The Relationship Between Theater and Business

You may be asking yourself "What do theater and business have in common?" Believe me, when I first started to think about this question I was certain that they had absolutely nothing in common; however, they do! To start off I would like to share a bit of information about business and theatre and then we will end by putting these two together to see how they complement each other in a positive way.

A business can be defined as an organization that provides goods and services to others who want or need them. When many people think of business careers, they often think of jobs in large wealthy corporations. Many business-related careers, however, exist in small businesses, non-profit organizations, government agencies, and educational settings. There are a wide variety of career areas that exist in business settings. Some of these include: Accounting, Business Management, and Finance.

On the other hand we have theatre which is a branch of the performing arts. While any performance may be considered theatre, as a performing art, it focuses almost exclusively on live performers creating a self contained drama. A performance qualifies as a dramatic by creating a representational illusion. By this broad definition, theatre has existed since the dawn of man, as a result of human tendency for storytelling. Since its inception, theatre has come to take on many forms, utilizing speech, gesture, music, dance, and spectacle, combining the other performing arts, often as well as the visual arts, into a single artistic form. The word derives from the Ancient Greek theatron meaning "the seeing place".

Now that we have a better understand of what business and theatre are lets take a look at how they can work together. Like any other business operation, theatres sell a product which is entertainment and they must use staff such as actors, technicians and administrators to reach their target market, the audience. Unlike most other businesses, theatres sell a product that is one of a kind every night. Not only do performances vary slightly due to the fact that it is live acting but a wide variety of backstage changes alter somewhat every aspect of the show.

A show starts with an Artistic Management Team. The job of this team is to work on the script. The script is subdivided between at least five design teams according to the scene, language, or character groups. If the show includes music, dance, or combat this requires more additional teams. When it comes the time for the actual performance to happen the theatre only needs four teams to operate: House/Box Management, Stage/Floor Management, Tech/Booth Management and Talent, which of coarse is the actors. Theatres, just like the typical business's that we see in everyday life, cannot function without effective teams and this is apparent through the amount of teams they use to put on a production.

Seeing as how both the theatre world and the business world both use teams it is important to know how to make sure your teams are effective. Effective teams have clear goals, relevant skills, mutual trust, unified commitment, good communication, negotiating skills, appropriate leadership, and internal and external support. Each of these characteristics applies to Theatre Management just as they apply to business circumstances that we are more familiar with.

Overall, theatre and business are more connected than many people tend to think. A well-run team can bring success to any organization, in this case a theatre production. It is important for theatre's to have a good background in business because good theatre teams can cut costs, increase sales and improve productivity. Many people usually only think about the actual production that theatres put on and tend to forget about the many administrative offices that are involved in putting on that show.