Operating Support Grant

We continually ask our artists and audience, "How are we doing?" We do listen to what people are telling us. This feedback, plus the records kept by the General Manager regarding attendance, is used in planning our programming and evaluating what has been successful. Our planning process for play selection: A committee reviews scripts for about two months putting together a season. This is then presented to the board for approval. Decisions are all based on the feedback we are getting from actors, directors and audience members. The committee tries to balance the choices to create a season with good variety and quality that will please patrons and performers. The financial part of each project is planned by our General Manager with input from our Business Manager. The General Manager works on a budget with each play director. Past records of each play?s expenses are evaluated by these two people. This evaluation guides them with future programming budgets. Evaluation: Our General Manager and Business Manager keep excellent records of audience attendance and numbers of actors who audition for our shows. Our on-line ticketing system asks the question about where they heard about the show. All responses are recorded and periodically evaluated to see what marketing outlets provide us the best value. We occasionally place short surveys in the seats asking our patrons to mark each advertising method they actually remember seeing and if any were responsible in convincing them to come to that show. We try to find out from the first timers where they heard about us or the production they are attending. This gives us real feedback about where our marketing is making a difference with respect to awareness. For our repeat customers, we look at attendance patterns over different genres of shows. We also analyze attendance by day of the week and time of day, and we have tweaked our performance schedules over the years to try to appeal to what our audience tells us they want. We had heard feedback about the affordability of shows for a segment of our audience. Based on that feedback, we established a Pay as you Can Saturday for each of our adult shows. We specifically promote upcoming auditions in print and online. We survey actors and crew after each show to learn what worked well and what could be improved for their experience. We see high retention among our artists.County Seat Theater reaches a broad public audience because we offer a good variety of productions. It is almost certain that there is a show or concert in our season that would interest every person. The variety of plays that are chosen offers roles to people of all ages and cultures with a willingness to dedicate the time and effort needed for a successful production. Our Children's Musical Theater program is open to all children above the age of five. Registrations fill up quickly because we can only successfully manage 40 children per week. Because of the demand, we made the decision several years ago to increase our children's program from 3 weeks to 4 weeks. No issue is ever made with regards to race or physical abilities. Our directors have proven their skills in making our children's theater open and enjoyed by everyone. County Seat Theater offers scholarships to cover the registration fee for those who are in need of financial assistance. Recognizing the challenges some people can face affording to attend a show, we offer a Pay as You Can Saturday for each regular adult show during the season. The Encore Performing Arts Center is open to the public. It is possible for the public to reserve our facility for outside events. The Encore Art Gallery is free to all artists, with no commission collected from us when art work is sold. We are in the fifth year of a partnership with the Carlton School District where students from their Middle School and High School theater programs come to County Seat for a week and produce a show for the community. For many of them, it is the