Theatre North Carolina

NCTC Producing Gathering - Keynote Announced

NCTC Producing Gathering

Keynote Speaker -  Ralph Remington

July 22-24 at PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill

 

Ralph Remington is the Director of Theatre and Musical Theatre for the National Endowment for the Arts. At the NEA, Ralph is responsible for the grantmaking processes for theater and musical theater, developing partnerships to advance the field as a whole, and leading large-scale projects such as the NEA's New Play Development Program. We are excited to welcome him to North Carolina, for his first official visit! He will lead a keynote session on Monday, July 23.

 

Visit our website to see the gathering schedule overview and learn more about Ralph Remington. Registration will open in March and more schedule information will be available soon!

Save the date! - 2012 Producing Theatre Gathering

The 2012 NCTC Producing Theatre Gathering will take place July 22-24 at PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill!

Make plans now to join us for networking and professional development. You'll want to bring your whole staff to this event!

Save the date! - 2012 Producing Theatre Gathering

Save the date!

2012 Producing Theatre Gathering
 

The 2012 NCTC Producing Theatre Gathering will take place July 22-24 at PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill!

Make plans now to join us for networking and professional development. You'll want to bring your whole staff to this event!

NCTC 2010-2011 Annual Report - 2010 Producing Theatre Gathering

While the 2011 Producing Gathering may have wrapped-up in July, we are taking a look back at the 2010 Gathering for our Annual Report!

Producing Theatre Gathering - Triad Stage in Greensboro, July 25-27, 2010

The Producing Theatre Gathering serves both community and professional theatres in North Carolina. A record 70 people attended the gathering, and of those, 43 were new participants! For the second year in a row, the keynote speaker was NC Secretary of Cultural Resources Linda Carlisle, and sessions on social media, development, advocacy, financial management and strategic planning were held. This event serves two of NCTC's primary goals: it builds community among our members, and it allows us to bring key issues to their attention.

NCTC Producing Theatre Gathering Wrap-Up! - Supply and Demand

Supply & Demand. Probably the two harshest words uttered in the past year to the theatrical community besides ‘your budget has been cut’. In January of 2011, Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, spoke at a new works convention at Arena Stage and the internet responded.

Blog post after blog post was written and Twitter exploded with the hashtag #supplydemand. Following this conversation, of which I was an active participant, Angie asked me to lead a discussion in July about this subject. To be honest, I felt like the theater as a whole had forgotten about the events of January. It was 7 months later, a lifetime in this business. However, once the session started on Tuesday morning, it was soon realized, no one had forgotten. 

After the initial grumbling: “How dare he say that?!”, “Who is he to say what theaters are viable and which are not?”—as you can imagine, these are the clean versions of the actual conversation. We got down to business. Ok, Rocco, so there is too much supply for the amount of demand. We acknowledge that. However, why must supply be decreased? Why can’t the theatrical community work that much harder to increase the demand? At this point, we decided that this is the conversation that the nation needs to have. We need to work on it in our individual communities. We need to start working on it as a state. And finally we need to work on it on a national level as well. Honestly, we need to stop fighting and stop thinking of each other as competition. Educational, community and professional theater all serve a specific purpose; however, we all have the same goal. To tell the story of the human experience.

In our hour and a half, did we change the world? No, of course not, but that’s really not the point. At the end of the day, a part of me believes that Rocco said this controversial statement knowing the reaction he was to receive. It started the conversation. A conversation that was very much needed.

Megan is the Publicity & Marketing Assistant for Triad Stage and a 2007 graduate of Appalachian State University. You can follow Triad Stage tweets at @triadstage or her personal account @reluctantemmy.

NCTC Producing Theatre Gathering Wrap-Up! Marketing: Back to the Basics

As we recap the sessions from this year's Producing Theatre Gathering, I thought I would write what impacted me from Robert Friend's Marketing presentation. Though many of his points seem geared towards larger companies, I work for a small theatre organization and found many of his ideas beneficial. Robert took us "Back to the Basics," and gave us his "Four Key Market-Driven Areas That Can Make a Difference for Your Theatre."

Robert reminded us to think "big picture," instead of thinking about how we can "just get by" from one year to the next. How can theatres become a vital part of people's lives? Marketing Basic #1: He suggested improving data management. We should ask questions like "who are we marketing to? Who is affected by our programming?"

Marketing Basic #2: Organizations need to have a strategic marketing plan. Instead of just writing what your marketing goals are, you need to write a comprehensive plan of the steps you will take to achieve those goals.

Robert Friend encouraged theatres to look at where they might be "leaving money on the table." Do you include a service charge for online ticket purchases? If the answer is "no," you could be potentially missing a significant chunk of income. Marketing Basic #3: Maximizing profit may mean increasing cost for your customers, but in order to get out of the "just getting by" method, this may need to happen.

Finally, Robert reminded us of perhaps the most essential Marketing Basic - #4: Do your research. Instead of just marketing to current patrons, find new people to be patrons, before they even know it! This requires a lot of research and thinking outside the box, but will pay off when you discover an untapped group of customers.

For Robert Friend's complete Marketing Basics presentation, email Angie Hays (angelahays@nctc.org) or Amanda Clark (amanda@nctc.org).

NCTC Producing Theatre Gathering Wrap-Up! Photos, Photos, Photos!

Photos from the 2011 NCTC Producing Theatre Gathering are up on Facebook! Check them out and make sure to tag yourself!

www.facebook.com/NCTheatreConference

 

NCTC Producing Theatre Gathering Wrap-Up! - Social Media Part 2

We are so glad that many of you made it to the NCTC Producing Theatre Gathering this year. We will post notes and presentations from as many sessions as possible. Hope to see you next year!

Social Media 2011 - What's New? (Shane Hudson)

Social Media is constantly changing. What was new last year is old news today. Get up to speed with this session on newest developments, current trends and best practices. Topics covered will include recent Facebook and Twitter changes, news and reports on the latest impact of social media and examples of how theatres across the country are utilizing these new media tools. This session is open to all, novices and pros alike. Shane Hudson is the Assistant Director of Development at PlayMakers Repertory Company, and founder of TheatreNorthCarolina.com - now the official blog of NCTC. We are thrilled to welcome Shane back for his fourth consecutive appearance at the Producing Theatre Gathering!

Nctc social media 2011

View more presentations from NCTC.

NCTC Producing Theatre Gathering Wrap-Up! Social Media Part 1

We are so glad that many of you made it to the NCTC Producing Theatre Gathering this year. We will post notes and presentations from as many sessions as possible. Hope to see you next year!

Social Media 2011 - What's New? (Shane Hudson)

Shane Hudson's full PowerPoint presentation will be up shortly. In the meantime, here's the link to the FANTASTIC social media report that was mentioned throughout his presentation - The Tangled Web: Social Media in the Arts by Devon V. Smith. Make sure to read this report and share it with your team!

Be on the lookout next week for Shane's PowerPoint!

NCTC Producing Theatre Gathering Wrap-Up! Financial Storytelling

We are so glad that many of you made it to the NCTC Producing Theatre Gathering this year. We will post notes and presentations from as many sessions as possible. Hope to see you next year!

Financial Story Telling (Dave Olson)
Your organization’s budgets and financial results are the numeric representation of your business plan and tell a part of your company’s story. In this session, Dave Olson will uncover the story that your numbers are telling and provide guidance for sharing that story with your supporters. Dave is on the Graduate Performing Arts Management faculty at the UNC School of the Arts and is a licensed CPA. NCTC welcomes Dave back for his fifth consecutive year of presenting at the Producing Theatre Gathering!

Financial storytelling

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