6 Recruiting tips to grow your high school's theatre program
Photo: High School Drama Institute at The Catholic University of America
by Laura Bengs, Guest Editorial
Whether you’re new to a program or experiencing the dreaded talent drought, growing a program–on top of everything else you’re managing–can feel overwhelming. Being able to produce projects you’re interested in can hinge on having enough talented actors to produce them, so any time you invest in recruiting will be time well spent.
While good old-fashioned word-of-mouth is a reliable way to get a steady stream of talent, there are some actions you can take–some without a lot of work–to make your program more attractive or more inviting to new talent.
If it’s a growing period for your program, here are some considerations and actions that could be productive in helping you to grow your drama program:
Think about timing. Many programs have shows at similar times of the year because “that’s what we’ve always done.” While this can be good for steady community support (if people always know the musical is the second week in November, they’ll start looking for tickets around that time), you may be unintentionally excluding groups of students or making it difficult for students to be involved.
Our fall play always fell squarely within the fall sports season with a production mid-November. However, our spring musical took place at the end of February which opened a small window between the winter sports season and the spring sports season. Depending on their role, students could sometimes participate in both the drama production and their sports season.
You’ll also want to be mindful of how breaks impact your rehearsal schedule. Based on when we would audition, our spring musical rehearsal schedule would extend over the winter break; however, we never rehearsed over the break because many families had plans for travel during that time. Respecting family time over breaks can go a long way in recruiting and retaining participants!
Another consideration to take a look at is when you are rehearsing. If you have the flexibility to hold rehearsals from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. versus right after school, you may be able to include more students that are involved in sports or other clubs as well.
Focus on more than just cranking out shows. We recruited so many students from our parent Drama Club because we engaged in more than just producing shows. Every year, we would take students on four to five field trips to see professional shows. Students that just enjoyed and appreciated theater would join the club to come along to the shows. In doing so, they would be wooed by the camaraderie on the trip and the magic on the stage so much so that they would start dipping their toes in how to help with upcoming shows.
Think about other fun opportunities like bringing in a comedy group, hosting a day performance of a play an English class is studying, or bringing in a famous or regionally-famous performer to speak to student audiences. A barrier for some students is simply the fact that they haven’t been exposed to theater or considered it as something they might want to do. Simply introducing it to students is sometimes all they need to consider getting involved.
Advertise opportunities outside of performing. Students that love to perform flock to shows, yet students that might have an artistic interest outside of performing may not always think to seek out theater. In spreading the word about opportunities, make sure you include other needs like graphic design and writing (for publicity), construction and painting (for set building), and business (for ticket selling and show management).
Prioritizing and appealing to talents outside of just performing often got a lot of our students in the door of the theater, and once they saw the magic on stage, they were hooked! Shows rely on more than just performers, and building your program in all areas of production can equally contribute to the growth of the program.
Invite students–individually. I can’t tell you how many students I’ve recruited from my English classes. It’s amazing what a difference a personal invitation can make. Drama kids have a certain spark, and if you spot one that somehow hasn’t yet found the stage–talk to them. Personally invite them to be a part of the program. Talk about the potential you see. Get them excited. A personal invitation is hard to say no to, and chances are, they probably were already thinking about it. Reaching out to them may be the push they needed to join.
Select shows that appeal to students and big groups. There are many factors that go into selecting shows for your high school program, but if you’re looking to grow, you may benefit from thinking more critically about who you’re selecting the shows for. Selecting popular titles that students are excited about can be a great way to see your audition numbers go up. Also, selecting a big show with fun ensemble features (think Beauty and the Beast) offers a lot of opportunity, so students could be more inclined to audition if they have the option of not being “just another chorus member.” If you’re looking to grow numbers, you need to make room for them, so selecting a show that has the space for many participants to have a great experience can be a great recruiting move.
Collaborate with your other art teachers. The choir director at your school can be a wonderful asset in recruiting students for shows. Whether or not they are involved in directing, they can help support the show by doing things like teaching a sight-reading lesson with the audition piece or playing a popular song from the show for a score study. Our choir director even worked with students in her private lesson block to learn audition music leading up to auditions, giving them more confidence and increasing their likelihood of following through with auditioning.
The art teacher can be another great resource for collaboration, especially with set design. In collaborating with our arts teachers, we were able to produce beautiful set designs and even think critically about how to coordinate gallery efforts with the content and timing of shows. Not only did this result in piquing interest in set design for some artists, it even opened an additional extracurricular opportunity for students that hadn’t considered this outlet for their art.
Our overarching recommendation: expose students to the theater in as many ways as you can think of. Often, all students need is to get their foot in the door, and they’re hooked.