Theater teachers: What media sources do you use to get show and product ideas for productions?
Question:
I am NOT looking for a list of links that are the result of an uninformed Yahoo Search. I'd like real leads to real resources that real theater teachers use.
Answer:
The main way I get that information is at an annual conference--Texas Educational Theatre Association. There's a huge vendor show, and it's a great place to check out new resources in person and talk to the experts who sell them.
I also look at ads in publications from EdTA and the magazine "Technical Theatre."
Gotta agree with poster above, though--our budgets are so tight that I do most everything myself on a shoestring. A product has to be pretty fantastic to justify spending any of my pittance of a budget on it.
Good luck to you! I DO think there's a market for what you're creating.
It's hard to answer your question because I don't know the particulars of what you want. I work for a public school, so I have to make due with what the department already has. I do a lot of minimalist sets! Beyond the local costume rental place I don't really use any "media".
I get set design ideas based of of my reading of the script, my budget, other productions I've seen, and ideas from the students in my tech class.
For choreography, usually I call on my years of dance training, enlist the help of a colleague who is VERY into dance, or from videos of past broadway productions. One could hire out, or, depending on how hands-on you are, let the kids do it themselves!
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