The second one of our big goals for the coming year is to create an education plan for the Drama Farm.  What exactly do we mean by that?  Well, I’m not entirely sure…

We’ve got lots of ideas for the educational principles behind the farm:  students learning in an informal environment; letting them loose to do their work and seek help as they need it.  But, I know there are a lot of ways we can facilitate that learning - “Free-Range” doesn’t necessarily mean “Free-For-All”!

I’ve got a few specific ideas for ways to guide the students’ educations while they’re at the farm.  We could have single-day workshops and seminars on various topics, taught by the staff advisors and/or other professionals in the community. We could do an informal round-table discussion (maybe over pizza one night a week?) where the students could talk with each other and the advisors about topics of their choosing. We could even give the students the opportunity to teach workshops for each other if they’re interested. There are a million possibilities out there - these are just a few.

The question is, how to we take all of these ideas and put them together into something cohesive? I hesitate to call it a “curriculum”, since that brings up images of formal education with lesson plans and such; I think what we want is more like a roadmap - something to plan out where we’re going and what we’re doing along the way, but not necessarily exactly how we’re going to get there.

Does any of this make sense? I don’t really have the knowledge to talk about education plans and philosophies in vocabulary that other people use - but I know that some of you do! Want to help us mold all of these loosely-related thoughts and ideas into a real education plan? Leave a comment below - we could really use the help!

So, now that we’ve got a whole year to plot and scheme before we actually do anything, we’ve got a few things that we’d really like to accomplish, in order to be ready to roll once we’re settled in Pittsburgh. Here’s what we want to do:

1. Set up the company’s structure. Ultimately, we’ll want the Drama Farm to be a tax-exempt nonprofit organization - that way any contributions our supporters make will be tax-deductible, we’ll be eligible for more grant funding, and we’ll get all the other benefits associated with nonprofit status. The question is: do we need/want to set that up now, or would it be better to wait? And when we do get it set up, what kind of nonprofit structure do we need?
2. Create an education plan. We’ve got a lot of ideas about the direction we want the Farm to go in, and things we want to work on with the students, but we really don’t know anything about coming up with a real plan for what we’re doing. The idea behind the Drama Farm is very much a free-form education model, but I’d like to work with someone with a real background in education, to come up with a formal plan for how the program will work. Ideas are great, but the more thought and planning we put into it, the better the students’ experiences will be.
3. Create a fundraising plan. Once we get ourselves settled in Pittsburgh, we’re going to want to start doing things - which means we’re going to need some money. Should we do some fundraising this year? Should we wait until we get to Pittsburgh and do a big fundraising push there? And what sort of fundraising should we do?

I know you talented people out there could be a huge help with some of this - some of you have already expressed an interest in helping, which we’re incredibly grateful for! I’ll write more on each of these goals - what we’ve found out so far, what our thoughts are, etc. - through the coming week, but if you see something you’re interested in helping with, jump right in! Leave a comment or drop me an email - your expertise would be greatly appreciated!

Derrick Kwa has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Drama Farm since we first met several months ago, and last week he asked me to do an email interview about the Farm and the educational ideas behind it.

You can check out the interview over here on his blog. While you’re there, read some of his other posts - he’s got some great insight into improving the education system.

Thanks for the interview, Derrick!

Hello! Sorry I’ve been away for so long - there have been some Big Changes in the works here in Drama Farm Land, and I didn’t want to say anything here until we’d told a few key people in person…

You may remember that at the end of last year we were excited about the possibility of finding the Drama Farm a home of its own. We had hoped to be able to buy or rent the property housing the Red Barn Theatre (just outside of Pittsburgh, PA) from its owners, allowing the Red Barn to continue to operate during the summers while we used the space for our programs through the rest of the year. Sadly, the property was sold to developers the day after the Red Barn closed its 2007 season, so that’s no longer a possibility.

As we considered the ramifications of moving the project to the Red Barn, though, it became clearer and clearer that Pittsburgh would be a much more ideal place to get the Farm up and running - with or without the Red Barn as a venue. After much discussion, we’ve decided to transplant the whole operation to Pittsburgh and set up shop there. It’ll be about a year before we’re fully moved and prepared to get things rolling again, so the pilot program will remain on hold until the spring of 2009.

That’s not to say that we won’t be working, though - we’ve now got a whole year to do nothing but research and plan, so we can jump right in once we’re settled in the ‘Burgh. I’ve got several goals for the coming year, and I’m going to need your help to achieve them - but that’s for another post.

For now, thanks for your continued support, and stay tuned - we’ll have lots more to talk about soon!

You may have noticed that in the last few hours, references to the pilot program all over the website have been changing from 2008 to 2009. Bet you’re wondering why that is, huh?

Well, just as we were gearing up to get the pilot program up and running for the summer of 2008, a great opportunity came our way, and we just couldn’t pass it up.

Our dream from the very beginning has been to ultimately find the Drama Farm a home of its own. Imagine a dedicated facility where our students could come to get away from the hassles of college life - a quiet retreat where they could just do theatre, far enough from the rest of the world that they could focus on their work, but close enough to a city that they would have access to all the culture and resources they wanted. Wouldn’t that be great?

After talking with several friends back in Pittsburgh, PA (where the Drama Farm idea was first conceived), it looks like those dreams might be a lot closer than we thought. I can’t go into the details just yet, but there’s a good possibility that we might be able to acquire an actual farm outside of Pittsburgh, complete with farmhouse and barn theater, to use as the Drama Farm’s permanent home.

Given that possibility, we’ve decided to postpone the pilot program for now, in order to focus all of our energy on finding a way to make this happen. We’re still working on plans for the pilot program, though, and we hope to be up and running in Pittsburgh (farm or no farm) by the summer of 2009.

Until then, we’d still love all of your help and input into our plans - those of you who have chipped in so far have been a huge help already, and we’re always looking to get more people involved!

I’ll also have more info on our plans for the farm soon, and you’ll be sure to hear about it as soon as I do. So stay tuned - it’s going to be an exciting year!

It’s only been a few days since the big Pilot Program Announcement, and the support and encouragement has been coming in from all directions!

Chris Brogan and Derrick Kwa both gave us great writeups on their blogs, and our new Facebook group already has 19 members!

Still only 3 people in the forum, but I expect that will probably take a little longer to build up - if you be a part of our plotting and scheming, stop on by and say hi!

Finally, I’ve gotten emails of encouragement and offers of help from at least half a dozen other people who hadn’t even heard of the Drama Farm before two days ago. It’s great to know that we’ve got so much support already - and we really appreciate the help. Keep the emails coming - we want to hear what you think!

As promised, I’m here to tell you more about the Drama Farm Pilot Program that we’re planning for the Summer of 2008. We’re pretty excited about it - hopefully you will be too!

So what’s this pilot program all about, anyway?

Well, anyone who’s been following along for the past year or so knows that we’ve got some pretty big ideas for what we want the Drama Farm to be. Up ’till now, though, that’s all they’ve been: Ideas.

Now we want to put some of those ideas to the test. We want to gather a group of students and advisors and do a sort of mini-version of the Drama Farm’s program, to see how things work and get some feedback from people involved in the process.

To that end, we’re planning on renting some studio space here in Alameda for a couple of months, and hopefully making a deal with our local performing arts center to use their theater. It’ll be a very low-budget program, but we’re hoping to raise enough that we can cover our costs without charging the students admission.

Who’s going to be involved?

Right now we’re primarily looking for students who are interested in coming and helping us build the program from the ground up. We’ve got some ideas on how to structure things, but we’re really looking for adventurous, innovative theatre students who want to be a part of creating this program and helping to improve it for the students who come after them.

We’re also looking for local theatre artists (designers, technicians, actors) who are interested in acting as advisors for the summer program. While the ultimate goal is to have full-time advisors at the Drama Farm, the pilot program will be structured so that advisors are available primarily by phone to give the students advice and support. Advisors will also have pre-arranged times to drop in and see how things are going, and to work with the students in person should they need it (sort of like office hours in a college setting).

And what exactly will we be doing?

Basically, we’re planning a two-month program for the months of June and July 2008 (exact dates TBA). The first week will be a moving-in and getting to know each other week - we’ll probably schedule a few get-togethers/meetings towards the end of the week, but the bulk of the week will be free for exploring and getting settled.

Weeks 2 through 5 will be work weeks - time for rehearsals, production meetings, design, build, and general collaboration. The basis of the Drama Farm idea is that the students are in charge, so this will be their time to work, along with their professional director, in whatever manner they see fit.

Weeks 6 and 7 will be in the theater. The tech/performance schedule will be determined by the students, and they’ll be responsible for advertising the performances as well. If they want to tech for a week and do one weekend of performances, they can; if they’d rather tech for a day, open the show and then hold daytime rehearsals between shows, that’s their prerogative.

Week 8 will be a sort of post-mortem for the project - we’ll get together to discuss how things went, what everyone liked, what could have been improved, and what other ideas we could incorporated into the program.

This is just a rough structure that we’ve worked out so far; as more collaborators get involved, we’re open to shuffling things around and adding new elements based on their ideas.

We’re also planning to throw in some additional goodies that we want to test out, like having roundtable discussions with the students and advisors once a week, and holding occasional workshops and seminars for the students.

It’s really about experimentation - we don’t know what’s going to happen or how it’s going to work out, but we’ll have fun trying, and hopefully get some good feedback in the process!

How do I get involved?

If you’re interested in being a part of the pilot program, whether as a student, advisor, or just a helpful hand or contributor, we’d love to have you! You can check out the How You Can Help page on our website for more information on ways to get involved.

You can also subscribe to this blog to recieve updates on the program, and join our forum to introduce yourself and join in the discussion as we build the program.

Finally, if you can spare a few dollars for the cause, we’d really appreciate your contributions! You can click on the “Make a Donation” button in the sidebar, or check out our General Store to buy some cool Drama Farm stuff and support us at the same time!

If you’re interested in what we’re doing, please let us know! We want to get as many people involved as we can - the more creative folks we have working on this, the better it will be!

UPDATE: Due to some exciting new developments, the pilot program has been postponed until the summer of 2009. You can get all the details here!

Sorry I’ve been away for so long, but the hard work has finally paid off. If you’re reading this in your RSS reader, take a minute to go check out the new-and-improved website:

We’ve now got all kinds of new stuff: a forum, a store, and even a bunch of banners and buddy icons for you to play with!

More importantly, there’s loads of info on our upcoming pilot program, which we’re planning for the Summer of 2008. If you’re interested, or if you know someone who might be, let us know - we’re looking for all the crazy co-schemers we can find!

I’ll be writing more about everything that’s going on over the next week or so. But for now, a few small things:

If you’re already subscribed to the blog, you should update your reader by clicking here - now that we’ve got our very own domain, we’ve got a brand new feed too! The old one will still work for a while, but eventually it’ll be disappearing. So change it now to ensure you don’t miss a bit of news!

We also have a new Subscribe by Email option, for those of you who aren’t RSS-inclined. Just go to any page on the website, and find the little box in the sidebar that says “Enter your email address” to sign up. Then all of our blog posts will be delivered directly to your inbox! Exciting stuff, huh?

That’s all for now, but I promise I’ll be writing more soon. It’s good to be back!

UPDATE: Due to some exciting new developments, the pilot program has been postponed until the summer of 2009. You can get all the details here!

I just ordered a box of Moo cards for the Drama Farm. If you haven’t been to moo.com yet, you must have a look - you can get a box of 100 mini-cards with up to 100 different images on the front! For now, we’ve got a collection of six theatrically-inclined chickens (all drawn by yours truly!), but I’m working on expanding the set for the next batch of cards we print. Hopefully these guys will arrive before Saturday, so I can take them to Nonprofit Boot Camp with me!

We’ll be setting up a CafePress store soon with lots of chicken gear for you to make your own - but in the meantime, check out the rest of the chickens on my flickr page, and let me know what you think. All input is greatly appreciated!

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!