I must be the only Theatre Director in the world who doesn't do traditional fundraisers! I detest them. I believe I have only done one traditional "sell 'em somethin'" fundraiser, and we made so little money it was ridiculous. I just can't inspire the kids to sell stuff because I hate doing it myself.
For 19 years I've been at a school that gives us a little money, but before that I taught at 4 schools where we got nothing. And only one of those schools had students whose parents could pay for them to pay registration fees for festivals, hotels costs, etc. So we had to operate in the black. I've never charged anyone to participate in a play or charged a course fee.
We make money through performing.
1. Public domain plays. There are so many of them. Shakespeare, Moliere, some of the old melodramas. One great thing about public domain plays is that you can cut them without permission. If you are working with a very old work, you can rewrite some of the clunkier sentences to make them flow for a modern audience. Make friends with Gutenberg.org, and send them a donation when you use something from their site.
2. Adaptations of public domain works not originally written as plays. We won Critics Choice and became our state's Chapter Select with an adaptation I did of Edgar Lee Masters' "Spoon River Anthology." No charge. We used costumes we built for previous shows. Zero production expenses. For the past four years, we have added four performances of "A Charles Dickens Christmas Carol" to our season. I downloaded the original little novel and did my own adaptation. We are lucky to have storage room for the set pieces, so the production has been virtually no cost after the first year.
3. Student-written plays. We do two types: collaboratively written plays that we perform for our elementary schools, and short plays that students write and our Thespians direct for an annual showcase we call Quixotica. Our biggest audiences of the year are always for Quixotica. The playwriting units in the theatre classes are where most of the plays in Quixotica get their first and second drafts, and the fact that plays from each class get productions the next spring makes those units more than assignments.
4. Original plays. If you have playwrights in your area, let them know you are interested in reading anything they write that would be acceptable for your students to perform. Give them some clues: words that are no-go, issues that interest your students. With a playwright who is able and willing to workshop a play, it isn't a matter of "We can't perform this," but "If you can see yourself changing this scene/word a bit...?" Either they can see making the changes, or they can't, and you move on. People who want their plays published need to have performances, so this is really a win/win situation.
5. If you still want to sell something, ask your students' parents to sell concessions at your shows. Our Thespian parents send in bottled water, sodas, chips, cookies, etc., and then a couple of parents a performance sell them during intermission for $1 each. We made almost $1000 this year on concessions sold during intermission. (We also have donation buckets: big popcorn buckets that are decorated and sit on the concessions and box office tables in the lobby.)
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C. J. Breland
Asheville High School
Asheville NC
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-01-2019 11:54
From: Shira Schwartz
Subject: Fundraising HELP!
Congrats on your first year!
In my state the students have to pay an activity fee for participation in any club. I keep it minimal ($5/year) but the money does slowly add up. The students also have to pay the costs to induct each year. I established that when I first took over the department and was working on increasing the balance in our account. I only charge the cost of the induction and start talking about it at the beginning of the year so the students can start saving if necessary (and I have a sponsor who will cover the costs for students who truly cannot afford it without assistance).
I would look at possible sponsors for your program. You might also try to partner with a local college or theatre to help defray costs for things like costumes and props.
One of the easiest and most profitable things we do is improv. We have multiple shows throughout the year and charge $3 a head. We average $250+ per show and, since we don't have to pay any rental to use the auditorium and tech the show ourselves, it's all profit. We now have set team and ref shirts but when we started the kids wore t-shirts and jeans to perform. We separated the teams with different colors. It's been a great money maker, is lots of fun for everyone involved and has helped increase interest and support for the department across the board.
- see if you can get a couple of minutes in a pep assembly to showcase this for the school. It'll really help get your audience interested until it becomes a staple of your school
We also have a donation jar available at every show. Again, the money slowly adds up.
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Shira Schwartz
Chandler Unified School District
Chandler AZ
Original Message:
Sent: 05-01-2019 10:55
From: Catherine Etter
Subject: Fundraising HELP!
I'm capping off a year where I accepted a job as a public school teacher in a high school, two weeks before school started, without an education degree. I had absolutely NO plan coming into this position and I've learned so much! But I'm trying to do better this year, because I dropped a lot of balls throughout this year.
The main place I need help is fundraising. I have no budget for anything. Every dime I have to spend I have to raise myself through fundraising, for both regular drama and tech theatre classes, my outside-of-school plays, and Thespians. At my school, we're not allowed to have competition between the clubs for fundraising, so all the fundraisers that actually make decent money are already taken. (Example: Our martial arts teacher has a snack shack where she sells snacks out of her room that our vending machine isn't allowed to carry by state law, like candy bars, honey buns, etc. She makes SO MUCH MONEY!)
So here are my questions for you. First of all, do your Thespians pay dues? If so, how much? Mine hadn't in the past, and didn't this year, but I really think we need to. (Keep in mind we're in a low income area, with 75% of our students below the poverty line.)
Secondly, do you all have any creative ideas for fundraisers that wouldn't already be taken by other clubs? We already have all the standard ones covered, like selling chocolate bars, coffee, cookies, & nuts, sodas, coffee, snacks, all that jazz. We're not allowed to do a Halloween event (another club does that already) or any dances (StuCo has a monopoly on that). Penny wars is also taken. We can't do a carnival or teacher pie-in-the-face.
I started having popcorn and pickle sales after school, but that barely covers what I need for just the drama department. I need a uniquely THESPIANS fundraiser.
Thank you all so much for your help!
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Catherine Etter
Drama & Theatre Tech
Harding Fine Arts Academy
https://www.donorschoose.org/Ms.EttersClassroom
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