amdram.co.uk

A major part of amdram is finding new, good and suitable scripts to perform. It’s not easy because a lot of scripts out there have performance rights and copyrights etc. It certainly doesn’t always come cheap…however, here are a few tips that you may find useful!

1.    When looking at scripts ask around and look at what is already being put on in your local area. This will save you a lot of hassle and time wasted when you read scripts and then realise that another group is already performing it. However, if a group not too far away have performed something in the past (a couple of years ago) then contact them and see how it went, ask if it was a good production, see if they found any difficulties … who knows, they may still have costumes and props you can hire cheaply!

2.    Scripts cost money to purchase in the first place. So sign up to your nearest (and biggest) library – you will find that you can lend groups of scripts for a long period of time at little or no cost to the group!

3.    Get members of your group to read through some of the scripts and to find ones that could be potential productions … if a majority of people enjoy the scripts they’ve read, then that can be a pretty good indication that an audience will also enjoy it.

4.    Try writing your own or ask group members to see if anyone fancies attempting a script. You might be surprised into how good and willing your group members could be! See my tips on writing your own pantomime scripts.

5.    If you have little or no money to pay for performance rights and no-one in your group wants the challenge of writing an original then contact local writers or other amateur groups who have written their own. They will charge a lot LESS than big publishing companies, and if it’s a local writer and the production has never been performed before then they might like your group to perform it and not charge you…as a tester!

6.    Make sure you enjoy the script that you pick…it’s going to be the most read thing in your life for a good few months and so if you get bored of it the first time that you read it, then your heart will not fully be in the performance!