Publicity Manual
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OFFICIAL RPI PLAYERS PLAYHOUSE MANUAL DOCUMENT
Document Name: RPI Players Publicity Manual
Document Author(s): Joey Faust, Publicity Director; Carla Voorhees, Asst. P. D.
Date of Compilation: Spring 2005; 75th Season
Contents |
[edit] Production Responsibilities
Any given production of the RPI Players has a number of different publicity needs that are to be met by one individual serving as the season publicity coordinator, one individual serving as the production publicity chairperson, or a team of individuals serving as the production publicity team (hence, “publicity”). These responsibilities include advertising for both auditions and the production itself, creating the production playbill, and creating additional publicity materials in support of the show.
[edit] Advertising For Productions
Every production has two events to publicize: auditions and performances. For each event, publicity should include AT LEAST sending out a press release (see Sending A Press Release), creating ads to be run in the Polytechnic, and making flyers/posters to poster campus. Other things like making table tents for the Union or dining halls, selling tickets around campus, or dressing in costumes and parading about campus should all also be considered. It is publicity’s responsibility to get people in the seats of the theater for the production, and to get people at auditions to fill the cast.
First and most importantly, create a show poster. Semi-large… something that catches the eye. Do a run of about 100 of these first, then, an additional run of more if needed and in the budget. Also, I would suggest creating a black and white flyer that can be easily copied as well for large postering blitzes, so you don’t have to waste the more expensive posters.
The Players get a certain amount of Poly credits in the Players budget to advertise for auditions and performances. Check with the Business Manager to see how large of an ad publicity is afforded for a given event. See Running A Poly Ad for details on how to do this.
It is important not just to focus on the campus community when publicizing a show, but also on the surrounding area. Bringing posters to local businesses or finding some way to advertise at other colleges are all good ideas. Another good idea that has been used frequently in the past is to make postcards to be sent to various theatrically-related groups in the Capitol Region. The list of addresses for postcards is included as part of this manual.
[edit] What To Include In Advertisements
When advertising a performance, make sure to include (obviously) the name of the performance, dates and times. Also, however, insure that the location (RPI Playhouse on 15th St.), phone number for reservations and more info and ticket prices are also included on the poster. Another oft-forgotten inclusion for a show that the Players have purchased the rights for is the author of the work, and the company that holds the distribution rights. There are guidelines specific to each company as to what size the author’s name should appear in relation to the title of the show, and how much additional information must be included on show posters. Do not neglect these requirements. This information for a few of the most popular companies is included in the manual, but this information is also often included when the Business Manager purchases rights, so see him/her with any additional questions about this.
When advertising auditions, make sure to include whether or not any preparation is necessary, and it may be a good idea to include the performance dates as well.
[edit] Creating A Playbill
As the performance approaches, the focus for publicity tends to shift to producing a playbill. A playbill traditionally includes a listing of who was whom in the cast and crew, bios of everyone, a listing of the current E-Comm, director’s notes, an explanation of Alpha Psi (with AYW letters placed by every member who is in Alpha Psi in the cast and crew listing), ads, and an advertisement for the Players’ next show. An important thing to remember is that apart from a listing of the cast and crew, nothing is required to be in the playbill. Alpha Psi will get fairly peeved if you leave them out, though, and it’s fairly easy to add the E-Comm in. However, if people are stingy about getting in bios, or the director keeps putting off getting in Director’s Notes, leave them out, or, in the case of bios, make them up. But, as a general rule, ask people several times for things before giving up on them.
Getting local businesses to pay for ad space in a playbill is probably the most challenging aspect of the publicity position. I’ve included an old ad guideline sheet as an example of the types of things that I would suggest as far as sizing goes. We’ve charged (this season, anyway) $25 for a quarter-page, $50 for a half page, $100 for a full page, and $300 for the back of the playbill. You can go around and make calls to sell these ads… perhaps a better way is to encourage the cast and crew to sell them for you (works especially if there are older community members involved in the show). Make sure, if you sell any ads, that you give the business a proof of the ad before it runs, and that you get them a copy of the playbill when they’re printed. That’d be a good time to drop off a poster for them to put in the window, as well.
A playbill can be compiled in Microsoft Word, even, but I’ve found the best program to be Adobe PageMaker, if you can get your hands on it. Get them printed (see Getting Stuff Printed), but try to save money in various creative ways. Definitely don’t go more than two-color (black and white) on the inside, and if you want a fancy cover, try experimenting with color cardstock before you go all out and print four- or full-color covers. Always get price quotes and check them against your budget before printing anything.
Playbills take about a week to print. It’s a very good idea to print a proof first, then get everyone to look at it for typos or incorrectly-transcribed bios or whatever. So, if you do that on Tech Sunday a week before, that’s cutting it very close for getting them printed on time. Needless to say, that’s been the most common day for doing this proofing. Be semi-realistic about numbers needed with a bit of overestimation. A good rule of thumb, maybe (and this may also be a bad idea) is to assume half-house every performance until closing night, and then a full house closing night. Or perhaps a full house for the two final performances, instead.
[edit] Marquee Painting
Publicity is in charge of getting the show marquee made, if one is going to get made. It’s definitely a good idea, because it gets the show’s name very big in an area of high campus traffic (the side or front of the Playhouse). Paint is included in the publicity budget. Make SURE that the paint for the marquee is outdoor paint, so that it won’t run when rained upon. Apart from that, get the cheapest paint you can find. Passano Paints in Watervliet has fairly cheap paints, although you might have to talk to the people there to ensure they’re not giving you a better grade paint than you really need. Home Depot is also a good second. Two or three coats of white (or whatever color, just don’t attempt to paint over black, it won’t work) should do to clear the marquee, then just paint one or two coats on top.
Instead of just going at it with paintbrushes to create the marquee, a great idea is to print it out on a transparency, and then project the image onto the marquee and trace it. The VCC has a transparency printer in the basement, look on the VCC website for details of adding that printer to your computer. Marquees are nearly 4’ by 8’ (although they are a little bit taller, and all the paint means they’re never quite the same size). The Playhouse should have an overhead projector in the lighting booth, or it can be A-Commed.
[edit] Shirts
Every production in recent years has also made t-shirts (or other materials) for the cast and crew to purchase and wear with pride. The thing with these is that they are not in the budget, so any such endeavor must be zero-sum… sell them for as much as you buy them for. The budget can take the temporary hit to invest in the shirts, but they have to be sold, so don’t order two hundred shirts and not talk to anyone about it. The best policy is to ask everyone before hand to get sizes and amount to order (this season we even put a shirt size blank on the audition form).
Screening t-shirts costs a base price to make the various screens, and then a price per shirt. Normally this base price is $10 or $18 per color per side. So, if you have two colors on the back plus the logo on the front corner, that’ll be maybe $46 base ($10 for the pocket, $18 per color for the back) then like $7 dollars per shirt. If you want to do fancy layering, make sure you make it easy on the guy, and give him an Illustrator file (they like vector art a lot) with all the color layers defined. They can also trace things based on a printout, but that gets a little hairy. The best bet is an Illustrator file. The more shirts you get, the cheaper it is per shirt. Go to Screen-It (see Local Contacts), they have the best prices. It takes over a week to get the shirts in, and it’s nice to have them before the first weekend of performance so that people can wear them to publicize the show.
[edit] Additional Responsibilities
If the organization holds any other events they want to publicize, such as Theater Slams or some such, they may turn to publicity to create the flyer for the event. Also, it also falls to publicity if any season materials are to be created. For example, season shirts, posters, mugs, and marquees have all been done in the past. Also, publicity is heartily encouraged to be clever in their tactics. The mugs and shirts would come, for example, with season tickets. Also, in the past, we’ve done contests on show nights or for people who make reservations, done chalk art, and paraded through the Union in harem outfits.
[edit] Things To Know
Here are some things you may not have done before, that you will need to do as publicity.
[edit] Sending A Press Release
This is very easy. When drafting a press release, start with a statement like “For immediate release:” then include contact information (even phone, 276-6503, and fax, 276-6920). Start out the body of the release with a title, then a location (Troy, NY) and a date. It’s nice to close the release with some basic description and contact info. The one’s I’ve sent close with the following:
| The RPI Players is a student run community theatre. While RPI students are the primary participants in the organization, auditions and production roles are open to all community members.
For more information visit www.players.rpi.edu or Phone: 518-276-6503 Contact: rpi-players@rpi.edu |
The Union Admin office has the Players fax list programmed into their fax machine. This is a list of local publications that will run the press release. A copy (who knows how old) of this list is included in this manual. The list includes the Times Union and the Troy Record, so do check for them after you send the release. They have listings for auditions or theatrical performances. The Times Union has historically messed up the information royally, so it’s nice to check.
[edit] Running A Poly Ad
A flyer describing the Poly’s ad policy is included in this manual. Check for how many Poly credits you have for a given purpose. An eighth-page is two credits, a quarter page four, and so forth. A list of sizes is also included in this manual. The best move is to get the ad in by five o’clock the Friday before you want it to run, although you can get it in on that Monday, as long as you tell them you’re going to run it on the Friday before by 5 PM.
[edit] Getting Stuff Printed
Over the years we’ve tried a lot of different printing companies for our posters and playbills. We keep coming back to Alchar Printing (see Local Contacts), because they, more often than not, have the best prices. Feel free to ask around, though… it’s always good to find something new. You can provide them a CD with pdfs or Photoshop images (they tend to prefer pdfs) to print, but make sure you also bring a proof with you (even if it’s scaled wrong or in black and white) so that they can see what the end product’s supposed to look like. They normally have a turn-around time of about a week.
Because we normally do a smaller run of posters (read: under 500), they will print them on a color printer. That means, besides black and white, all posters cost the same, no matter how many colors. They do charge more for odd sizes, however, but I’ve gotten 11x17 cardstock posters for about $1.30 each.
They can also fold and staple playbills for you, and will make suggestions as to which route you should go with your printing. Just always get price quotes and ask for a proof before they go and print 1000 copies of something that’s wrong.
[edit] Suggested Production Schedule
This is a very generous production timeline. This season, we’ve tried to stick to this, but have often had to cut corners. I would suggest using it as a guide and then fitting the timeline to what works for you.
- Send an auditions press release – two weeks before auditions.
- Submit an auditions Poly ad – the Friday before the Wednesday before auditions.
- Create an auditions flyer – two weeks before auditions.
- Poster campus – the week before auditions if they are early in the week, the week of as well if they are later in the week.
- Create poster design – the week of auditions (mostly so you have an idea of what the “design” is).
- Start collecting ads for the playbill – the week of auditions.
- Create and print a marquee design – by the first work party.
- Send posters to be made – four weeks before show opens.
- Send shirts to be made – three weeks before show opens.
- Start collecting bios – three weeks before show opens.
- Create the playbill – two weeks before Tech Sunday.
- Print and mail postcards – two weeks before show opens.
- Send a performance press release – two weeks before show opens.
- Print a proof – one week before Tech Sunday.
- Have the marquee up – one week before Tech Sunday.
- Send playbill to be printed – right around Tech Sunday.
- Poster campus – continuously from right after Tech Sunday until the show closes.
- Run Poly ads – on the Friday before Wednesday before every weekend of the show.
[edit] Local Contacts
Alchar Printing 599 Pawling Ave. Troy, NY 12180 518-274-2421 www.alchar.com
Joe Crawley, President Screen-It Ltd. 668 Hoosick Road Troy, NY 12180 518-272-1606 www.screenitltd.com
Passonno Paints 500 Broadway Watervliet, NY 12189 518-273-3822 www.passonnopaints.com
