Expenses

Since my main goal with my theater is not to make money, but to engage in theater, I am trying to set up ways in which it can sustain itself. Part of this is of course, cutting costs. Having a small black box will reduce the need for technical gear and the people who run it. It will reduce the square footage to pay rent on and clean, the regulatory and liability burdens of occupancy codes, and the number of people I need to reach out to in order to have a full house. 50-100 seats is totally within the scope of my ambition and abilities.

I've been thinking a lot about how to reduce other costly burdens- advertising, marketing, and management. I don't like being sold to for one thing. I also did a month of intense selling in November for Going Postal, and it didn't really draw people in. Te people who showed up were the ones who had a stake in the production. Friends and family of the actors, or people I enthused to about the project. We got a handful of people we didn't know, but even then it was because they had seen and liked an actor in a previous production.

Side note- I wonder if it's possible to include a section on the website for updates on actors and other theater artists. New Century Theater Company includes updates on company members, but I think we'll have more than ten folks to keep track of. Maybe just keep track of last season's actors? Once they've been in a few shows link to their profiles? Hmmmm...

Also, advertising promises things that theater doesn't always deliver. Theater's main purpose is not entertainment, it is story telling. Story telling can be entertaining, but think of it like this- are your best friends the ones who are always ready for a good time and never tell you anything bad, confide in you or hold you to higher standards of capability? Perhaps you're looking for escapist fantasy, and not theater. Theater isn't always a good time. I'm not saying it isn't fun, but that expecting only entertainment is a degradation of the art that advertising supports. It is a willful distortion that does more harm than good. I'm not saying that theater should be a slog, a dirge, a depression realization that the pessimists were right all along. Theater is a story told by humans to other humans and can contain multiple elements of humanity- good and bad. To favor only one aspect of theater (entertainment), is to flatten it to a single dimension. Boring, out of touch, useless.

So I want to make good theater, by engaging in good process. I don't have a lot of money, and I am wary of money's corrupting influence. How do I open a theater that will last for more than one show? I'm already relying on volunteers, generosity of spirit and thrift. I am already working full time to pay my personal expenses. I can't run a theater without more time and I can't afford a theater without more money. I have few personal expenses- no children, no mortgage. I have enough yarn to last me a few years, and I like to eat lentils anyway. So, my single biggest expense is rent. If I didn't have to pay rent, I could get by on a thousand dollars a month. At $20/hour, that's only fifty hours of work , which is less than fifteen hours a week. If I didn't have to pay rent on a space, we could produce shows for less than 2k, less than 1k if we're doing a new show and don't have to pay $100 a night for script rights.

You see where this is headed, right? Someone give me a building! Actually, I'm wondering if there is a way to have a live work theater? It would be more like inviting people over to our house for a party than a business transaction. And there would be concerns about keeping our private lives separate and our business suitably business like. But didn't people used to live where they worked? Why pay rent on two spaces? I can't be in two places at once. I suppose it's a zoning issue. Or a privacy issue. But just down the street from my house, there is a quilt shop, and the owners live upstairs. I don't think they have anyone breaking in. And their dogs are safely fenced outside most of the day, while they are running the shop.

I'm not a huge share-er. I like a good clean boundary, and I'm not sure how I'd feel having strangers wandering in and out of my house all hours of the day and night. It probably makes more sense for a retail business- with very specific daytime hours and no cast parties. My home is my sanctuary and I don't want everyone thinking that my personal beer stash, food, etc. are public goods available to them at any time. So a lock and some clear boundaries would be essential.And the danger of being able to do whatever we want would be that we would do nothing. And the fact that a non-profit structure requires public access and support, this set up might feel weird or clique-ish. I don't know. I am simply trying to problem solve.

I'm never going to be rich. I don't like money. I don't like what it does to people who have it, I don't like the power people give it to dictate their attitudes and behavior. I didn't get into art so that I could pursue the almighty dollar. I'm in a union, with a hiring hall that finds me work, instead of working as a costume designer chasing gigs from theater to theater, precisely because I hate to sell myself and my work. I hate to set a price on my time and effort. I would rather participate in a system in which everyone is paid the same fair wage for their time and expertise. Sometimes, I turn down work because I would rather have time to do homework, or help my friends, or spend a day to myself. Money is not my goal. I can die with tons or nothing, but time is finite and when I run out, that's it. So why spend it foolishly and never stop to enjoy myself or my loved ones?

This post contains multiple ideas, which means that my thinking is running parallel to itself and bleeding over. I will try to come back later and sort it all out. But for now, I have some homework to attend to.