Cue To Cue Series - Fifty Words

As incentive for people to contribute, we are partnering with businesses to donate prize draws for our funders.   Just a $5 contribution gets you automatically entered in the prize draws and funders of over $20 will receive perks like discounted tickets to our show, prize packages from our sponsors, bottles of wine and more.  To date we’ve raised over $2300 and have until July 25th to reach our fundraising goal of $3000 online. We are also having a fundraiser at the Pal Theatre on August 6th, in conjunction with The Shameless Hussies theatre company. We’re going to have an improv show, some local musicians and some sexy 50/50 sellers parading around the party.

We’re also going after show sponsors by selling ad space on our website, playbills and press materials to local businesses. Not only will those businesses receive the ad space, but we include their updates on our email sendouts, Facebook posts, Twitter, etc, with the idea of cross pollination and a win/win for both parties.  Sponsorship start at only $25 and details are in the sponsorship section of our website.  We just received a $500 sponsorship for our upcoming showand have partnered with that restaurant, “Sorry Babushka” on Commercial Drive, to help them build their clientele through our web presence and they’re doing the same for us. To make theatre visible in this city, you have to partner up with other businesses and get your message out there in a creative and entertaining way. There are ways to do that within a small budget and we’re finding those ways.

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At a certain point in a theatre company's evolution, people have to start being paid.  Our past productions have been Equity Co-ops, in which all of the artists received an equal split of whatever profits were made, which were very little.  For our fall production,  The Vancouver premiere of Michael Weller's "Fifty Words", we've upped our budget in order to be able to pay the main artists within the company - director, actors, stage manager and designers.  That takes a much bigger budget and we're working hard to raise funds privately and we've also put forth grant applications at the federal and provincial level, which we're currently waiting on.  Also, from an audience perspective, when a show is done without a professional level of quality to it, that hurts our theatre culture in general, so we want to try our best to knock it out of the park every time we put up a show.

Would the average theatre goer be surprised at the level of fundraising needed beyond ticket sale revenue?

Without question.  Live performance is a finite moneymaker.  Unlike a business which has unlimited potential to produce product, there are only a limited number of seats in a two week run that can be sold.  Finding the money up front to finance even the two weeks is very tricky.  If the true cost of that seat was charged, given venue expenses, royalties, insurance, publicity, print, and minimum wage (yes, minimum wage) for a skeleton crew of artists, the cost of a seat would be such that only the most affluent and keenly interested theatre goer could attend.  To do a play like this on a proper scale costs in the area of $30,000.  The maximum box office capacity of our run, at $20 a seat, is $18.500.  Tough numbers to work with and it's only gotten tougher in an era of huge arts cuts.

What would you say the biggest difference is between the independant and in house productions?

Because of the lack of venues for live performance in Vancouver, there are mainly two types of theatre in the city. The Arts Club, The Playhouse, Bard on the Beach have their own venues and so are able to do theatre on a large scale, and are responsible for a fairly broad audience base, including lots of affluent, older audience members. The smaller companies that are successful tend to do site-specific, avant garde work, which is fantastic but appeals to a very creative niche audience looking for that sort of experience. They also have very small budgets and so are unable to keep their advertising large scale and present in the public's mind, so they struggle.  I guarantee that when 99% of Vancouverites consider going to the theatre (rarely) they are either going off of word of mouth or thinking about the "Buddy Holly Story" sign for the Arts Club that they've seen a hundred times plastered on bus stops and in newspapers.  Visibility is the big challenge for smaller companies, as our city does not have a strong interest in small theatre, as a rule.  People in the theatre industry tend to get offended when that is said, but it's true, and needs to be overcome.

With all your film work, and your studio life, why do you go back to theatre time and time again?

I'm terribly narcissistic and I need the validation from a live audience.

Seriously though, the best medium for actors is the theatre. In my years of coaching actors, and I'm saying nothing new here, the best actors tend to come from the theatre. There is an energy, intelligence and vitality needed in order to hold the stage, for the audience to remain interested in a performance which keeps them locked in the same location for two hours. Young people wanting to get into acting would be best off doing ten plays before they even get an agent, reading about the history of the theatre and our profession, letting an audience inform them as to what works and what doesn't. For example, Mark Ruffalo is, in my opinion, one of the best film actors that we currently have. Well, he honed his craft doing plays in Los Angeles for years before he broke out as a film actor, and his performances on film are very understated and rich, the product of years on the stage.

From an audience perspective, theatre cannot do what film does. It does not provide the visual experience that cinema can. However, when you watch a play, the pleasure is in the exchange of language, and that exchange only exists on that particular night and is informed by and shared by that night's audience. There is an electricity that happens in theatre, when an audience is with you, and you are connected to them, that is the greatest high a performer can have. Any musician or live performer will tell you that.

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Great question.  I feel like I'm on Inside the Actors Studio, only without the creepy host [thankyouverymuch].

What inspires me?  Language.  Great playwrights write some of the most beautiful strings of words you could ever hope to speak. On the contrary, this generation's bastardization of language completely turns me off.  Using "like" every third word and never punctuating a thought - the monotonous tone of it is like nails on a chalkboard to me.   Incessant texting and the need for shorthand has taken so much beauty out of human interaction and has almost made eloquence extinct in our culture.

That's why I love the theatre, because you can't pause it, you can't sit on your couch and tweet through it -  theatre should hand out Ritalin at the door.  You have to sit down with your fellow audience members, put your damn phone away (please and thank you) and open up your mind for a few hours.  In today's world, it takes patience and some effort to make that commitment, but the reward when theatre is good is so worth it.

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Endless hours of administration.  Show prep. Rehearsal.  Questioning why I'm in this profession.  Performance. Exhilaration.  Close.  Strike the set.  Tell everybody to "keep in touch".  Figure out the next play that I plan to do. Wash, rinse and repeat.

How else can people get involved?

Go to our website and you'll find details on how to sponsor as a patron or as a business.  We're always looking for volunteers so get in touch with us about volunteering for our next show.  If you're an actor, send us your stuff.  If you're a writer, send us your stuff.

We will also be organizing a wide-ranging audience contest in the weeks prior to the show.  Because "Fifty Words" is, at its core, about love, we plan to do a play on words with the title and start a contest related to our production.  People will have the chance to email us and use "fifty words" or less to describe love.  Any form will be accepted - poetry, prose, stream of consciousness, personal anecdotes, etc.  The five best entries will win free tickets to the show.  At the theatre itself, the lobby will be plastered with the best letters we receive from participants.  This is the type of creative marketing we hope to gain a wider audience with.

Write to us a info@mitchandmurrayproductions with your 50 words and come see the show!

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