I need my space
July 10th, 2007 by screenwriterguy
Once, back when I was producing sketch comedy in Seattle, I started doing some research into adding an L.A. show onto a tour we were prepping. I came across several online resources, including one web site that detailed the capacity, price, and contact information for numerous theater spaces across the city. How magnificent! How easy it would be to run a troupe if only I lived in L.A.
Yeah, well, the grass is always greener. Now that I’m living down here, I finally know the depths of my previous naïveté. First of all, the web sites I had located previously seem to have since disappeared. Secondly, I now know how very inconvenient it is to get from one side of the city to another. From Seattle, I could judge a distance of 5 miles as but a jaunt. Now that I’m in L.A., I know that for every mile of commute, one must budget approximately a week. Try getting a dozen people to one place, on time, in those conditions. But the kicker is how much more expensive space (like everything) is down here. The going rate seems to be $20-25/hr to rent any rehearsal space of any kind. In Seattle it was $8-12. I knew that Seattle had a lower barrier of entry than most towns, especially the big ones (meaning both that Seattle has a lot of theater and that it has a lot of crappy theater,) but I didn’t think the difference was so severe. If you google “theatre space rental,” 3 of the first 12 entries are spaces in Seattle, a disproportionate share for the 23rd biggest city in the nation. My guess is that a town with that much rain needs lots of indoor activity. Eventually I found a studio that is $50 for 3 hours. It shall have to do. And I shall have to find ways to turn a profit sooner than I thought. |
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Once, back when I was producing sketch comedy in Seattle, I started doing some research into adding an L.A. show onto a tour we were prepping. I came across several online resources, including one web site that detailed the capacity, price, and contact information for numerous theater spaces across the city. How magnificent! How easy it would be to run a troupe if only I lived in L.A.