So much has happened in the past week I need to just catch you up.
I meet with a great guy from Merrill Lynch, in Greenwich last week. Brainstormed, got some wonderful advice, and a commitment to hook me up with more folks to add to our tribe. He really liked the marketing ideas and the idea of a theatre so near to him if it is in Stamford.
Next we attended the “Reinventing Stamford” town hall meeting Tuesday night. About 250-300 people I think. The mayor spoke and since we had not heard back from the Economic Development lady after emailing and calling I decided he needed to hear from me directly. Believe it or not, I am not that bold when it comes to just walking up to someone important and introducing myself.
But this was important and so I took my revamped breakdown of what the theatre is all about plus the list of Broadway actors who would be interested in coming out to be a part of our theatre that the wonderful Jamibeth Margolis (casting director in NYC) put together for me and approached him. I put it in terms of keeping Stamford’s theatre business in Stamford instead of always sending it to NYC and drawing new people from the surrounding areas with our casts and community outreach.
He was very nice, very interested and gave me his card. Told me to call him (which I have) and mentioned a space that he thought would work. Then my team and I split up into four groups and attended the breakout sessions for the evening. Mine was “Education and mentoring” where I also made some great connections. Working on calling them this week. Our thoughts on education are like tentacles reaching into the community in a very interactive way. Not just with education but with businesses and other non profits. One of the leaders there said, “A theatre with a socially conscious edge could be a very powerful tool….”
An incubator for Arts Entrepreneurs. That is what we are setting ourselves and our website up to be.
Zach, my web designer, and I met and he is working on the logo (which already looks so cool) and his father has assigned part of our project to his web design/marketing classes where he teaches. Our first “Education Outreach” expedition.
We are going to be the first theatre that is “Virtual” before becoming a real live theatre. The site will be content rich and already drive folks to it consistently before we have a space to perform. A template for other folks wanting to start a theatre before they have the funds or space and yet still wanting to provide a service for the community that is arts based.
I have to keep creating empowering contexts for myself every time I walk out the door. When I create the, “We are on the cusp of something very new and beneficial for the arts community as well as non profits” scenario I find that business folks are receptive. More than receptive, they are psyched. They can see how different this is from the “If you build it they will come” idea.
Believe it or not, it’s the arts folks here that tend to throw out negatives. I could think it’s because the arts folks “know the realities” as my mindset OR I could ignore that idea and create a more empowering scenario and say:
“Everybody says don’t,
Everybody says don’t.
Everybody says don’t walk on the grass,
Don’t disturb the peace,
Don’t skate on the ice.
Well I say do!
I say walk on the grass it was meant to feel!
I say sail!
Tilt at the windmill, and if you fail, you fail!
Everybody says don’t,
Everybody says don’t.
Everybody says don’t get out of line.
When they say that, then, Lady, that’s a sign:
Nine times out of ten,
Lady, you are doing just fine!”
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