For community theaters, schools, churches and nonprofit organizations
Most groups pick a Christmas show the same way. Someone remembers one they liked, the committee agrees, and six weeks later everybody discovers what it actually requires.
There is a better order to do this in. Work out what your group can carry, then find a show that fits. It sounds obvious. Almost nobody does it.
Count your people first
Not how many you wish you had. How many showed up last time, on a Tuesday, in November.
Then split that number into three groups: people who can carry lines, people who will happily be on stage without lines, and people who will work but will not perform. That last group is the one nobody thinks about, and they are often invisible to your audience, but your production cannot work without them.
A show needing fourteen speaking roles is a different animal from one needing four. If your reliable core is six adults, a four-principal show with room for guests is achievable. A fourteen-hander is a season of stress.
Ask what the music actually costs
This is where budgets die.
A play with songs in it usually means three separate permissions: the script, the right to perform the songs, and the recordings or arrangements you perform to. They come from different places and they are priced differently. Your ASCAP or BMI license may cover the performance of well-known songs. It does not cover the backing tracks, and it does not cover an arrangement someone wrote.
Ask the licensor directly: what do we owe you, what do we owe anyone else, and what does the total look like per performance? You will learn a lot when you hear their answer, or lack of one.
Be honest about rehearsal
Volunteers have jobs. In November they also have families, church commitments, school concerts and a Thanksgiving to survive.
A show that needs eight weeks of full-company rehearsal is asking for more time than most community groups can give without losing people partway. Ask how much of the show can rehearse in pieces, and how many times everybody genuinely has to be in the same room. Some shows are built to be assembled in parts. Most are not, and the difference will shape your autumn more than the script will.
Look at the room before you fall in love
Walk the space you will actually use. Count the seats. Find out whether the lights work and who is allowed to touch them. Ask what the sound system is, and then ask whether anyone can run it.
Lighting can be simple and the show still works. If the audience cannot hear the dialogue, nothing else you do matters.
Read it cold
Get a perusal script and read it as a stranger would, in one sitting, without the enthusiasm of whoever suggested it. Then hand it to someone on your committee who has not heard the pitch.
Two questions afterward. Would you buy a ticket to this if you knew nobody in it? And can you see your actual people in these actual parts?
If either answer is no, keep looking. There are more Christmas plays than there are Decembers.
Ask about the author
With a familiar title you are buying a known quantity and a set of expectations. With an original you are buying something your audience has not seen, which cuts both ways: no comparisons to the version they remember, and no comparisons to the version they remember.
The practical difference is reachability. A living author can answer a question on a Tuesday night in November when something is not working. A classic cannot. That matters more than it sounds when you are three days from opening and the second act is running long.
The questions worth asking every licensor
- How many speaking roles, and what is the smallest cast that works?
- What music rights do we need, from whom, and what is the total per performance?
- What is the minimum rehearsal commitment, honestly?
- What does the set actually require, and what can we borrow or fake?
- Can we read the whole script before deciding?
- What happens if we have to cancel?
Any licensor worth working with will answer all six without hedging. The answers will tell you more than the script summary will.
About this guide
Written by Curtain & Cause. We write original plays for community theaters and work with the nonprofit organizations staging them as fundraisers. Christmas on the Dial is an original full-length play staged as a live 1950s radio broadcast, with the audience as the studio audience.
Questions about any of the above are welcome, whether or not you are looking at this show. booking@curtainandcause.com
License the show · Book it as a fundraiser · Questions and answers
