One thing you can do in the theater world is to raise money for another organization. That might sound counterintuitive to anyone in performing arts education. Why would you do that? According to Malini Singh McDonald, it can be easy to miss the benefits of cross-promotion and raising money at an event.

Speaking from her own experience, McDonald explains, “We did a one-night event, and it was for the LGBT Center. And what we did was my friend — and actually my conspirator — he had a play that he just wanted to get up and heard.” The two worked together on a reading of the play and created some price points around it.

McDonald continues, “I love a raffle because I can sell raffle tickets. You want me there at your matinee performance doing that. But that is also key because people will spend money on that.”

At that one-night reading, her performing arts team was able to raise money through raffles for another organization. As McDonald puts it, “So now this other organization knows that there’s this play out there, and you use all of that in your marketing materials.”

Robert Galinsky offers similar advice for anyone in online performing arts education. He recommends, “When you’re putting up a production, you’ve got to align yourself with lots of different people, lots of different organizations. I discovered this when I was in Hollywood.”

Galinsky talks about a time when he was putting on a show and doing everything he could to get people in the seats. The show was packed every night until the end of the run.

The plan was to do another run, but he couldn’t imagine putting the energy into getting people into those seats again: “That’s all I spent my time doing [was] driving an audience to the show.”

Instead, he decided to adapt. “I called every organization in LA that deals with homeless people,” he shares, “and said, ‘Let’s do a pop-up benefit show for your staff, your audience and your clients.’ And every one of them responded positively.” Galinsky received feedback like, “Oh my gosh, yes,” and, “That’s a great idea.”

When he started to do his show, he didn’t go through the normal theater channels. Instead, he used the organizations’ audience base. Those people were interested in the subject matter. They wanted to see the show, so it was a perfect fit.

Before taking his show to LA, Galinsky spent months ahead of time researching all of the organizations that served people experiencing homelessness. Once he set dates for his theater, he sent the organizations carte-blanche invitations. Their entire staff and anyone they wanted to invite would get free seats. He explains, “You work hard; you work with this population. I want you guys to have a treat. Come in, see my show for free, and give tickets away to your volunteers, your staff, whomever.”

During this time, Galinsky had an agreement with his investor. They knew that they weren’t going to make their money back on ticket sales, so the investor was fine with papering the house and loading up seats.

Every single night, at least four organizations that served people experiencing homelessness were present at the show. Beforehand, Galinsky told each one that they could have 30 seconds during the talkback at the end of the performance to pitch their organizations. They could tell the audience who they were, what they did and whom they served.

As Galinsky recalls, those organizations packed the seats. To sum up the experience, he reflects, “The thing you have to remember now is I put my butt on the line here, because if the material wasn’t authentic, if the material wasn’t real, I had people who deal with homeless people every single day watching this. They would have been disgusted with what I was doing. Thankfully, the work was good. The work was solid. And they would come up to me and go, ‘I saw my client today. I saw two of my clients on stage. I deal with that guy every day. The one who was begging for cigarettes, I see him every day.'”

The Dramatists Guild is a wonderful organization that supports playwrights all around the world and protects their rights. I would suggest joining the Dramatists Guild to anyone seriously trying to work in playwriting. Anyone in performing arts education can join it.

It wasn’t always like this. Playwrights didn’t always have such protections. Arthur Miller used to tell a story about how he went to the offices of a Broadway producer, and the producer had all of these books on his shelf that he had co-authored. Miller said to the producer, “Oh, I didn’t know you were a writer, too.”

The producer said, “Oh, I’m not. I just buy the copyright from these authors, and then I put my name on it as co-author.”

Thanks to changes in copyright law, that doesn’t happen anymore. And thanks to the Dramatists Guild, there is enforcement around these kinds of things.

When you write a play, a theater or a producer can license it from you, but they don’t buy it outright. They don’t own it. They can’t make themselves the co-author. They are paying you for the use of your work. You still own the copyright.

The Dramatists Guild has what they call the Dramatists Guild Bill of Rights. It says that the playwright has the right to be involved. It also asserts that unauthorized changes cannot be made to a script without the playwright’s permission.

A lot of people in online performing arts education don’t know that. They may have grown up with drama teachers doing cuttings of things. The teacher might take out a word or a scene that’s inappropriate for young people, and they think that’s totally legitimate. It really isn’t, and playwrights are allowed to — and have — shut down productions that have deviated from the script and made changes that nobody asked their permission for.

Sometimes the changes are really big, like changing the gender of a character. Other times, it’s just a word, and sometimes the playwright doesn’t care as much or finds out about it later.

But, in general, if you’re putting on a play, it is in your absolute best interest to check with the playwright before you make any change, no matter how small. Otherwise, the writer does have the right to shut down your play. Also, of course, you should always begin by getting permission to do the play.

A lot of people in performing arts don’t know that, and a lot of places have been shut down.

Many times, acting from an objective, external perspective seems simply like role pretending or mimicking other people. It’s easy to focus on the distance between you and the role. But in truth, being an actor is really about finding a way to reveal yourself through a given role in a screen or stage production.

For too long, acting meant one thing, or the kinds of acting, the kinds of stories, that were being told were only one kind of story. It’s vitally important at this moment, and it’s late in coming, that we find ourselves really encouraging newcomers to find their voice as an actor in the performing arts. It’s important to understand the way your own experiences, your unique point of view, and your individual identity offer something to your playing a role. It isn’t about you ignoring who you are or your story but bringing your perspective and experiences to the part. A quality performing arts education can help you to appreciate the challenges and opportunities of putting yourself into each role.

Your work is important and valued if you bring yourself fully to it and are given permission to do that. The more you are enabled to bring yourself to a role, the more your voice as an actor will be understood and heard. Nothing could be better for the profession or for you as an artist.

For too long, the stories that have been told in the theater, in TV, and in film have been the stories of white Europeans and particularly white European men. Those were the writers whose stories were produced. Here in the United States, it was white people and white men whose stories and plays were told and who were hired for the acting jobs.

Currently, we’re at an important moment of transition where Black artists, persons of color, and indigenous artists are finally, after far too long, being recognized as the vital storytellers they have always been. It’s important to them, as we encourage greater inclusion and people to bring their own identities into their work, that we recognize a unique voice is part of what needs to be valued in the performing arts process. It’s not enough to bring diverse voices into a room. Those voices have to be valued and their stories need to be told. Coming along with that can’t be a request for someone to set aside personal experiences or an untraditional point of view in order to transform into something else.

As you explore your work as an actor, what’s really important is that you give yourself permission to look at a role. Even when you see distance from it, recognize and really believe that your experience, your identity, your point of view, and your history are vital for the way you are going to be able to tell the story in a unique and meaningful way. You can study this process further by pursuing an online performing arts education. Learning all you can about inclusion and diversity in the performing arts will prepare you to make your mark in the industry.

If you’re interested in performing arts education, you need to learn the business side of it all. Take the business courses along with your regular online performing arts education courses. If you don’t want to deal with a spreadsheet or with numbers, consult an accountant or talk to an attorney. A lot of CPAs and attorneys — especially entertainment attorneys — have free panel discussions or some other networking event that you can attend and just sit and listen. Take notes because a lot of the business is just knowing the stuff you really don’t want to know about.

For example, you might not have space in your head to learn business law. I’m not saying to go be a lawyer, but I am saying that as artists, we’re already open. We’re creating. We’re taking the truth and putting it on a higher scale. The work that we are creating is elevated, wherever we’re creating it.

There are many valuable lessons found in online performing arts education. Based on his experience in performing arts, Gianni Downs tells us, “There are three major stage configurations. There is the proscenium stage, which is essentially what you might think of as a theater. A lot of the Broadway houses are proscenium stages. You might see musicals produced on a proscenium stage.” These are set up so that the audience is on one side, and the action is happening on another side, often with a frame around the action. That is the proscenium arch itself. This is a very common type of theater and is very useful for hiding scene changes. Musicals spend a lot of time in proscenium stages.

“A proscenium is an arch,” says Jeff Kaplan, who has years of performing arts education. “Next time that you’re in a theater, look at the shape above the curtain. It makes a picture frame. So, the idea is that you’re looking into a diorama. You’re looking into a world. And traditionally, the performers are inside that world, and you and the audience are on the outside. That forms the fourth wall, but that’s not the only way that you can do it.”

Gianni Downs picks up from there. “Another common theater-type is the 3/4 thrust. You’ll see a lot of regional theaters and off-Broadway theaters will use a 3/4 thrust stage. This is where the action will project into the audience, making a horseshoe shape of the audience. So, the audience sits on 3/4 of the sides of the action of the play.” This is often more used for straight plays or more intimate plays. A very famous 3/4 thrust is the Guthrie Theater, and it might provide a good reference for what that looks like.

Jeff Kaplan then finishes, “There’s theater-in-the-round, which is pretty much what it sounds like. The audience is on all sides, or maybe 3/4. Arena Stage in Baltimore is a very famous example of that.” Circle in the Square in New York is largely a theater-in-the-round. That’s a fascinating experience in which there’s no front where you’re all inside of this world. It’s like a virtual-reality theater.

I do a lot of research about the time and the place when I start a new piece of material or undertake a new character. I feel so lucky that I live close to the Met because I can go and look at paintings. Especially with “Hamilton,” I can see paintings from that time, see how they make me feel. I can feel what women are saying within those paintings, within those portraits, because that’s all we have from that time. The research process is half online performing arts education and half real-world experiences and feelings applied to your character.

I try to look as much as I can to people that know more than me about the time period, about all of the facts, to get to the truth. Then, I have to really look into myself and see what my subtext is. What is underneath all of those facts? Is there an accent? Where is she from? When was she born? What’s underneath all of those things?

Sometimes a character can be very relatable to my own life, like Nina Rosario. I felt so connected to that character, because I’m the first one in my family to go to college. I always did things not just for myself, but with the notion that I was doing something more for my family and my community. That was a big part of my upbringing.

Nina was so much like that, and she took a lot of the weight of the world on her shoulders. I understood where she was coming from. I knew what her intention was, and I knew what her truth was, because it was just part of me. So, I had to bring that to the performance, which can be the hardest part, being vulnerable, being open to whatever’s going to happen.

I’m not robotic. I like to go in and breathe with the other actors and see where they are that night and what they’re giving me, and see how that moves me, how that moves my character, and see what I give them back. You can learn a lot from a performing arts education and also learn a lot from your fellow actors and their processes and performances.

It’s a very organic feeling every night, and I love that. I wouldn’t want it any other way. When you have an acting partner that also works that way, it’s just magic. The basic way that I try to build a character is really from the ground up and through honesty and through my truth.

Look at the theater as a field and look at the incredible capacity that it can hold. You will notice that there are many kinds of theater. There are so many different expressions, and they take different shapes. What are they? How do we get a handle on them?

I have a couple of answers. The thought that often emerges is this idea of different theater genres and different kinds of theater frameworks. It is crucial so that we have a toolset with which to discuss. To look at theater and engage in the different expectations.

There is a kind of way that one can understand contemporary theater. I’ll focus on that for a moment. First, there is that kind of work that would be considered playwright-driven work. It is work where the initial collaboration and the initial impetus come from somebody. The person puts a kind of text framework that focuses and becomes the foundation for making the work. The idea is that the play is what reigns supreme. It is the fundamental guiding principle.

There’s another kind of work that functions on a collaborative model. Work that brings a group of individuals together to devise, make, and create. Or to research and bring together a new piece, a new work together. This kind of approach sits on a question, a research action, or a series of interviews. Also, it could be an exploration that allows the piece to take shape. The result might be a written text, but not necessarily the beginning space.

These two are spaces where the text sits as a significant part of the conversation. There’s a third space I want to draw our attention to, and it’s the space of physical work. Physical work created collaboratively or already with a plan. It’s about physical expression. Also, there may be language, which is a kind of secondary part of the performance.

These three pods become essential. There’s another one that I would frame. I find it problematic, but it’s essential to know. It’s a framework often termed classical work, and we inherited this language over time and space in the theater. It is present particularly throughout Europe and the Americas.

When folks say “classical,” they often refer to Shakespeare or Greek theater from the Classical era, Aristotle and Euripides. During that moment, there was philosophy, which influenced the creation of plays. It is of what we framed as classical.
There are a few more things included depending on who you discuss. Definitively, when one looks at classical, one is often looking from a Eurocentric standpoint. Again, I find that a little bit problematic.

If we’re going to speak classical over a particular area, I always invite that we look at it on a global scale. Look at Japanese Noh theater, a kind of theater that was great in Japan. In the 15th century, we looked at Chinese opera. Also, we ought to look at India’s Kathakali, and Indonesia’s wayang kulit-like. All these different traditions do have a kind of classical narrative. These narratives are an essential part of performing arts education. They are a significant subject, even in online performing arts education.

I used to cringe when thinking about budgets. Now? I love a budget because it’s a roadmap. It is one of the many roadmaps you learn to use in performing arts education. When you have to write down the line items of every single cost for everything that needs to be done, you discover that you have organized a list of the tasks you must complete in order to achieve your performance goals.

You don’t worry so much about what each item costs. Instead, you say to yourself, “Oh my gosh! I do need this. I do need that. Do I really need that?” Depending on your shifting circumstances, the list can change. You have to be fluid.

Yes, I wanted wild projections of city imagery during my show. I then realized that for many different reasons—money, cumbersome technology—it might not be practical wherever I go. What I did instead was copy and enlarge images from the graphic novel that we made of the play. We used them to make the set, which turned out beautiful and brilliant.

As you can see, a budget task that might drive you crazy because of cost considerations can also add to the creative process while saving you time and money in the long run. An online performing arts education can help you recognize unique creative opportunities in administrative tasks.

“When I said, ‘Will you be a presenter?’ They all said, ‘What’s a presenter?’ And I said, ‘It’s like a producer, but you don’t put any money in. You’re just a presenter’. And when they didn’t have to put money in, it was even more enticing for them,” says Robert Galinsky.

“So now I got a team with A-list Hollywood actors, hard-core working actors that are respected both in theater and in film. Matter of fact, Barry Shabaka Henley starred in “Jitney,” August Wilson’s “Jitney.” So now I got solid people with great reputations. So now I could go to the investor.”

Galinsky had another mentor in the performing arts, Mark Schoenfeld, who wrote the musical “Brooklyn,” which ran on Broadway. Schoenfeld taught Galinsky that a lot of interesting people have resources, and it’s time to start asking about them, which can only help in performing arts education.

Galinsky says, “So here’s a point I want everybody to get. Change your mind about when you ask somebody for something. When you ask somebody for something, you’re not a burden. That’s a compliment. It’s a compliment. So refrain. Don’t go in asking. I didn’t go to my investor going, ‘Could you, could you give me the money, could you?’ No, I went into my investor going, ‘You’re the man. You make things happen. I want you to make it happen with me. With me, not for me.'”

So the take away from Galinsky’s main point, it’s really important to go in there knowing what you want, and take this as a great lesson in online performing arts education. Because he’s going to go, “Wow.” No matter what question you ask of anybody. “Wow, they thought that much of me to ask me to come in on this?” This doesn’t mean they’re going to say yes immediately. They’re going to examine everything and all the variables, like who’s on the team, what is the script, what is the history of the work, who is this person, and do I want to be associated with them? However, you’ve got to get over the hurdle of asking. You’ve just got to ask. You have to ask people for help.

What does a scenic designer do? “Well, I am essentially in charge of all of the visual elements that you see in the theater,” says Giannis Downs. “That can be what the curtains look like, what the props look like, what the architecture is painted like, and even how the actors come in and out of the space. My work tends to influence the costume designer and the lighting designer as well.”

Often, the performing arts scenic designer is brought in earlier than some of the other designers because the number of architectural elements involved tend to require more time to work on. I often work about six to eight months in advance of a production. So the scenic designer will be contacted by a director or a producer early on. When hired, they will start meeting with the directors. Sometimes, they will be in different parts of the country and have video chats or phone conversations. They’ll get to know each other and do some visual research. Then, they’ll start to develop visual clues as to what the design might look like.

As we develop the design a little more, the scenic designer will start doing some renderings, which could be pencil sketches, which a performing arts education would recommend. But nowadays, they’re more often crafted as digital illustrations. That will help the production team determine what the overall look will be. As that develops further, scenic designers make 3-D models and photograph them to forward to the others. Sometimes, the scenic designer sends the model itself to the director for approval.

“We’ll then take that model and do draftings of each element that will appear in the show,” says Downs. “So that could be large walls, as well as architectural details and individual props.” Online performing arts education models can be helpful at this stage. The scenic designer will create a large package of draftings of everything that they can think of along with lists and references for all of the elements that will be involved.

The next step is to take the model and paint it in Photoshop or other digital programs, and that will provide color notes for the director to choose from. The lighting designer and costume designer can also base their ideas on these renderings. Those will become the basis for the painters to colorize the show. When the production team is actually in the theater, much of the scenic designer’s work is done.