How to… start a theatre company

Find people you love and trust

Perhaps you’ve trained together at drama school or university. Perhaps you’ve seen their work or they’ve seen yours. Perhaps you’ve just met in the pub. Working with people you love and trust is so important. You’ll be able to be honest with each other, which will save so much time, remembering to put the work before fear and ego. Our latest play, ‘Weald’ has been through countless rewrites (about eleven, we think) and the three of us have had input in some way, big or small, on each of those edits. Working with people you have a laugh with will make the whole thing much more fun and a bit more bearable when things are tough.

Know what you want to say

You’re a unique combination of individuals with varied life experiences influencing different views on the world. ‘Bitch Boxer’ wouldn’t have had the same authenticity had Charlotte not trained (and competed) as a boxer. Weald wouldn’t have such a rich rural language and environment if Dan hadn’t worked on a livery yard as a teenager. We wouldn’t have so much football chat if I hadn’t been a lifelong Stoke City fan. How do all those wonderful differences mix up into one voice? Know what you want to explore, write a company ethos together be clear on your intentions.

Know your taste

This is the fun bit, and one that can take a lovely long time to develop. Go see lots of theatre. Go read lots of plays. Know what you like and don’t like, and more importantly know why. Develop your taste as personal artists and as a group. Combine your individual strengths as performers/practitioners with what you like in theatre.

In Snuff Box Theatre, there’s a broad range of tastes, but we all share a common preference for stories with guts, grit and heart. Bitch Boxer had all of that in spades, and Weald does too. It’s no surprise that these are the stories we want to tell – being aware of your shared stories will help you with your creative focus.

Be realistic about the money

It’s great to have dreams of a revolving set that shoots lasers while your huge sound rig shakes people’s rib cages with its bass. But it’s even nicer being paid for the work you do. Even better if it’s for something you love doing. The individuals in your creative team are all thinking the same thing. So dream big for them as well as yourself: value your work and theirs respectfully and realistically and work your socks off to get that team fairly recompensed for their time and efforts. 

It’s a hard journey that doesn’t happen overnight (and sometimes doesn’t happen at all). Weald has been two years in the offing: working outside of the rehearsal room to get theatres interested in co-producing, workshopping the material, writing funding applications and fundraising. When it does come off there’s something immensely satisfying about knowing your team are paid at least the industry rate. Having that aim will help push your company on.

Now get out there…

Soak it all up like a theatre-y sponge, hone your tastes, argue the toss about what direction you’re going in. But don’t spend all day on Wikipedia, sat in the library or the coffee shop. A theatre company makes work. So take a deep breath, find a space and get something started. Give yourselves a deadline to work to (they really help to move things along); it doesn’t need to be a full show. It could be five minutes of material, two hours or even just a few ideas. But leap all the same – leap and build your wings on the way down.

But remember your downtime

Doing the thing you love as a job sounds like a dream, but without some boundaries it can quickly feel like a never-ending nightmare. Most people work a Dolly Parton five days a week and then get a weekend. That whole ‘work hard play hard’ thing doesn’t leave much room for softness, for daydreams, for rest. No one wants to get an email on a Sunday evening at 10pm, so don’t send them. Be dedicated to your work, sure. Work long hours, sure. Sacrifice a good wage, a social life and hours of sleep, of course. But give yourself a Sunday. Everyone needs a Sunday.

Bryony Shanahan is the director of Snuff Box Theatre. 
www.snuffboxtheatre.co.uk
Tw @SnuffBoxTheatre

The company’s latest play, Weald, will be at the Finborough Theatre from 2 -27 February.