How to Put on a Show Without Killing Yourself or Going Bankrupt in the Process

 30 critical steps to success

By

Jeffrey Taylor

November 23, 2009 – David Sebastian Bach, my senior partner, and I recently opened a new comedy murder mystery dinner theatre in Las Vegas at the Alexis Park Resort. Many of our friends asked us, “Are you crazy? There’s a recession going on. The competition will kill you. You’ll need thousands of dollars to promote your show. You’ll have to discount tickets to fill seats. You can lose it all. Do you know what you're doing?”

Since David can talk for himself, let me tell you why I did it. There is no greater feeling than doing something right when everyone else thinks it’s wrong. Dad always told me to create lots of projects because you never know which ones will succeed and which ones will fail. He always reminded me that to stay in business “your winners have got to cover your losers.”

I am not crazy. I love theater and the fact that actors must perform to the best of the abilities in spite of what’s going on in their lives. Unlike TV and film, which allows retakes, theater comes alive with every interaction with another audience member. It’s transforming and electrical.

Dinner theater makes it even more so, because actors come to your table and let you share with them an intimate experience that can never be duplicated elsewhere.

Given the recession, David and I were extremely lucky that we were able to get top notch A-list actors who had a lot of experience and wanted to be in our show. That does not happen often.

On top of that, Toby, my wife, and I were lucky to accumulate enough funds in order to produce the show. Toby, having been an extremely talented singer in New York City, and I, having been a rehearsal pianist and CFO of the Actors Fund, were very much touched with David’s project. In addition, David's sense of dinner theater had been previously honed by his dinner theaters in Phoenix prior to coming to Las Vegas.

The show, entitled Pageants Can Be Murder, is extremely entertaining and a sheer delight to watch. To say its nothing but miraculous, I wanted to share with you all of things that David and his team had to do in the last eight weeks in order to open the dinner theater on time and on budget:

  1. Come up with an idea that attracts paying customers
  2. Put together a script that makes you laugh
  3. Polish script to Las Vegas and Broadway standards
  4. Create a working budget
  5. Find actors who can sing, dance, have extraordinary talents and are available
  6. Find money from people who can afford to lose their entire investment
  7. Find a director who understands the theater
  8. Find a set designer that is reasonable and available
  9. Find a costume designer that knows how to create great costumes and work within the budget
  10. Buy lighting equipment
  11. Buy sound equipment
  12. Buy PC and load software
  13. Secure insurance
  14. Secure a location that is willing to give you a room that does not require assembly/tear down every night
  15. Taste the food
  16. Work with catering to get the perfect menu at a reasonable cost
  17. Get actors to show up on time and rehearse their asses off with limited/no pay
  18. Tell the world that the show is coming
  19. Make arrangements with ticket brokers to sell tickets
  20. Arrange for a box office telephone number and answering service
  21. Find photographer
  22. Develop website
  23. Get listed in search engines
  24. Get free publicity
  25. Talk to cabbies and hotel concierges about the show
  26. Work with hotel sales team to promote the show
  27. Spread word of mouth
  28. Create a logo
  29. Make cards, programs, flyers, car magnets and anything else that talks about the show
  30. Open the show

I am sure that I missed millions of minor details and that that in five years, when we look back at opening night, I will always remember what Mickey Rooney said to Judy Garland when they needed to raise funds quickly to save the town, “Let’s put on a show."

Pageants Can Be Murder - written by David Sebastian Bach and produced by Jeffrey Taylor

Performances every Tuesday - Saturday at the Alexis Park Resort in Las Vegas, NV. For ticket information please call (702) 991-8550.