How much?

Every once in a while I am astonished that more people don't know what it costs to put on a show.  Not just a show, but a fringe show because there is a price cap and the ticket amount does not reflect expenses.  Personally, I don't keep it a secret, and I don't think it should be.

So here is a breakdown of Lulu so far: ( $ are rounded for aesthetic purposes )

Fringe BYOV cost : $675

Venue rental: $1000

Rehearsal space: $475

Copyrights: $600

Actor Equity insurance (if you use professional actors in the fringe you have to pay insurance, in case we get hurt)  : $290

Costumes: $100 (so far, we've done alot of borrowing, but some things had to be built and bought)

Set: $45 (so far.  we've got a beautiful venue and did some borrowing so didn't need to purchase much for sets)

Posters and Handbills: $100 (I haven't printed the posters yet so am just going to round out the number to $50, it might be more.   800 handbills cost me $50)

Lighting , sound, and chairs are all borrowed so we dodged a bullet there too!

Running Total = $3285

Please note this does not include any paycheques for the actors, director or stage manager :-(

This is where the audience comes in!

Let's average the ticket price at $9 (regular 10, 8 matinee and 2 for 10 on opening)

If 35 people come for every show I will have covered our costs.  If more people come after that, I'll be able to pay everyone for their excellent work.

Can we do it?

Smoky The Fringe Dancing Bear says:

Only YOU can prevent unpaid Theatre artists!

Last minute

Remember when I said I was prepared?  Well, it turns out I'm in the same place as I always am as the Fringe quickly approaches.  The panicked state when you realize you open next week.

It's the last minute life style and things are coming together, albeit a bit later than I'd hoped. 

Someone asked me this week

"how are you feeling about things?"

I think as promoters we are to say

 "great!  hope you'll come see it!"

But as honesty always trumps my forethought or common sense in situations like these I said

 "We are in that scary place where you don't know if the show is going to come together"

 I quickly ammended my comment with:

 "of course it always does"

and it does.  But every year, every show you get to feel that little bit of fear.  Keeps you on your toes, as they say.

HOPE YOU'LL COME SEE IT!

Lulu's Venue, Show Times & Ticket Prices!

July 

Wed 18   6:30pm * 2 for $10 *

Thur 19   6:30pm

Fri    20   8:30pm

Sat   21   6:30pm

Sun  22   1:30pm

Tue   24    6:30pm

Wed 25    6:30pm

Thur 26    8:30pm

Fri    27    6:30pm

Sat   28    8:30pm

Sun  29    1:30pm

Regular $10

Matinee $8

Venue 25

72 Princess - 3rd Floor (Absurd Machine Studios)

https://maps.google.ca/maps?q=72+princess+winnipeg&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hnear=72+Princess+St,+Winnipeg,+Division+No.+11,+Manitoba+R3B+1K2&gl=ca&t=m&z=16

Most Unusually Prepared

The rehearsal space is paid for, cast is confirmed, the handbills are designed, printed and circulating...in a most unusual turn of events, I am on the other side of fringe prep hell.  Not sure what this bodes, but it should feel good, right?  

It feels weird.  This has never happened to me.  Usually I'm sitting in someone's office (who has photo-shop) trying to desperately to insert, cut, and paste a poster together (while teaching myself photo-shop, because I am the only one in the arts community who has no idea how to use it) so it can be printed and ready to go for the weekend before fringe opening.


I feel like I'm forgetting something...maybe a huge oversight will rear it's fangs and I'll be off running the fringe race against time again.


Yet To do list:
-Costumes (find and borrow)
-Props (find and borrow)
-Set (find and borrow)
-Blood prep & rehearsal (make blood, test for effect)
-*Have a read through of the play with cast
-*Rehearse play for best results


*Super important


So all I've really done so far is a little advanced marketing...phew, there are tons of things for me to do before the show.  

Actually, I'm a lawyer. Fries with that?

The continuing joys of being asked what I do for a living. 
"I'm an actor."  "I'm a  theatre artist."  "I'm a playwright."

I'm finding it gets more embarrassing the longer I stay at my day job.  
I know, it's a day job.  Every actor has at some point had, or still do have jobs they go back to when they aren't working (acting).  I've been at my current day job not quite a year yet, and I've made work for myself this year so that I feel like a theatre artist, or at least feel like I can keep telling people that.  

(Warning: it gets pretty cynical from here on in.  it's the mood I'm in today.  And yes, I am at my day job right now, but it's a slow day.)

In what other vocation is this a thing?  

Sure, going through the education system future lawyers, doctors, business administrators, accountants, estheticians, scientists etc. work other jobs to support themselves until they become what they set out to become.  OK, this is barring any layoffs, firings, or job loss.  I just have yet to see someone in a career that society values as necessary to our way of life- enough to pay for it's existence- out there serving up cocktails and appetizers on a patio in the summer, or pouring coffee for all the folks with "real" jobs or, doing what I do outside of my "real" profession, answering phones as a receptionist as a way to supplement income not derived from the chosen profession.  As an actor, the supplemental part of my income is most of the pie, making it harder and harder to convince people  "no really, I'm an actor!" when the bank statements and the t-4s  show otherwise.

It will never stop being like that.  At this time in Canada, with all the funding cuts to the arts, the growing number and combination of artistic disciplines, and the continuous stream of emerging and established artists the pot of soup supposed to feed everyone (which is not big to begin with) now holds a thin broth enough to keep the arts alive but not enough to nourish.  


Imagine if this wasn't the case.  Imagine if one could just be an actor or a theatre artist and live.  ahhhh.


In Winnipeg this is not an option.  Unless you have some sort of supernatural hold on a character type that will continuously get you work, or if you make your own work.  As you probably have noted, I make my own work and this is one way by which I can still call myself an actor (that and telling people I have an audition coming up).


One might ask "If you make your own work, you can always be working.  It is up to you."  I hate that.  Why?  because of funding of course.  Even if I am an expert grant writer (not that I am, but I've written alot of them) it depends on a jury of one's peers to decide what one's fate will be.  Yes I can always be working on something, but on my own time and I will still have to work at a job that I did not go to school to learn how to do.  I certainly didn't go to school to cultivate a hobby.  I have no interest in theatre as a hobby.  I would never suggest that of anyone's profession, that they should do it as a hobby, on the side.  How insulting. 

Since we don't value the arts as much as we should given that if there were not an arts and cultural industry unemployment would be through the roof and the economy would tank, (wait, in our current economical climate and state of arts funding, does one thing have something to do with the other?  Hmm?) I don't think we'll be seeing the day that my day job is in my chosen field any day soon.


Ok, I've had my rant.  Back to work.

Producer vs Actor: Who Am I?

Little Echo Theatre is prepping our show for the 2012 Winnipeg Fringe Festival.  Program copy is written up and edited, photo shoot for graphic and poster design has come and gone, most of the cast is confirmed.  Gee, looks like we're on our way.  Did I forget anything?  Something important? Rehearsing the play perhaps?

Sometimes producing a play I intend to perform in, which tends to by why I am producing the play in the first place, is a difficult thing to balance.  Often performing the role is the last thing on my mind and usually gets shoved to the back burner until I'm standing in front of the director being asked actor questions like "why do you think you're doing that?", and, "can you face down stage when you say that?".  At this point a strange thing happens in my brain.  A little person in my head puts her hand on a switch and is staring me down, wondering if I'm going to stop her from flipping that producer switch off so the actor light can shine.  This is a precarious situation. I've got practicalities and box office numbers, costume decisions and rehearsal schedules floating around, bumping into each other in the semi-darkness making it very hard to even see the play as a play, the role as a role, and me as the actor. 

In the end, when finally that little person in the mind is successful in turning that producer switch off, it is a rewarding experience to have accomplished so much.  Playing Actor and Producer roles earns more space in the pride and accomplishment room of the heart, but it would be a nice break, a vacation you might say, to have someone else do those things, and I can just be an actor.

A Hate on for Arts and Culture

While I was washing my dishes Sunday afternoon listening to CBC radio, Rex Murphy's Cross Country Check-up came on.  Normally I'm not a big fan of this show because it allows anyone with an opinion to blast it over the airwaves no matter how idiotic and misinformed it is. Sometimes the opinion is informed and I am proud that there are intelligent thoughtful people out there.  This particular day, this Sunday, the topic put up for discussion was the federal budget.  People from all over Canada called in to Rex to air their grievances over old age security, tax cuts, and of course, everyone's favourite, arts funding. More importantly, why hasn't the government cut arts and culture funding altogether?  One such person had the seemingly oblivious gall to call this program on the CBC and state that the only thing we don't need is Arts & Culture.  This man said that he worked in a bar making $50/hour, has a wife and two children and it'll be a cold day in hell the day he spends his weekends paying to go to a, wait for it, Museum. Just any museum I presume.  I think he hates all of them, whether he knows what a museum is, it obviously doesn't matter. You know what else he hates?  Education.  He told Rex Murphy that he will "teach" is daughter to be self-educated, and when she decides what she wants to do with her life then she can go to a post-secondary institution and pay for it.  Being self-educated and a young person in the world, I wonder if her world is made up of  anything besides arts and cultre.  I hope she wants to be an artist.  Wouldn't that be perfect.