Let’s Show ‘Em What We’ve Got!
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!
