December 11, 2003

Make a Toy Theatre
posted by beeswacky 20 years ago
  • I'll have to send this to my agent. Maybe I can get my plays produced here...
  • Is this a union house?
  • Well, it's British, so it's not IATSE. What all do you have over there? And why are some of you folks obsessed with toy theatres for that matter?
  • 1. Fun to make. 2. They're intellectually challenging to operate. 3. You can have a full house every night if you play your plays right. 4. Low overhead. Literally. 5. Actors and stagehands aren't Equity.
  • Equity is actually quite a nice, flexible union. I've known people in it, and they didn't have much trouble getting permission to work for free for artistic reasons, and their rules (breaks, etc) are very sensible, and should be followed by any theatre group. IATSE, on the other hand, I have heard crazy stuff about (all second or more hand, but a friend's father was a member).
  • jbThe actors are made out of paper or board in toy theatre, and in general only one or two people run an entire show due to constraints of space and equipment. In Europe there are some professional toy theatres operating, and I believe there are currently a couple in NYC but few hobbyists hold Equity cards, and when he/she is director, producers, possible playwright/librettist/orchestra, cast, tech crew etc such niceties as labour unions seldom if ever apply.
  • Well phrased, bees, and what a loverly post! I wasn't here for this the first time around, so I must thank those two nefarious time travelers for bringing it to the sidebar.
  • bees - I didn't realise there were performances of these theatres (I was just responding re: Equity). That's interesting that they are performing, but why paper, and not puppets? I would have thought puppets might be more flexible.
  • Here's a site with some basic information on the subject which, as a historian, ye might find interesting. There are two ways enthusiasts tend to approach mounting a production -- one camp tends to treat them as interesting relics of bygone days. The second group is more inclined to use adaptations from non-historixal sources -- fairy tales, opera, grand guignol etc and perhaps even Star Trek, [though I don't know of anyone actually f\trying the last named it would be entirely feasible in such a venue)/