Constructing the Perfect Season for a Community Theatre

Las Cruces Community Theatre in Las Cruces, New Mexico(Photo by raisamac)

by Chris Peterson

Programming a community theatre season is not easy.

You are trying to excite subscribers, bring in new audiences, give local performers something worth auditioning for, keep volunteers engaged, and balance ambition with reality. All while knowing someone will complain that you picked the wrong shows.

So let’s imagine the perfect five-show season. For me, it is three plays and two musicals.

And before anyone starts yelling about royalties, cast sizes, orchestras, or whether your theatre has the right talent pool, let me say this clearly: the examples below are offered without knowing anyone’s budget, venue, technical setup, or community. Every theatre has to program for its own reality. But as a blueprint, this is where I would start.

Open with a big, well-known comedy.

A season opener should feel exciting. It should give people a reason to buy tickets, bring friends, and remember that the theatre can simply be a great night out.

This is where I would look at titles like Noises Off, The Play That Goes Wrong, Lend Me a Tenor, Rumors, The 39 Steps, Clue, or Boeing Boeing. These are plays audiences recognize, or at least understand immediately from the marketing. They also give actors real comedic opportunities, which is never a bad thing in community theatre.

Then go smaller with the first musical.

Not every musical slot needs to be filled by a giant title with a giant cast, a giant set, and a production team wondering if they made a mistake by saying yes.

A smaller musical gives a theatre a chance to focus on character, vocals, storytelling, and intimacy.

This is where shows like The Last Five Years, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, [Title of Show], A New Brain, Daddy Long Legs, Ordinary Days, or John & Jen make sense.

Community theatre does not always need to prove it can go big. Sometimes the better flex is proving that it can go small and still hold the audience.

The third slot should be the risk.

This is where I wish more community theatres would get braver.

Every season needs at least one show that says, “We are not just here to repeat the same titles forever.” That does not mean alienating your audience. But it does mean making room for newer work, underproduced work, or even a world or regional premiere.

Maybe it is a newer published play like The Thanksgiving Play, POTUS, Clyde’s, The Lifespan of a Fact, The Minutes, Tiny Beautiful Things, The Wolves, What the Constitution Means to Me, or Grand Horizons. Maybe it is a local playwright. Maybe it is a regional premiere from a writer your audience has not heard of yet.

This slot does not have to be reckless. It just has to be intentional.

Community theatres are often told to know their audience, and they should. But knowing your audience should not mean assuming they only want what they already know. Audiences can be curious. They can show up for something new if the theatre explains why it belongs in the season.

This is also the slot that can bring in younger audiences, new artists, and local press. There is value in being the place where something new gets a chance.

The fourth slot should be the well-known drama.

After the risk of a newer work, this is where I would give the season some grounding. A strong drama gives the theatre a serious, actor-driven piece with a title audiences know, or at least one they understand how to approach.

This is where I would look at plays like A Raisin in the Sun, The Crucible, Steel Magnolias, Our Town, Doubt, August: Osage County, The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Diary of Anne Frank, Twelve Angry Jurors, Proof, or To Kill a Mockingbird, depending on rights, casting, space, and community fit.

Then close with the large musical.

This should be the season finale. The one with the large cast, the big marketing push, the families, the costumes, the choreography, the rehearsal photos that get shared all over Facebook, and the lobby buzzing before curtain.

It is the community theatre machine at full power.

Depending on budget and rights, this could be The Music Man, Into the Woods, Sister Act, The Sound of Music, Mamma Mia!, Matilda, Beauty and the Beast, Guys and Dolls, Legally Blonde, Newsies, or Ragtime.

A large musical is often where community theatres bring the most people together across generations. Kids, adults, longtime performers, first-timers, everyone gets pulled into the orbit.

And as a closer, it sends everyone out on a high. It gives the season a finish line people can see coming from months away. It also gives the theatre one more major box office push before the season ends, which no board treasurer has ever objected to.

The trick is choosing a large musical that fits the theatre’s actual community, not just the title everyone wishes they could do. There is a difference between ambitious and unrealistic, and every community theatre has learned that lesson the hard way at least once.

That, to me, is the ideal five-show community theatre season. And if programmed well, a season that gives audiences, actors, directors, designers, musicians, volunteers, and board members all something to get excited about.

Which, frankly, is harder than it sounds.