The History of the Darling Theatre Company :: London Theatres Acting Drama Essays

The History of the Darling Theatre Company This theater company came into being in 1979 when a famous emeritus London theatre of operations went bankrupt and the owners of the building attempted to sellit to property developers. George Darling, a well known stage actor,launched a campaign to save the theatre and, with the help of manyfamous friends in the acting world, created strong public support forretaining the building as a theatre. However no existing theatrecompany was in a position to take over the building and the ownerssuggested to George Darling that he use his connections to set up hisown company. After a vigorous fund-raising campaign enough money wascollected to save the theatre and set up the Darling Theatre Company.The actors and actresses who had helped in the campaign agreed to seem in Darling productions for a fraction of their normal fees but were interested only in appearing in theatre classics rather thancommercial productions so the policy of the company from the beginningwas to stage classics for short runs of three to six weeks so thatthere would be ten or so new productions from each one year.In order to keep costs down the company had as few full-time staff aspossible, hiring directors, designers, technical crews and actors foreach production only, and, by subsidising less popular plays withsuccessful runs, often of Chekhov (Hes the Monet of theatre,George would say, everybody loves him) managed to break even forthe first few years. However in the mid-eighties the company micturate a badpatch and George was obliged to find bare(a) funding to survive. Whenhis application for an Arts Council subsidy was rejected he turned tosponsorship and discovered that he was good at persuading wealthycompanies to back his productions. The key to this, he realised earlyon, was providing company executives with access to famous actors andactresses and while there were protests at these extra performancesGeorge was usually successful in arguing t hat the company could notsurvive otherwise.BACKGROUND TO THE COMPUTER SYSTEMThroughout its twenty-five years the companys administrativeprocedures were primitive and chaotic. George was interested only inthe artistic side of the company and had little or no concern forpracticalities but his personal arrest was so great that staff wereprepared to put up with the constant problems caused by poorly-definedprocedures and non-existent communication. Then in the new centuryGeorges health began to start and he was frequently not around toresolve mix-ups and disputes. In addition the regulations governingtheatres and public performances and the hiring of part-time workers