[SML] Producing a Play

[Steve Boone]

Hi Dan,

This isn’t a short answer, and a fee is involved - sorry.  And, I’m saddened to glean that your administrators to some degree aren’t listening to you.

There’s a thing called the annual HEADS data report for theatre that NAST (National Association of Schools of Theatre) makes available to its members.  They also say that copies are available to anyone for a price.
HEADS stands for something like Higher Education Arts Data Service - but don’t hold me to that!

The theatre data is collected from all of the NAST member schools, and is broken down in several different ways.  Production budgets, staff support, student hires, ...
When I was a department chair I frequently pulled numbers out of the data, and offered them to the higher-ups.  I guess it helped me make the point, ‘cause they usually got quiet when I would pull this stuff out.

I do have to share that it’s a fairly confusing pile of numbers at first, and that it’s got huge ranges.  So for example for expendable production supplies, it goes from way low to staggeringly high.  But it’s also grouped into things like “Private Univ. with less than 100 theatre majors; or “Public, with more than 100”.  I think I remember the results would say something like Range: $10,000 to 95,000, Average: $25,000.

It also has stuff about salaries and quantity of staff.

The place to start is:
https://nast.arts-accredit.org/

Scroll down to the box that says HEADS data summaries.  It will take you to a page with the email address of the person who can set you up.
I always found that email was the best way to contact them.

Steve Boone
Bowling Green State Univ.
Dept. of Theatre and Film

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