The two main times for recruitment events are during Fall REX/Rush in late August/early September and during CPW in April. Your job is to plan all recruitment activities and events that take place during these two times, as well as any events that may occur at other points during the year! Remember to avoid other popular or official REX/CPW events when scheduling.
The typical year of recruitment events, listed in rough chronological order, for the past few years has been as follows, but feel free to mix it up!
REX: Activities Midway, 24 Hour Show, Theater Arts Open House
IAP: 24 Hour Show
CPW: To Be or Not to Be, Theater Games, Activities Midway, Scene Night
Remember: delegate! You don't have to manage every aspect of every one of these events yourself. Think of yourself as more of a mini-Producer/Pub Man.
During REX and CPW, you can use a spreadsheet like this one so that others can sign up to help out at non-performance events. Be sure to send this out a couple of weeks in advance and bump it consistently; also, keep in mind that people who initially signed up may have to drop out, as both REX and CPW can be quite busy for some folks.
Be sure to sign up for this on time to ensure that the Ensemble gets a table. One table will do. Ask to be near other theater groups, such as the Musical Theater Guild, Roadkill Buffet, and E33 Productions.
Bring the sandwich board! Pin up posters and photos as you like. Also be sure to bring our cardboard cutout of Billy Shakes.
Make business cards! These are really easy to hand out, and you can use them to advertise both the Ensemble as a whole (be sure to include our address, ensemble.mit.edu) as well as any REX or CPW events that may be upcoming. You can get them printed at CopyTech at a convenient time and location for a convenient price. Note that their online order form is a little misleading; just be sure to make ample use of the comments section (the people at CopyTech are really nice!). Here are some cards we've used in past years.
During the fall, bring advertisements for upcoming auditions!
Set up an interest form, and bring laptops so that people can fill it out! During REX, include a poll so that prefrosh can vote for their favorite title. (In fact, it may be wise to advertise the form as "Help pick our title for the 24 Hour Show!" before it is revealed to them that the form they are filling out is actually an interest form.) The form might look something like this. Afterward, remember to go back and collect the emails to put on an Ensemble interest list. Interest lists from each year live in ensemble-interest@; add emails from the specific year to ensemble-interest-[year]@ (if this does not yet exist, make it!) and ensure that ensemble-interest-[year]@ is added to ensemble-interest@. (Remember to make ensemble-request@ the owner of any list you make!). During REX, make a note of the people interested in helping out with tech; see below.
Bring silly hats! It's traditional.
Show up on time! ASA will fine you if you don't. This will also allow you ample amount of time to set up.
Talk to prefrosh! Some things to emphasize are that we are a community of largely undergraduates who alternate hiring outside directors and having our own members and alums direct shows.
Shockingly, a 24 Hour Show takes more than just 24 hours to put on. Each of the steps below take some time to process, so be sure to plan ahead. Follow the steps below for a successful 24 Hour Show!
Here’s a list of people you’ll need for a 24 Hour Show:
The Producer should ensure that the Tech Ninjas complete the following:
Start planning for Scene Night well in advance—five weeks ahead is good, or right after the spring shows’ first weekend.
Begin by starting a thread asking members, Dartes, and participants of the current show for scene suggestions. Ask people to reply-all so that everyone can see the suggestions. You may wish to recommend some guidelines for scenes: they should be 1-10 minutes long and can cover a wide range of genres and styles. Don’t worry about rights, as long as someone can find a script to work off of.
After about a week, or when you think there are enough suggestions, compile them all into a form much like this one. It helps to include links to the script for every scene, for reference. Feel free to trim down the list of suggestions a bit at your discretion, although you can also just include to gauge how much interest there is in each one. A general rule of thumb is that if one of the scenes up for consideration is a scene that the Ensemble has performed before, you should check in with the people who acted in those roles originally before offering it to someone else if they say no or don’t reply.
Send out the form and set a deadline for people to fill it out. Once the deadline comes, you’ll have to go through the results and decide which scenes to do. This is the hard part.
Sadly, you probably won’t be able to make everyone happy. That’s okay—just do the best you can. Aim for a 60-90 minute show; ten scenes is okay and twelve is probably pushing out. Keep in mind which scenes can be cut down and which scenes cannot. Keep in mind which scenes are feasible in the little rehearsal time we have and which are not. (Scenes we have done recently are easy to do if most original actors are available!) If there’s not enough interest in a scene, don’t force it. If there’s too much interest in a scene, try to give the people who couldn’t get it something else to do. Respect people’s limits. Watch out for people who might be overestimating how much they can take on. Try to keep a balance of Shakespeare and non-Shakespeare. Think about who would be fun to see in which role. Once you’ve locked down a director, feel free to check in with them to see if they are satisfied with the cast you’re giving them, or if they have any casting ideas of their own. Use your best judgment, and don't hesitate to ask other officers for assistance or sanity checks.
(to be continued)
Theater Arts Open House
This is like Activities Midway, but at W97. There is less of a pressing need to bring silly hats. The location is more intimate, and there are snacks (yay!), and since W97 is (a) specifically the theater building and (b) so far out of the way, generally anyone who shows up is actually invested in doing theater. Therefore, use this opportunity to get a conversation going with people about what kind of theater the Ensemble actually gets up to! As well as to snack.
This is an hour-long event, usually head in the afternoon. Be sure to reserve a classroom for the period, leaving time for setup and clean up. It is suggested that at least two people who are comfortable with leading theater games run this event. Draw on usual Warm-Up and Morale games for inspiration. Consider separating the prefrosh into two groups if the number of people who show up become unwieldy. Bring cards to advertise your other events and the Ensemble at large!
This is a fairly chill, low-key event where you'll read aloud Ryan North's Hamlet-based choose-your-own-adventure book To Be or Not to Be. Encourage participation by holding vote on which path to choose; also, feel free to pass the book around so anyone who would like to can get a chance to read. While any number of Ensemble members can help out, this event really only takes one person to run. Invest in snacks!
The event is usually held in the Ensemble Office for an hour in the evening. We like to start this event at a strange time, like 10:28pm, so that it stands out on the CPW agenda. When you've reached a natural pausing point (i.e., your character arc ends!), feel free to open it up for questions about the Ensemble and theater life at MIT in general. Keep it casual, but also remind participants of the other events they can take part in! Bring cards to advertise your other events and the Ensemble at large!
Show Recruitment
The OAL keeps track of members and makes them feel loved. Make sure members are fulfilling their requirements. Read the constitution so you know what the requirements are! If membership requirements are not being fulfilled, let the officers know.
Shakespeare Awareness
We think everyone knows who Shakespeare is. But MIT is not known for its liberal arts program. The more they remember that Shakespeare exists, the more, we think anyway, they want to join us. Give their soul to the old man. Random pictures of Shakespeare would be cool. Have fun with it.