h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm a member of an amateur dramatic society and it's not like that at all.

P.S. My Director told me to post this.

Belonging to a group myself I do agree that you have to bribe your family and friends into coming, so not only do you pay to belong, you pay for their tickets and then have to take them out for a pizza as a reward for staying awake during your outstanding performance11

Free tickets and pizza... I must remember that.
I've been shelling out major wads of cash to attend my friend's landmark thespian efforts. No dinner, no nothing.
I even gave his friend a lift home! I've got this theater-going thing all wrong...

Before I resort to Bribery, I prefer to exploit the other two B's: Begging and Blackmail.
Only if I can't guilt them or threaten them into attending, would I even consider footing
the bill myself. After all, as a struggling actor, I have to watch my money. And as a
Guide correspondent, I have a reputation to uphold.

I heartily agree, as a member of an Amateur Dramatic Society in Kent, I have become very good at arm-twisting, bribery, bludgeoning and general battery (to continue the "B" theme. My family have disowned me and my director tells me I must sell more tickets.

Yes, I agree, and we also have full-time employment!

As another member of a Kent company, the only reason I am masochistic enough to humiliate myself in front of friends, family etc. is to avoid having my arm twisted to sit through it in the audience. Also for the after show parties. I'm also kinky about the smell of Leichner.

Now don't even get me on to the subject of Leichner, do you know how many sticks of Carmine Red I get through in the average production...

As members of such companies, we may well be mocked - although there is a position more open to ridicule than us, and that is the amateur Tech Crew. They operate in a subtle hierachy, whereby ones status can be defined by the size of their bunch of keys and whether or not they can be entrusted with the gaffer tape. They openly winge that "you couldn't do a show without us", but a performance without any actors is surely even less complete than one without lights and props.

You mock the amateur tech crew? We can create, art, visions! And just remember who builds the stairs you must walk up. 'Accidents' occasionally happen to actors....

Yeah, they do. But usually through ineptitude rather than design on the techies part.

*glare* Guess you haven't met the crews around here, where we work, the actors come about half as much and end up screwing with our equipment. The techies are important, and if we didn't work with actors, many have something referred to as 'marketable skills'. Maybe we like our gaff and power tools, but not all theater technicians are inept; most I know are certainly not. We think the same about you.

as both actor and techie i feel the need to make peace. chill out you guys!!

OK, OK. I guess is best if we just accept each others' strengths and shortcomings and learn to peacefully co-exist. Just as long as you all go to your own aftershow party.