Arts Activities Support

We had 958 people attend. We had 39 cast members. We had over 50 volunteers. Audience surveys, Facebook comments, and comments during our post-production meeting showed that our audience was happy with our production. Our goal with our production of Jungle Book is to continue to grow our increasing fan base and provide a high quality theatre experience to both the participants and audience. We feel we achieved our goal in several aspects. One of the reasons River City Theatre Company chose Jungle Book was the challenge and opportunity for development it presents for each of the cast, crew and production team. One of the biggest challenges we anticipated was accommodating a large and diverse cast. We experienced both benefits and challenges with this. We had 39 actors participate ranging from 4 to 60+ including seven families with more than one participant. We were able to see a strong connection and bond form between all ages of the cast. We had over 100 years acting experience on stage. A great majority of our children actors were participating in their first on-stage production. We considered that a benefit and a challenge. First-time actors benefit a show because they bring a fresh perspective to the stage. It was challenging because new actors need more input from the director and need to learn the basics of projection, stage directions, and staying in character. Equally inspiring was the amount of learning that occurred behind the scenes. Our set was designed such that participants of all ages and skill levels were able to participate in building it. We had six-year-olds and 60 year olds working on the set at the same time. We had over one dozen volunteers working on everything from construction to painting, to making rocks out of papier mache. Thus, the show allowed all participants to become an integral part of a live theatrical production. Our challenges included finding enough backstage help for the stage crew and back stage child supervision, as well as help in the front of the house. We accomplished this by bringing in siblings and parents of cast members to help with ushering, ticket sales, concession sales, set moving, and child supervision. We also had adults and older youth cast members help out as set movers. If we had an opportunity to repeat a similar project, we might try to recruit more volunteers ahead of time. We felt that we reached the community we wished to serve for the most part. We achieved diversity in age in our cast, crew, volunteers, and our audience. The Jungle Book drew audience members from babies under a year old to many senior citizens from our community. We served the populations we expected to serve. The community of Watertown continues to support River City Theatre Company. Our 19 local business sponsors showed strong support from our community. The local newspaper wrote articles about the production, and flyers were sent home with children in local school districts. We also had support from our local Girl Scout troops and Leos (youth Lions Club), whose members volunteered to usher. We made our show accessible by offering roles, either on or offstage, to anyone who wished to participate. Part of our accessibility efforts are the low participation fees for cast members. We cap our participation fee at $60 per family ($30 per individual). The Jungle Book had seven families participate as cast members in the show. We offered scholarships to 14 people who could not afford to pay the fee. Our regular ticket prices for The Jungle Book were $7 for adults and $5 for students and senior citizens. We offered a variety of $1 off specials and even sent a flyer home with the elementary school students that offered free child admission with a paid adult. By keeping ticket prices affordable, we feel our show was accessible for anyone who wanted to attend.