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Time to put the stormy past behind - AmDram

Published Friday 19 May 2006 at 14:00 by Susan Elkin

Derided by professionals as ‘AmDram’ and famously lampooned in The Art of Coarse Acting, the amateur drama sector is an essential part of the UK theatre industry. If it didn’t exist, hundreds of paid performers and directors would be worse off and many theatres would be dark, Susan Elkin explains

In 2002, the most recent year for which NODA (National Operatic and Dramatic Association) has figures, 7.3 million people attended 25,760 performances by NODA members - 427,800 performers and others were actively involved in mounting these shows. The nationwide box office take was £34 million - of which £2.3 million was donated to charities.

Amateur dramatics, arguably a hobby, is big business in Britain. NODA chief executive Mark Pemberton says: “About 20-25% of all amateur groups and companies belong to NODA so we reckon there are at least 12,500-15,000 in total.” It seems the NODA statistics are only an outline indication of the situation.

But none of this theatrical activity happens in a vacuum. The boundary between amateur and professional work is diminishing. People pass through it in both directions and the sectors are becoming mutually dependent.

Some - but not many - people who excel at amateur dramatics eventually take the plunge and turn professional.

Kent-based Mark Extance, for example, is a former freelance picture editor on The Daily Telegraph. Fifteen years of acclaimed amateur dramatics, mostly at Trinity Theatre in Tunbridge Wells, eventually led him to complete a one-year training course with the Actors’ Theatre in 2003/4. Eighteen months later he has been in full-time employment as an actor for ten months, including a small role in You Never Can Tell in the West End alongside Edward Fox.

“It’s very important to train if you intend to make this move,” says Extance, explaining he can cope with the patchiness of theatrical employment because of his background as a freelance photographer - a equally precarious way of earning a living.

More common are the many amateurs who do part-time professional work when they get the chance. Musicians, for instance, may have day jobs as librarians, administrators, doctors or whatever - but also play a fiddle or blow a trumpet for local amateur shows like Annie, South Pacific or Oklahoma for a modest fee.

Amateur dramatics is a significant employer of full-time professionals too. Hiring professional directors - for good, four-figure fees - is a frequent occurrence among the large and more successful amateur dramatics groups.

Cambridge Amateur Operatic Society (CAOS), for example, employs a music director on an annual contract and pays him a flat fee. Not only does he rehearse and conduct shows, he might also have to write musical arrangements.

“We also hire a director on a ‘per show’ basis,” says CAOS chairman Richard Braithwaite, explaining that in recent years the company has used former D’Oyly Carte patter man Alistair Donkin who now earns the majority of his income from directing amateur companies. Donkin is due to direct CAOS’ production of Ruddigore later this year. Some amateur companies import professional principals as needed too. It widens the range of shows they can put on.

There are no reliable figures for the extent of professional work generated by amateur dramatics but given that NODA members alone are grossing more than £30 million at box offices it seems likely that a substantial amount of that money must filter, in some form, into the profession.

As well as professional personnel, costumes, scenery, props and band parts are hired too. Other things, such as stage make-up, come from theatrical suppliers. Scripts or singing scores are purchased.

If an amateur company uses a professional venue, such as Cambridge Arts Theatre where CAOS stages its shows, it pays a fee and provides work for front of house staff.

And, in this symbiotic world, that raises production standards. “Some of our stage crew have turned professional,” says Braithwaite, pointing out that in a staffed professional theatre, an amateur company must work to professional standards, otherwise the trust breaks down.

The growing potential of amateur dramatics as a source of work opportunities and a stream of revenue for the profession - often overlooked or marginalised in the past - seems to be more readily acknowledged.

The theatrical tradition of keeping the amateur thesp at arm’s length certainly does the profession few economic favours given the millions of pounds amateur dramatics rakes in.

Interchange between amateur and professional sectors of the industry is creating work for performing artists. Opportunities for professional or semi-pro musicians, technicians and backstage crew are increasing. Venues are less likely to close if amateurs will pay to use them.

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