It's September, and Vanita Rae Smith expects to be a little nervous. This is the month when the curtain rises on all her plans and the veteran theater maven welcomes audiences to a new season of Army Community Theatre.

"Barnum," once a successful Broadway musical, will feature a 35-member cast and a set that transforms Richardson Theatre into a circus, said Smith, who has managed the military-sponsored organization for more than three decades.

"We're all excited," Smith said. "We are just hoping that what we have chosen is the magic bullet to solve our problems."

A lot is riding on the production's three-week run.

All over town, community theater organizations are feeling the pressure of the recession. With months to prepare for this season, they've cut budgets while still attempting to stage the kind of productions their audiences expect.

Well-received productions can help bolster the entire theater community, while skimping on quality could alienate core audiences who so far have been loyally renewing their season subscriptions. With that in mind, most theaters have done their best to keep budget trimming behind the scenes, knowing their reputations ride on what appears onstage.

COPING STRATEGIES

Theaters are trying a variety of tactics to cope. They've picked productions to entice audiences, changed performance days to make it easier for people to attend, arranged to recycle old stage sets and slashed budgets by as much as 50 percent.

Some are offering discount tickets. Kumu Kahua Theatre even has a special price for individuals who can prove they're out of work.

"All the groups are on the edge because the first thing that goes is discretionary income," said Scott Rogers, managing director of Kumu Kahua. "People don't want to go anywhere. They feel like this is something they don't need."

At Kennedy Theatre on the University of Hawai'i-Manoa campus, production budgets have been cut from $27,000 to $17,000, and directors "have adjusted their imaginations," said Dennis Carroll, who oversees the theater as chairman of the university's Department of Theatre and Dance.

"Things are not good at all with us," he said. "We are balancing a very precarious, minimal budget this year. We have cut in almost all categories — sets, student help, box office time to the public."

Carroll has tried to brace theater patrons for what's coming with as much optimism as he can. In June, he sent out a letter that began with the university's "dire" financial situation but closed with a promise to "provide a source of inspiration and diversion as we weather the economic storm."

Most of Kennedy Theatre's current $331,207 budget should be covered by ticket sales, but the theater also counts on a two-year grant from the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Carroll said. He should have heard in July whether the theater was going to receive its $24,000 request, but Carroll is still waiting.

"We have virtually no reserves," he said. "Our goal this year is to break even and see where to go from there."

BOX-OFFICE APPEAL

Selecting productions that will fill the house is more crucial now than ever before — and there is no time-honored formula for success.

Carroll believes that theaters need to stick with productions that are "challenging and interesting" and avoid traditional fare.

"You don't necessarily cave in and do popular theater," he said. "If you do 'My Fair Lady' for the 10th time, you are headed for disaster."

Popular theater is central to the survival plan at nearby Manoa Valley Theatre, though MVT is steering toward fare more contemporary than "My Fair Lady."

The theater company will stage the Broadway musical "Hair" later this season. The hope is that it will bring additional income so the theater can stage productions that are artistically or socially significant but are not guaranteed box-office draws, said attorney Jeff Portnoy, board president of the theater company.

"People are being more selective," he said. "If it's a play they haven't heard of, they're less likely to come, less likely to take the chance of spending the money."

The theater has made less-visible changes to make its shows more attractive, such as using a cabaret seating arrangement that allows food and drinks to be served and adding a Saturday matinee.

Replacing Wednesday performances with a matinee creates a simpler outing for theater patrons, Portnoy said. Parents might also bring their children, and the production might appeal to teenagers.

GENERATING BUZZ

Even theaters that say they are financially sound are trying to run leaner operations, because they fear that the economy will not recover soon.

Diamond Head Theatre finished last season in the black, despite two productions that didn't do as well as expected. Nevertheless, DHT is trying to trim its operating expenses by reducing office supplies. No layoffs are planned, but neither are raises for the 15-member staff. And while Executive Director Deena Dray is optimistic about the year ahead, she said it's like preparing for a hurricane that may never arrive.

"What we put on our stage is our most important asset, from the actors to the orchestra to sets to the costumes," Dray said. "You can't downsize the quality during bad times. People will stop coming, and you can't build that back up."

Brad Powell, artistic director of The Actors' Group, concurs. His thinking is that if a theater produces a play that generates positive buzz, people will be more receptive to seeing other plays, so maintaining consistent quality is important.

A year after moving to a Chinatown venue that costs three times as much as its former space in Kaka'ako, then losing about 20 percent of its corporate donations, Powell said, the primarily volunteer theater company has yet to lose money on a production.

However, the higher overhead is a concern, so the theater company has taken a two-pronged approach to dealing with it: reducing its need for income by staging more original plays that don't require royalty payments, and bringing in additional money by loaning out the theater on dark nights for a share of the ticket sales.

Those moves, donations from audience members and borrowed costumes and props from other theater companies helped The Actors' Group weather its first year in Chinatown.

"We are doing the type of production that no other theater does, so we have a very strong group of people who love to come to our theater," Powell said.

CUTTING COSTS

Popular musicals are the norm for Army Community Theatre, where audiences are accustomed to large productions in the company's 808-seat theater. But with season ticket sales down 25 percent and the budget for this season revised for the eighth time since June, Army Community Theater hopes to lean heavily on a bit of stage magic — and a few extra performances, said Smith.

Knowing "hard times were coming," Smith picked shows that would carry the theater, including "Chorus Line," which she also staged 11 years ago.

"I built the set for that in 1997 and I still have it," she said. "It's going to be dusty, but it will be usable, and it will be intact."

When she can, Smith also plans to use a projector to display parts of a set she would ordinarily have to build.

More shows can mean more revenue. Smith extended her schedule for "High School Musical 2" and "Chorus Line" by four performances and added a concert version of the Broadway musical "Nine" that can be staged without having to invest in sets, costumes and eight weeks of rehearsals.

"It's an extra show, because we knew we were hurting for money," said Smith, who would not discuss her production budget except to say it has been cut in half.

Smith will be putting her faith in the power of theater this season. She believes it can buoy audiences, especially during hard times.

"That's why we selected happy shows," she said. "It gives them a moment of escape. They forget. They forget how bad they felt when they got there. It has a way of moving their spirits."