Advent-ures

Not only am I behind with the blog, but now I'm behind with the online Advent Calendar. So much to do! I'm not sure anyone's noticed, mind...

Just picked up the Chorley Guardian and was disappointed not to see our Panto piece in there. Mostly my fault, because the photos were only done at the Christmas Lights Switch-on on the weekend before last and I've had a bout of writer's block, but I still thought there'd be plenty of time. Never mind, there's a good piece in the Citizen and I do appreciate it when the Guardian cover us. The recent piece about the bar was excellent.

Things are moving on apace with the Panto, in time for opening night. I've not been down as much as I'd like as I spent Monday night doing the programme in time for the print deadline. The "Harvey" audition went well, but we need lots more men!

Also finalising bookings for the new year. Lots of comedy, which I'm taking a bit of a gamble on, but they seem to be selling well. Everything we've got onsale at the moment is here

Harvey tickets are not online until the end of Panto as we'll be selling them at discounted prices (with NO booking fee) during Panto intervals. For many, many, reasons it's not easy for us to sell them at face value so I hope audiences can take advantage of the offer.

Little Catch-Up

Little bit of a catch-up today, with a poster done for Peak Film Society in Glossop (they're showing Cabaret on Saturday 12th December) and another booking finalised. More on that later...

Also good to see a piece about the Panto on the Chorley Citizen website. We've just added some tickets for Friday 18th to our online sales after a couple of rows became available.

And finally, welcome Chorley Arts to the blogosphere, as run by Chorley Council's Arts Officer Chris Bryan.

Busy, busy

In what is rapidly becoming the theme of this blog, I've had a busy couple of weeks. Curiously, leaving my job seems to have created more work than ever (not paid work, mind) and I'm desperately playing catch-up on everything.

I have letters to write, posters to design and brochures to create. They're all coming together but not-quite-finished. It was important I got flyers done for the Christmas Lights Switch-On in Chorley on Saturday and it certainly had an effect on ticket sales. Really, if you haven't got Panto tickets get them now - the show looks and sounds great and tickets are doing really well.

Some tickets are now available online, as we're a bit more sure of ourselves now and want to make buying tickets as easy as possible for everyone. Youth Theatre tickets are also available in Malcolm's and online so that's coming along nicely.

2010 is also shaping up well: CADOS have great shows, and I've been able to get some bookings that will fit in rather nicely. Lots of great comedy, which I'm very happy to have secured. Please come and support this new venture - you'll have a laugh, I promise!

More about bookings in a later post. After Christmas, at this rate...

Cheers,
Ian

Media Mental

Busy few days for me, despite there being no shows on at the theatre. I've been trying to sort out bookings and publicity materials but have been somewhat distracted by non-theatre issues: my decision to leave the job I've been doing for over a decade.

I've been working in Wigan designing charity badges and then soft toys, and with the 11th Anniversary fast approaching feel it's time for a change. I've got nothing lined up but would quite like a break. Seems a bit weird to give up the paid job so I've got more time for the hobby but right now that's the way I feel, the theatre work interests me more and there's only so many lions and bears I can draw. Things may change when I'm living on water and Tesco Value crisps in the depths of Winter...

Anyway, amongst all this I managed to appear on BBC Radio Lancashire twice in 16 hours! The first appearance was on Drivetime to talk about Chorley Little Theatre with Sean McGinty (who'd been following my tweets). Nice to meet him at last and it went really well - I think I got all the plugs in!

Then because I mentioned I designed the Pudsey soft toys in Asda I ended up on Tony Livesey's breakfast show. I listen to this every day so it was an offer I couldn't refuse, and loved being in the studio. I thought I'd be there for 10 minutes but ended up stopping for 40. Great stuff (though I've not listened back yet).

Funny thing, I don't want to be on stage but quite enjoyed these appearances. Maybe it's because it was like just chatting with mates.

In other news, I've done a CADOS e-newsletter tonight keeping people informed (after one anonymous person angrily e-mailed demanding one). Just got to get the leaflets sorted now...

And sleep.

New Look, New Logo

There's a big piece about the theatre by Natalie Banks in the latest Chorley Guardian, just being happy and positive about all the good stuff going on at the theatre. They extensively quote Estelle Bryers (some of you may know her from Film Society nights, I know her best as my fabulous girlfriend) and it's all topped off by a great picture of our premises manager Mike Taylor.

I hope it reminds people that, even though the scaffolding is still up, we've got plenty going on and it's a great place for a night out. But this is only Phase 1 - we still need support to pay for Phase 2, which will cover dressing room, the new rehearsal room and hopefully new toilets. The "Spend A Penny" campaign launches soon!

So, coming in January with any luck we'll have new signs on the building and here's the new logo. I like the current one, but the colours don't stand out very well and it's tricky to fit onto posters and banners (entirely my fault, I designed it!). The new logo is more vibrant and bold, but also compact which means I can get important information (like date and time) to stand out better on the posters.




Now's the perfect time to launch the logo as we'll get plenty of people in for the Panto so we can get them ready. I hope you like it - you'll be seeing it a lot!

Weekend

So, another packed weekend at the Theatre. YT did their show on Saturday but sadly I couldn't be there. I'm told it was very good though, and there's plenty of talent in this year's group. Their next show is A Christmas Carol, and I'm hoping to get the tickets printed this week (if I remember or have time).

We also showed The Age of Stupid last night, which is a powerful documentary about climate change. Got a different sort of audience, and it went down well. We raised about £30 or £40 for Chorley Oxfam (not that that was the point, we'd kept the ticket price to a bare minimum and were glad to have covered the costs - the rights were more than any other film we've ever shown!).

We also did a bit of painting backstage, but sadly the turnout for this wasn't so great. Seems everyone loves to be on stage but getting them to do a bit of much-needed work is harder. A shame as some people have really put in loads of work to make the Theatre really brilliant, it hasn't just magically become that way. Hopefully more members will do their bit the next time they're called upon.

Is it November already?

Alright... another apology. Very long time since the last blog - but that's because we've been so busy!

Rent was an epic, and getting the building ready was a massive task. But we all came together, and pulled it off. A great show, and a great new bar. I hope you managed to get down. If you missed the show, you really did miss a treat.

We really were working round the clock to get the place ready for opening night, with carpets, paints and lights only going in days before. The show sold very well (with a few sell-out nights) so it was good we'd managed to create more space for everyone.

There were some teething troubles that we'll iron out next time. Really, it felt like ages since we'd have a proper theatre and it took a while for us to remember what it was like before the builders moved in.

But there's still plenty of work to do, most of which won't be seen by the public. We now have 3 new rooms that have to be finished off and the bar needs some final touches. We hope the outside scaffolding will be down soon but the weather is delaying work. And then there's the new signage - with an all-new logo!

The logo will be revealed in next week's Chorley Guardian so I'll write a bit more about it then, but I think it's vibrant and modern but with a traditional feel. It's colours are more in line with the new bar and the style is a homage to the stained glass we've uncovered during the building work (and just wait until you see that). We'll give you plenty of time to get used to the new look during the Panto (you are coming, aren't you? Tickets are selling fast).

This weekend we've got Chorley Youth Theatre's Talent Tonight on Saturday, and the climate change documentary film The Age of Stupid on Sunday. I hope you can make it to one or the other.

Jobs

At a recent awards do (where Chorley Little Theatre won 10 awards - yay!) I was asked the following question:

"So, apart from being Chairman, what do you do at the theatre?"

Must be honest, this took me aback a little. I do loads - how can anyone not know? Tsk. Because I'm not on stage, I suppose. I'm happier staying in the background trying to make sure everything's going OK and getting people into the building.

So, for the uninitiated, here's what I do!

Design
Pretty much most of the design at the theatre is by me - from the logo, to the brochures and flyers, and the posters for the likes of Stones In His Pockets and Dave Spikey. Lately I've also been doing the interiors of the programmes. I've done every Film Society poster since 1999, and almost every CADOS one since about 2001 (my first was Teechers). In my day job I design soft toys (for supermarkets and charities) so it's not too big a leap. It's practically an unpaid second job.

Marketing
I'm part of the Marketing Committee and write press releases for local and national press, along with updates to listings. I try to write different stuff for different places but it depends on how much time I have!

Bookings
I took over bookings 2 years ago, and so I mainly deal with fitting everything in - such as shows, rehearsals, auditions, meetings, films etc. This aspect should get a little easier with the new rehearsal room, but things do seem to bottleneck every November/December and May/June when we seem to have 3 shows on the go. I also deal with outside bookings.

In the past we've gone for straight hires but - to be honest - some of these are a little more complicated or tough for us so I'm now trying to book acts that'll keep us ticking over, compliment CADOS, and give more people in Chorley a reason to visit us. If I had a pound for every Elvis impersonator that got in touch, I could pay for the repairs myself!

Chorley Film Society
Publicity/Design for them, as well as chairing the committee that picks the films. I also help project on the night and usually at various outreach shows such as the regular screenings in Bretherton. The current CADOS show opens with a fake movie trailer I made myself and which is projected by the Film Society onto their screen. Film Society will also be helping out with Rent, but thankfully not to the extent of when we did Mack & Mabel at Adlington - and I was in the Orchestra Pit every night!

I've won an award for Marketing and my article about it can be found at the BFFS.

Tickets
Finally, I also look after the ticket-printing, and the online sales.

In addition to all this, you may even see my House Managing or working on the Bar.

So, when there's no blog update for a while now you know why!

Intermission

Ah, how slack of me. I started a blog, then had absolutely no time to update it. I promise there'll be more to come today!

Chairman's Speech

When I became Chairman in July, I thought I ought to make members aware of my plans. But the night went funny, so I didn't get a chance. However, here's the speech for posterity, which roughly lays out what I'd like from my time.

(Future posts will be shorter, promise)

Hello. Some of you may be surprised to see me as CADOS Chairman - well, you're not the only one! Rest assured, I have no desire to act, sing, or direct. And I definitely won't be dancing.

For those who don't know me, I first started helping out CADOS about 20 years ago, when I operated the lighting desk, and did some set-painting and went on to design some programme covers. 10 years ago I joined the Chorley Film Society committee, and have been part of the expansion of that group, including getting funding. For a few years I've been doing the design work for CADOS, designing most of the posters and the new look. I have been involved with the CADOS 75th Anniversary Party, bookings, and marketing. I've only performed on our stage once (7 years ago) and that's how it will stay!

So while people are doing their thing on stage, I'm going to focus on getting the building up-and-running, and making it a great place for CADOS to get creative. I want a friendly, welcoming environment where people can get on with the thing they joined up for - and, hopefully, have fun at the same time. Sometime it seems like a second job, so I want to bring back some of the social elements so it becomes a great place for all of us to hang out.

The enforced closure of the building could have done us a world of good - when fully re-opened, it will be a brilliant place and I'm looking forward to seeing how the new space works out. We can rehearse 2 shows at once, or free up the stage for set-building without losing a rehearsal night. We're very privileged to have such a great venue at our disposal, so let's make sure we look after it (and the people in it). Let's respect each other and appreciate the work each of us does.

I know there have been concerns from members about feeling left out so we're looking at membership and ways for people to get more out of being here.

However, it's all give-and-take. I expect members to do their bit in helping run the place - whether that's telling people how brilliant we are, or helping us put up sets and working on the bar. The more that help, the more fun it becomes and the better it is for everyone. At the moment it's the same few people doing lots of things, so I'm not sure we can carry on with people who just want to be on stage. So, feel free to speak to any of us about helping out and we'll work things out together.

Some of you may be thinking I'll be showing more films or just filling the place with outside bookings. This is not going to happen, but it is necessary that we provide a wide-ranging service to the town and increase our income to pay for all the repairs and renovations. I want Chorley people to know they can get a good night out at Chorley Little Theatre, and for that message to spread to other towns so that people from Bolton, Preston, Wigan, etc. automatically think of us as a place to come. I hate it when people phone up asking what's on and all I can recommend is a play in 4 weeks. But I love it when new people discover us, and then keep coming back.

So there will be some comedy, some music, a few different shows, and regular films on a brand-new HD projector all to keep us ticking over and put us on the map. We receive a lot of goodwill from the people of Chorley and we must repay that by providing things they want, and making them welcome.

And right at the heart of this all will be CADOS - each show will be an event that I want the whole town talking about. We have such great people here, and I want to show them off. Everything we do is something to be proud of, so let's shout about it. We've got a great mix of old and new actors, fabulous singers, and lots of talent backstage too. Putting on a big production every 6 weeks or so is quite an achievement and the upcoming season will provide many different types of shows, and I can't wait to watch them all!

I'll be looking for funding so we can worry a bit less about leaking roofs and can just enjoy ourselves.

Lots of stuff has been going on lately, so a big thanks to the committee for working extra hard, and especially to Mike Taylor for overseeing the building work.

Thanks also to Malcolm for bearing with us, and local media for generously promoting our stuff. And, especially, thanks to all of you and our audiences for being so patient.

Don't forget to pick up a brochure seeing what's coming up - Stones In His Pockets and Rent tickets are available right now, everything else soon. Catch any of the great shows coming up, and I guarantee you'll have a brilliant night out.

Anyway, I think that's me done for now. Enjoy the shows!

First Blog

With the start of a new season, I've decided to start blogging about the goings-on behind the scenes at Chorley Little Theatre. You can keep up with latest news at Twitter, but this will (hopefully) go into more depth... as long as I remember to keep it updated!