Often a main theater might influence you to produce plays following a certain criteria. Such might be the case when they have been successful especially in bringing in the public during the off-season. I wouldn't feel that I am being judged for my creative merits because you are starting off small and they have had years to create a viewing public. You still might be judged for your choice of venue, your mandate and your budget size but that doesn't mean that you won't be able to make it with a small budget in a converted office space with old furniture to use for decor.
As long as you make less than 50,000 dollars tax people won't look into your receipts, I heard. And that is a lot of money when everything is second hand and people are working for free. For the federal tax, government officials will take your word on your revenue unless receipts are asked. I can say that is the case for myself, being my own entrepreneur after declaring expenses tied to the selling of my visual art.
The government hasn't asked for receipts but they could always work backwards 5 years if they expect there to be an imbalance in any payments. (You never know when you could land up on the Canada Council judging who would receive what grants.) If you have a minimum budget, the best thing to do is double it. There are always unforeseen expenses. Oddly that formula worked out for a small budget film of mine where the cost exceeded expectations and was two grand instead of one with the main increase due to transport costs and unavoidable parking tickets. Try to get sponsorship from the media and from the beer companies because beer and theater mix very well. Molson is always eager to supply a beer stand with their logo as is done for festivals or supply a cooler and ale for your venue. The easiest sponsors are the media though a simple logo might suffice for the grant. Three types of marketing schemes are suggested, word of mouth, posters and print advertising.
Publicite Sauvage has been good for posters. You might want to get actors to sell tickets for the play and pass on news of the play to friends and associates. Until you can be an in house company, you have to be fearless. Another method would be offering a free hour of rehearsal time for every hour of volunteering that actors do. That way you can recruit actors help for cheap. You can apply to the city for grants but they will want to see 2 years of receipts. That way you can get a few thousand dollars to pay a marketing group, which will approach sponsors for the Montreal Fringe to double the amount of money.
