Abstract:
Production management is an aspect of Theatre Mmanagement (TM) dealing with the procedures and processes beginning from concept development to the realisation of a production. Extant studies in Theatre Management have focuse on its business, facility, and audience relationship, with little attention paid to how productions are selected, rehearsed and produced. The study was, therefore, designed to examine how productions are managed in the National Troupe of Nigeria (NTN) and selected arts council troupes, with a view to determining their conformity to the production management best practices: availability of production team, alignment of productions with troupe's objectives, existence of production script, consistency with production output, availability of production book, and statutory production schedule.
Henri Fayol’s Administrative Theory was adopted as framework. Archival and ethnographic designs were used. (NTN), three arts council troupes: Oyo State Council for Arts and Culture (OYSCAC), Lagos State Council for Arts and Culture (LASCAC) and Ogun State Council for Arts and Culture, (OGSCAC), were purposively selected based on their visibility compared to other southwestern troupes. Data were collected through a review of production books, and indepth interview with four staff (Unit Director, Artistic Director, Stage Manager and a member of cast) in each of the four selected troupes. Data were subjected to descriptive and thematic analysis.
Out of the four troupes, only NTN had a production team which decided what to produce in line with its objectives, while the Director of Performing Department/Unit perform this function in the other troupes. Productions aligned with seven out of 12 OYSCAC objectives, eight out of 10 LASCAC objectives; five out of ten OGSCAC objectives, while NTN's productions conformed to all its six objectives. Workshop ensemble was the most common type of production in OYSCAC, LASCAC, and OGSCAC as opposed to published scripts common to NTN. The NTN was consistent with its production output. Outputs from LASCAC, OGSCAC and OYSCAC reduced considerably between 2010 and 2018 due to limited government support and weak production management structure. Only NTN had production book that documented the entire production process. Others had videos and pictures of performances as the documentary evidence of their productions. NTN had a detailed statutory production schedule, while the other troupes had National Arts Festival (NAFEST) entries as their only statutory programme. Drama, dance and music performances were common to all the troupes, but dance was the most common among council troupes. Common production management features in the troupes were conduct of production planning meetings, daily rehearsals and operation of repertory system, which could be staged on short notice.
The National troupe of Nigeria and Troupes in Southwestern Nigeria vary in their conformity to production management best practices such as availability of production team, alignment of productions with troupe's objectives and existence of production script. Those with a high level of conformity, represented by National troupe of Nigeria, recorded better successes and sustainability rate than those with low level conformity.
