‘Producers are often thought of as the ‘money people’- they are portrayed as having prime responsibility for and chief interest in raising the finance and the making of profit’

(Seabright, 2011, 6).

Budgeting is a fundamental part of being a producer, it is of paramount importance that a producer can not only raise funds but also distribute them fairly. My role as producer for Bleeding Edge required me to distribute funds fairly between four separate departments. Marketing, Set, Props and Costume. One route, would be to split the funds equally between the four departments, but upon reflection this would not be the most efficient distribution. Therefore, I held a meeting with all four departments and our director to discuss what we wanted from each sector. It was concluded that costume would take the majority of funding and the rest would be split equally between marketing, props and set. The reason for this was because Molly, head of costume would need to acquire full costume for eight members, therefore her need was greater than the other departments. I distributed the budget as follows:

Costume – £170

Props – £70

Set- £70

Marketing – £70

Contingency – £20

£50 of our initial budget was spent on a workshop experience with Flickbook early on in the process. This was a decision we made collectively as a company, as it is important to collaborate with other theatre companies, especially companies who have more experience than we do and can guide us. Our mentor, Tom, guided us through various creative techniques and helped us explore what it was about technology that we were interested in. This was definitely a learning curve for the company, and helped us develop our initial ideas.

I created a budget sheet to reflect all areas that would require funding. For example, I contacted Holly Cox, front of house manager to inquire how much it would cost our company to rent the LPACs facilities. The cost would normally equate to £650, which would include the rent of the auditorium for the day, the bar, the front of house staff, the box office and a member of the LPACs technical team. Luckily because we had been commissioned by the LPAC the use of the facilitates was of no cost to us.

Two departments went over budget; however, this was not an issue because there was a contingency fund in place, and I was kept up to date with all departments. For example, I knew that both Set and Props were going to be under budget, so I could pull funds from their departments to give to the costume department. This experience proved how important it is to have a contingency fund in place, having the safety fund relieved a lot of stress for me as I knew we would not go over budget.

Works Cited

Seabright, J. (2011) So you Want to Be A Theatre Producer. Great Britain: Nick Hern Books.

– Lydia

Producer.