcript

"STEVE CAVERNO: Hi. My name is Steve Caverno on behalf of Expert Village, and today I'll be talking to you about playwriting basics. So, starting out, you want to write a play. You might be asking yourself, what kind of exposure would I have to place? Let's look at that topic. There's a variety of ways you could be exposed to plays, but you may not even know it. One method would be perhaps you go to New York for a weekend. You checked out some Broadway theater, 'cause that's one of the main attractions of New York. So, you might go see the "Lion King," you might see "Wicked" or "Rent" on Broadway; that is one aspect of playwriting. Now, that's going to be very respectful driven, so there's all other aspects we've looked in to you. Catch a local production of a Neil Simon play at your local community theater. Go see a high school production in every high school drama department, and you can catch some really good plays that way. Also, speaking of high school, in high school English class, everyone's read "Romeo and Juliet," "Julius Caesar," plays like that. That could be a good way of exposure. And also movies, movies like "A Few Good Men," which was a major movie with Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise and Demi Moore; a lot of people have seen that. You might realize you might have seen Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. And some of these are ways that the people can get exposure to theater and might not even realize that."