So, I was tagged by Derrick Kwa yesterday for the 8 Random Things meme - I’ve never been tagged before, so this is pretty exciting! Now, the original meme is to just write a post with 8 random things that people don’t know about you. I’m trying to keep this blog Drama Farm-focused, though, so I’m going to amend that a little bit for my purposes:

8 Random Things You Didn’t Know about Sarah’s Life in Theatre:

1. I stage managed my first show when I was 12 years old - my 6th grade class decided to create and produce our very own live production of the movie Clue (a true classic of our generation), and I was deathly afraid of going onstage. The job of Director had already been snagged, so I convinced my classmates that they needed a Stage Manager. The rest is history…
2. The first play I remember seeing was Peter Pan, at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. When I clapped my hands and helped bring Tinkerbell back to life, it was the most magical thing I’d ever seen. From that moment, I was hooked on theatre for good.
3. I am secretly (or possibly not-so-secretly) in love with cheesy musicals. Sondheim is great, but I’ll take a Crazy For You or a Fiddler on the Roof over a Sweeney Todd any day…
4. When I was 19, I cleaned out my bedroom at my parents’ house so my dad could use it as his office. I found an old journal of mine, and once I picked the lock and got it open, I discovered a journal entry from 7th grade: “I want to go to CMU and learn to be a stage manager.” Didn’t even remember I’d written that - way to follow your dreams, huh?
5. Favorite Play(s): Noises Off, The Tempest, The Forest War, to name a few…
6. Favorite Musical: Guys and Dolls, hands down.
7. Favorite moment working on a show: Three guys on break from rehearsal, standing in the middle of a dark, quiet street in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, singing “Pinball Wizard” in three-part harmony, a cappella. Goosebumps.
8. Reasons I’m still doing this: I love it. I can’t stop. We’re changing people, affecting people, entertaining them and making them see things differently, and hopefully giving them an experience they won’t forget. We’re making magic - and if I can give one more little girl the chance to bring Tinkerbell back to life, I’ve done what I’m here to do.

So that’s me and theatre. Hope you learned something you didn’t know about me. I’m not gonna tag anyone, but if you feel so moved, post your own 8 Random Things, and point back here to me!

Also, check out the rest of Derrick’s Blog - he’s got some great thoughts on education and alternative ways of learning, from the perspective of someone who’s taking a different path through education right now. Thanks for the tag, Derrick!

I had a great meeting yesterday with Ms. Joan Sadler; Joan has been deeply involved with A.C.T. since the very beginning - first volunteering, then serving on the board for many years, including spending several years as the board’s President. She knows what it’s like to be with a company from the ground up, and she had some good insight into how to proceed with our plans.

One thing she mentioned - something I’ve been thinking about for a while now - is that people are much more likely to donate to an project if they can see something tangible that the organization has already done. Some people are willing to contribute based on the strength of an idea, but most want to know that you’ll be able to follow through, and bring the idea to life. I’ve been thinking about this myself, but I wasn’t sure how to scale down our plans to the point that we could do them without major funding; Joan had some good ideas about doing a small project in conjunction with an existing theatre company - possibly in their off-season, so we could use their space and share their resources. Another possibility is to charge the students a small amount of tuition, rent a space for the pre-production/rehearsal period, and then use another company’s theater for the performance.

It would probably have to be a summer program, since we wouldn’t have the resources to sustain it for a whole semester - probably just a 2-3 month program would be best. It’s only been stewing for a day, but at this point it seems like something that should be achievable by next summer. I’m going to start working on a plan, figuring out how we can make it work - it’s kind of exciting to be actually doing something, instead of just pondering funding and nonprofit law!

Donor Power

I’ve recently discovered the Donor Power Blog, written by Jeff Brooks of Merkle|Domain, a company dedicated to helping nonprofits strengthen their relationships with their donors. Jeff talks a lot about empowering your donors - treating them as real people who want to make a difference, not as ATMs; by giving them the ability to see and choose where their donations are going, you can give them a personal connection with what your company is doing, and how they helped make it happen.

That idea really strikes a chord with me - I’ve been striving to get as many people as I can involved in the Drama Farm, because I really believe that the most exciting ideas come from collaboration (after all, that’s part of what the program is about!) So, why not include the donors in that collaboration? Encourage them to contribute ideas, to be involved in the lives of the students and what we’re doing with their generous donations. Make them a part of the Farm!

Adopt-a-Chicken!

So, how’s this for an idea? We figure out how much it will cost to operate the program for one student for one semester - materials, facilities, housing costs, etc. - and then we ask potential donors to give enough endowment funding to sponsor one chicken’s (er, student’s…) stay at the Drama Farm each year. We could even attribute specific rooms in the dorms to specific donors, and give the donors updates on the student that they’ve sponsored for that semester - who they are, what they’re doing - even get them in touch with each other. It could be a great networking possibility for the student, and it would give the donor a form of direct involvement in the program. It might even result in some lasting relationships that could benefit both student and donor in the future…

Standing Out

I’ve also been reading a bit about how to make your organization stand out - how to make it remarkable and memorable - and it seems to me that active donor empowerment is a good way to achieve that. We don’t want to be the same as every other group that’s asking these people for money - something needs to make them sit up, take notice, and get involved. This might be one way to go with that.

Any other ideas?

And now, for the next installment in our Idea Distillation Series: In 2 or 3 paragraphs, give an overview of the program, with detail about the philosophy behind it and benefits of it.

Turns out the 2-3 sentences from Step Two were a great opening paragraph for this section - so it looks like this exercise is working after all. They gave me a good overview of what we’re doing, and then I just had to write a few more paragraphs about the philosophy and benefits of the program. Here’s what I came up with:

The Free-Range Drama Farm is a non-profit organization that allows young theatre professionals to create and produce their own professional production, without the constraints of a typical academic environment. This free program provides students with all the resources they need, including a staff of theatre professionals to advise them, and allows them to adapt their experience to their own needs and interests. The students receive a taste of real-world theatre experience, while continuing to learn through collaboration with their peers and mentors.

The Drama Farm philosophy is based on the idea that students deserve a chance to practice their skills and refine their craft in the same type of environment they will experience when they begin their professional careers. At the same time, we recognize that theatre professionals are always learning, and we aim to provide the resources they need to acquire knowledge through their work. Our staff will create a nurturing environment in which to work and learn, while encouraging our students to continually challenge themselves and find creative solutions to their problems.

Every student is different. Our ideal program will be intimate and flexible enough to adapt to the needs and interests of each individual student. Some students will benefit from being given the freedom to make their own decisions and seek the knowledge they lack; others will benefit from the experience of leading and participating in a collaborative production; others still will learn what life is like for a working theatre professional – an experience very different from that of an undergraduate student. Our goal is to provide our students with mentors and resources that can adapt to their particular needs, giving each student the best, most constructive experience we possibly can.

This is just a first pass, and obviously will need a little refinement, but I think it expresses why we’re doing it, and what the really important values of the Drama Farm are - what we believe and what we want the students to get out of it.

What do you think?

Anybody out there know anything about how to put together a prospectus? We’re looking to create something that’s snazzy and eye-catching, but also friendly and informative, to send out to people who might want to give us money.

I’ve poked around a bit on the internet and found some vague descriptions of the structure of a prospectus, but my feeling is that no one is really doing quite the same thing that we’re trying to do. Most people who write prospectuses (prospecti?) are looking for venture capital, so they really do have a deal to make. We’re looking for investors, but they’re not going to get a monetary return on their investment - just involvement in a pretty cool project, and the ability to make a difference in the education of future theatre professionals.

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far, as it applies to what we’re doing:

3 Parts of a (typical) Prospectus:

• Description of the program - the way you ideally see it working; its mission.
• Bio - who the founders are; their experience and skills.
• The Deal - what you want from the investor; what they’ll get out of the deal.

How does this apply to us?

We’re thinking we’ll want a snazzy folder of some type, with various informational inserts that cover those three broad categories in a variety of ways. Here’s what we’ve got so far:

• Letter - thanking them for their interest in the Farm, and telling them what they’ll find in the folder
• Program Info - description of the concept behind the program and how we plan to implement it
• Facilities Info - description of the facilities we want to create, probably with some photos and sketches or plans
• Staff/Board Info - primarily bios on the people who are working with us now, but also a description of who we’ll be looking for to staff the program once we’ve raised the money to start
• Funding Info - how we plan to fund the program and facilities, along with different ways that they can give us their support (including non-monetary support, like involvement in what we’re doing and spreading the word about the project). We might want to split this one into two - one about our funding plans, and another about how to support the cause?

What should it look like?

The next step is to figure out the design of the thing - the closest thing I can come up with is something similar to the big folder of stuff that schools send to prospective students who they’re trying to attract. I know there are lots of prospective donor materials out there, though, so I’m going to ask around and see if I can get my hands on a few.

In the meantime, anyone have any thoughts? Other content we should be including? Interesting/fun ways to package it, to make us stand out? Any and all ideas are welcome!