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We usually do a four day run as well, but these include matinee's during the school day. We have a matinee for our incoming freshman on Wednesday morning, a matinee teaser on Thursday morning (I show about half the show and close the curtain at intermission. It's a good tool to get an audience because they see enough of the production to want to see more but not enough to feel like the story is complete) with opening that night, Friday we do a matinee for our special ed kids, perform that evening, and close on Saturday night.

I don't have much of a problem with administration questioning the timing anymore. Originally I got questions like "do you really need to stay until 10 pm"? but I equate it to the varsity sports. No one questions their staying until late in the evening to practice or play in games. I also point out that they spend more time in pep assemblies for sports than they do being taken out of class for the matinees. The kids are responsible for any missing work, so the other teachers don't really have a problem with the kids missing.

Hope this helps. :)

We use to do the Thursday - Sunday run, but last year we were no longer allowed to have school events on a Sunday. (I'm at a catholic school and the arch bishop made a decree.) So, starting last year we went to a two week run. Friday - Saturday the first week, and Thursday - Saturday the second week. Both the Saturday performances are matinee's. I do like being able to have 2 matinee performances for the grandparents etc. and our Saturday nights never sold very well anyway. I've also grown very fond of knowing that I will always have at least one day a week free! :) 

We used to do a 2 week Thursday-Saturday run, with a double on Saturdays. However, Thursday was a dead house, and the evening show on Saturday was a killer, you could watch the energy levels drop. When I took over as Director we ditched the Thursday show and added a Sunday 4:00 show. So now we have 8 shows over 2 weeks. All have been consistent sellers, on Fridays we offer a faculty/staff discount which helps to boost that house.

I'm in a small (500 students) private school, grades 6-12.  We draw from a large number of surrounding communities so transportation to and from schools has guided the creation of our performance runs.  As a result, our Upper School productions do four performances with a  3:30 pm performance on Wednesday afternoon.  This is the one that most students attend.  Subsequent performances are 7:30 pm on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings.  Our Middle School show has two performances - one during the day for the rest of the middle school students and one on the evening of that same day for families/friends.

We do a Wednesday thru Saturday run w/ no matinees. We orginally started with Friday and Saturday and have grown to a 4 performance run. The student written one-acts are only Thursday thru Saturday.

We tried matinees but it just didn't sell and I hated being inside on a pretty Spring day!

We are only allowed 3 shows on a Thurs, Friday, Saturday.  No sunday shows are allowed as I am in a very religious community.  I once tried to add a Sat matinee and was shot down.  We are not allowed to do any matinees for students, but are allowed to offer one preview performance (where I do pieces of the play like movie trailers) for about 30 minutes, but teachers have to sign up their classes voluntarily and we can only do it one hour on one day before opening.  However, I have a 1200 seat house, so I can't really make a case for more performances unless I am selling out of the ones I already have.

I have been the theater director for 5 years now and we have tried several different show runs.  We originally did the Fri-Sun shows with 2 on Saturday and a Sunday matinee.  Our Saturday shows generally are not attended very well.  Then one year, we had a storm on a Sunday and did the show on Monday evening (it was packed).  We also tried one production over 2 weekends - the first weekend was very small in attendance.  So here is what we are doing now which seems to work well.  We do a show just for parents on Thursday.  We open on Friday, no Saturday, Sunday Matinee, Monday and Tuesday evening.  The Monday and Tuesday are well attended.  We advertise during our announcements.  I will also mention that my administration is usually okay with whatever production dates that I pick as long as they do not conflict with other major events which in a high school of 1500 is tough to find.

All of our plays and musicals used to run Thurs-Sun for two weekends, but we found it was tough to get people to show up for a Thursday opening night. For us, the second weekend is crucial because so much of our advertising is word of mouth from people who have seen the show.

The last five years or so, we have been doing our plays Fri-Sun and Thurs-Sun for 7 performances. And our musical, where the calendar allows, Fri-Sun for 3 weekends for 9 total performances. In both cases the Thursday night, the day before we open is a preview performance and we invite all of our faculty and staff. The place isn't packed, but it is usually a good enough turnout to convince a handful of teachers to encourage their other students to come see the show. It gives the cast the taste of an audience, and gives teachers and administrators the chance to support their students without having to come onto campus on a weekend surrounded by kids.

The feedback from parents after eliminating the Thursday show was entirely positive, and kids have enjoyed doing the 3-week run, with only one exception. 

Hi there.We have a 1,250 seat house. We do a four performance run for all shows...Thursday/Friday/2 on Saturday. No Sunday matinee (blech). I just switched to this schedule last year. I have been at this school for four years, and the previous director did a six performance run over two weekends. I found that to be ridiculous and burdensome. I have taken flak from some parents and students by going to a 1 weekend run ("It makes it less special," they say). There are many reasons why 1 weekend is better (less conflicts, less for royalties, less for rentals, larger houses, etc.) The Thursday through Saturday (with 2 shows on Saturday) is here to stay and has been great the last couple of years. 

I finally tried two week ends Friday Saturday and Friday Saturday.  I worked out great.  The student's voices were not as stressed and the word got around that the show was great so it increased our audiences.  The feed back was great as with two weekends conflicts were minimized.  We did a brush up rehearsal on Wednesday or Thursday and that was all that was needed.  

Lee HItchler

I do the aforementioned 3-day, 4-show run with two shows on Saturday. It has worked well. I might counter the principal for rationale beyond not being a fan of it. Why does he want change here?

I run fall show as black box for two full weekends. This year I made the mistake of putting Shakespeare in that slot which just doesn't sell as well. Last year, with a two weekend run of Almost Maine, I was turning people away closing night. 

Hello Ms. Bussey!  My high school typically does a four day run as well, though several years ago I believe they did a three day run with two shows on Saturday, a matinee and an evening performance.  Because weather in the spring can be a bit of an obstacle where I live, occasionally we will do just a Thursday through Saturday run.  Our middle school usually does three performances (Friday through Sunday) simply because of their limited size.  

It is my personal rule not to do school things on Sundays, as it's generally the only day each week that I have to myself.  We tried opening on a Friday and found that our shows were not as well attended as when we opened on a Thursday; my theory is that we lose that word of mouth advertising because no one is at school to talk about it until Monday and by then it's old news.

We now open on Thursday and do Thurs eve/Fri eve/Sat matinee, then Fri and Sat eve the next weekend.  So far it's working well.  For our black box show we've had to start adding performances because we're selling out, but our mainstage seats 600 so no sell outs there so far.  Our openings are generally well attended; we opened with an audience of over 200 last night.

Our school is about 1200 and I have the wonderful multi use space for a theatre. I would love to do two weekend of performances but because of our space issues that is almost impossible.

What we do is for big production shows we run 4 nights Wed - Sat. Our district prefers we don't have school activities on a Sunday. All of our shows start at 7:30 so no early shows on weekends. For smaller production shows we have one night/two night and three nights runs. It just depends on what we are doing. We have even have two shows dedicated to one night shows (One Night in January & An Evening in April) I hope this helps. I read all the posted discussions on this subject and found it very interesting. Thank you for posting your question.

We used to do two weekends and always had more people the 2nd weekend, but we weren't welling out.  We began 5 years ago to run all of our shows for three weekends. usually Fri/Sat, Fri/Sat, Thurs/Fri/Sat.  the last Saturday as a matinee.  When we do a show with a bigger draw like Les Miz or Hairspray, we add Thursdays in the first two weeks, when we do a smaller show, like the Servant of Two Masters, or Grapes of Wrath, we cut the last Thursday.  Adding the third weekend has been awesome, almost always being at or near sellouts--our little theatre holds only 299.  The extra income from the third weekend has given us a huge boost, and been a game changer, allowing us to buy new sound and light boards, and a $25K video projection system, among other things.  This year we did only two weekend for 12 Angry Jurors because of a scheduling conflict with homecoming, and we really missed having another weekend at the box office.  If the shows are good enough for positive word of mouth, I would recommend spreading over at least two weeks.  Plus since we rehearse for months, why not spend a little more time on stage?  that is the thrilling part.  We have enjoyed the longer runs.