"The Wedding Singer": How it All Begins

Most plays and musicals have hours of preparation before the auditions actually begin.  The host theatre company has to decide when to put on the show, secures a location if they don't already have one, decides on what show to do and finds a director and producer. Sometimes the director and producer are found first and consideration is given as to what show they want to do. 

The next process is to find out if rights are available for the show. Companies like Music Theatre International, Tams-Witmark, Dramatists, and Samuel French hold the licensing rights to shows. They insure that the composer, authors, playwright, lyricist and all the people involved with creating the show get proper credit, payment and maintain copyright of their work. Very often, rights are not available for one reason or another.  The cost of rights or royalties can vary from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars, especially for musicals.  These fees are determined based on the number of performances, the size of the audience, the number of scripts that must be purchased or rented, and many other factors. 

The summer musical originally scheduled for the Dexter Community Players was Xanadu, but problems arose with getting the rights. Sometimes, even when everything is done right, and production committees have already spent many hours preparing for a show, other problems can arise: in this case, the show had become so in-demand with professional theaters and another potential tour, that no amateur, college or community theaters were permitted to do the show until next summer. Locally, two separate professional theaters have "pulled the rights" on the show, meaning that amateur productions can not be produced until the professional theater's have first dibs.

Once everything else is in line, the director and producer build their production team and set a budget.  The directing team may include a music/vocal director, orchestra, choreographer, rehearsal pianists, lighting and set designers, costume and sound designer.  They work as a team to establish the vision for the show.

Finally audition dates and location may be set.  Then they must be publicized so that the actors and people interested in auditioning know when and where to come and how to prepare for auditions.

Next we will talk about the audition process.