Producing without pain

Or money

Producing, in the theatre, is a risky business. Most shows never recoup their investment, so losing money is a very real possibility. We still have producers, though, because it is also possible to make a lot of money. They say (I’m not sure who “they” is), ‘You can’t make a living in the theatre, but you can make a killing.’ So, there’s that. A high stakes gamble.

But, mostly, we still have producers, because it’s a lot of fun. A challenge.

I like almost everything about producing except for the part about raising money. Which, unfortunately, is probably about 90% of the job. In the course of trying to get my play, Angels and Ministers of Grace Defend Us, off the ground, I got involved in an organization called Theatre Resources Unlimited. TRU is devoted to helping producers learn to be better producers. I found their seminars and readings and boot camps to be enormously helpful.

I wouldn’t mind being a producer.

Except for that part about the pesky money.

So, it is a miracle that I get to do a lot of producer-type things with Round Robin Shakespeare. Finding a space, making sure that all the needed materials are on hand (needed to acquire a few copies of The Collected Works, remember?), doing the PR. I don’t have to cast it or find a director or get a set built, and I’m not heading toward opening night and make-or-break reviews, but it’s a really good way to start small.

Playwrights are always their own first producers. Nobody will back your script like you will, nobody knows it better. We have to learn those skills, much as some of us might want to be left alone to write.

You can do that. Got a room? Got a pencil? A little piece of paper? You’re good. But if you want anybody to see it, there’s going to be at least a little marketing involved.

Learning all I can about that can only help me.

So, here I am, with this other kind of “production.” The library as “co-producer,” gets us a free space. Choosing Shakespeare gets us royalty-free material. Choosing a round-robin format spares us rehearsal costs in time and money. But the organizing and preparing and publicizing?

That’s producing.

And I get to do it. And I don’t have to ask anyone for money.

And that’s a miracle.

Trade and Mark

The Bearded Brothers

It’s flu season and an unusually bad one, they say. Therefore, today’s Smith is really two Smiths who are never thought of separately, so perhaps they are one, after all.

Confused? You won’t be after today’s episode of Smith Sunday!*

The Smith Bros. have one of the most famous trademarks and logos in history: the two bearded brothers facing each other from either end of the cough drop box. Remember?

Coincidentally, the story goes, the word “Trade” appeared under the picture of William Wallace Smith and the word “Mark” appeared under the picture of Andrew. (Can you tell their family emigrated from Scotland?) This gave rise to one of the only bits of whimsey one could imagine from such dour-looking figures. The brothers became known as Trade and Mark and were referred to by those names by customers and newspaper articles alike.

The company, started by their father in 1847, became known as the Smith Brothers in 1866. It still exists although it has passed out of the family’s hands and left Poughkeepsie, NY. (Not only Smiths, but New Yorkers!)

If you want to know more about the Smith Bros., you can go to their website (and you should, because the thought of the Smith Bros. even having a website makes me giggle). And/or you can listen to a Talking History recording of a NYS Dept of Commerce radio program on—you guessed it!—trademarks and, of course, the Smith Bros.

Either way, you should get a flu shot, if you haven’t already, and avoid a closer relationship with the products of Trade and Mark.

* Tag line borrowed from the brilliant 1977-1981 TV comedy, Soap. Never seen Soap? What are you waiting for?

Yesterday–different.

Today–just weird.

As a writer, I think one of my weaknesses is plot. I’m good with words. I’m good with characters. I just don’t always have any ideas for what those characters should actually do.

So, I try to pay attention to real life news stories—in hopes that, like many other writers, some obscure tale will provide a spark of inspiration.

I have to admit, so far, it hasn’t happened. Sigh. But, one place I’ve looked that seems to have potential (although now, of course, you will all rush out and use any possible plots lurking here) is the News of the Weird column.

Now, beware. Some of these items are…well…less than appetizing. It all depends on what’s happening in the world that can be classified as weird that week.

The column was originally—and still is, probably—a newspaper feature edited by Chuck Shepard. At some point, however, it began to appear online. Mr. Shepard himself does not vouch for the authenticity of all the stories, so I imagine some of them are true and some of them aren’t. All of them are weird, however, and many of them qualify for me linking to the column here on Silly Saturday. (Criminals especially seem to have a high “silly” quotient.”)

An interesting feature of the website is an interactive map. You can click on your state and get localized News of the Weird.

Have fun!

Think differently

An ongoing demonstration of creativity.

Far be it from me to advocate spending any more time on FaceBook than you currently do, but have you seen this page.

Different Solutions is the page that stops me every time I try to go cold turkey on FB. Similar to Clutter Clearer which I previously mentioned, Different Solutions posts fabulous ideas for just about everything. Today’s haul includes pictures of hair braided into letters of the alphabet, some shabby chic bangle bracelets made out of the seam of an old pair of jeans, bird houses made of cowboy boots, all kinds of fascinating uses for wooden pallets and tires and—many, many things.

There are few captions and some of them are in languages other than English. I could wish, too, that the things that look like actual products rather than crafts would have a link to a vendor. But, over all, the page is a whack on the side of the head, prompting you to think more creatively about pretty much everything around you.

Not everything posted is something I would want or something I am capable of making, but enough of it is that I will not be able to leave Facebook entirely unless and until Different Solutions gets a web page of its own. (Meantime, I’m going to be forced to look into those FB-blocking apps, I think, because it is time to get back to work!)

Half

Is pretty darn good.

I’m talking about Half.com.

Half.com is an eBay company.

It didn’t use to be. I mean, it used to be all on its own, and then it was bought. So far, I don’t see much difference either for the better or the worse.

The idea is that used books and movies and games and music can be sold by those who are done with them to those who haven’t seen them yet. It’s evolved so that there are a number of vendors there, as well.

It’s saved me countless hours searching garage sales and flea markets and library book sales for hard-to-find volumes. Right now, I’m working on a project (Round Robin Shakespeare) for which I need a number of copies of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

75 cents on Half.com.

Plus postage, of course, which is where they get you, but so far, at least, it’s reasonable postage—within what one would expect an item to ship for—even when the postage does exceed the item’s cost.

That always seems wrong—until you realize you just got five copies of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare for under $5 bucks apiece. (Do you know how heavy those things are?!)

So far, I’ve only ever bought from Half. If and when I get my house in better order, I might branch out into selling. (If this project falls apart, I’m gonna have five copies of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare to unload.)

I’ve also never bought anything but books. The DVDs are tempting sometimes, but I’m leery of used DVDs. Even my new DVDs don’t always play smoothly. And I’m even more leery of the potential for bootlegged copies. I may try it at some point, though, if the price is sufficiently tempting, the seller reviews sufficiently strong, and the item sufficiently hard to find elsewhere.

Meanwhile, I’m just thankful I was able to get those five copies of Shakespeare without taking out a mortgage. Of course, if I had taken out a mortgage and fell into foreclosure, I could always use them to build a house. (Do you realize how much space those things take up?!)

Scatter-shot advertising

Otherwise known as spam

This blog has, after all these months, finally come to the attention of the spammers. I’ve deleted numerous comments offering to extend my reach as a blogger as well as a lot that were just excuses to post somebody’s URL. It’s not that I mind if a legitimate comment includes some reader’s actual URL. It’s just that I don’t really think all my readers have any great interest in knock-off designer luggage touted by some poster that talks about what “rattling good content” some entry is that I’ve made with what is primarily a YouTube link and a little introductory text.

So, what I’m wondering is does this actually work? Are there really bloggers who don’t see through these posts and don’t trash them before they appear? Are there really readers who will click on one of these links—with I-don’t-know-what consequences? Are there enough of them that this spambot stuff is a lucrative proposition?

Really?

Once upon a time, I had a temp job working for a department in a very large company whose primary function seemed to be to generate and oversee mass mailings of offers of additional services to their customers. Otherwise known as “junk mail.” Back then, there was a lot of talk about response rate. A 2% response rate was considered excellent. Volume was key.

This email stuff has the advantage to the sender of not costing them postage or paper. But spam filters catch a lot of it. So, now, I guess we have this other avenue. Wacky, semi-literate comments on blogs from spambots.

As a result, there are a number of solutions evolving to distinguish the real from the fake comments and to block the spammers.

It gives me a lot of satisfaction to learn about and employ as many of them as possible.

But I still wonder—wouldn’t it be easier just to make a product that was so good people wanted to buy it? It would probably end up in the blog posts, then, not tossed out as a useless comment.

Respond

Just do it.

Lately, I have encountered an epidemic of people who don’t seem to respond. Not to emails, not to phone calls. And I’m not talking about your Aunt May who won’t get an answering machine and doesn’t remember things too well anyway.

I’m talking about tradesmen. People I might want to hire.

I’m talking about government officials. People whose job it is to impart information and handle problems.

I’m talking about people who have asked for and received help from me and don’t acknowledge it.

There are a lot of people who do respond, who return calls and emails and thanks and good energy of all sorts. Sometimes they even respond with negative energy, like “I can’t do that job until a week from Tuesday,” or “Thank you for sending your play but it doesn’t meet our production needs right now,” or “We’re sorry, but your car needs a new transmission.” (Fortunately, I haven’t heard that last one lately.) All of those are less than desirable outcomes, but they are, at least, resolutions.

And there are, rarely, people who have good and sufficient reasons for not responding.

In general, though, there aren’t that many good reasons, and the world moves too fast these days for failure in this area not to actively hurt your chances at success—no matter what you do.

So, my tip is this: Make a rule. Answer every email and phone call within 24 hours. Maybe you can’t give a definitive answer to whatever question is on the table, but you can say so, can’t you? “Got your email. I have to check a few things. I’ll get back to you on that.” How hard is that? And how hard is it to say when you’ll get back and then to do it?

I’m not talking about the phone calls and emails from telemarketers and spammers, or even the just-checking-in messages from friends and relatives, who presumably will allow a little leeway and aren’t depending on an answer before some project or other can move forward.

But for everything else—respond!

Everybody has busy, busy lives.

Surely, we could make them a little less busy for each other if we just stop making people chase us.

Brush up your Shakespeare

Start quoting him now*

I am very happy to announce the launch of Round Robin Shakespeare!

We’re going to embark on Thursday, March 21st, on a 3 year mission to read the entire canon of Shakespeare’s plays aloud. All of them!

This is a community project, open to anyone in the area, organized by me (!) in association with the Clay County Public Library. I am especially pleased to be doing this with the Library because my grandmother was the very first employee of the Clay County Library system. She put the first books on the first shelves, and she worked there for decades. I rode the bookmobile with her when I was seven.

I never thought I would be living here in the area of my grandparents’ farm—I was only a summer visitor throughout my life until now—and I certainly never thought I’d be working with the library. It does almost seem like fate, however.

Anyway, I think this is going to be fun!

I have a lot of work to do. Press releases, reaching out to local high schools and community theatres, maybe senior centers. I’m thinking a notice on Craigslist and maybe a Meetup. Certainly, I need to set up a Facebook page. If you’ve got any other suggestions for getting the word out, perhaps you could post a comment.

I have faith that this will go well once I get over the initial announcement hurdle. It may start small, but I think there will be enough interest to keep us going until we make it through all 38 plays. (Some people say 37, but I intend to be large-minded and inclusive about this.) The big hurdle will be getting folks out to the first meeting. I really hope I don’t have to do a solo rendition of Henry VI. For everybody’s sake, we’ll hope a future Monday Miracle post reports massive attendance for Part 1 of Henry and Round Robin Shakespeare!

* Cole Porter, Kiss Me Kate

See Brush Up Your Shakespeare in concert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJIpp2Jj8AQ

Mr. and Mrs.

Smith, of course.

Another Smith by marriage, Jada Pinkett Smith joined the Smith tribe when she married actor, producer, rapper Will Smith.

She’s an actor, singer, songwriter, writer, businesswoman and mother of two.

I confess that I did not know much about Ms. Smith (and still don’t, really) until I stumbled across a quote of something she said in response to criticism and questions as to why she and her husband had let their twelve year old daughter cut her hair in a particular way. Something about that resonated with me.

Here’s the quote that apparently originated on Facebook:

The question why I would LET Willow cut her hair. First the LET must be challenged. This is a world where women,girls are constantly reminded that they don’t belong to themselves; that their bodies are not their own, nor their power or self determination. I made a promise to endow my little girl with the power to always know that her body, spirit and her mind are HER domain. Willow cut her hair because her beauty, her value, her worth is not measured by the length of her hair. It’s also a statement that claims that even little girls have the RIGHT to own themselves and should not be a slave to even their mother’s deepest insecurities, hopes and desires. Even little girls should not be a slave to the preconceived ideas of what a culture believes a little girl should be. More to come. Another day.

What’s also really cool is Mr. Smith’s response to the same question asked by Parade Magazine:

We let Willow cut her hair. When you have a little girl, it’s like how can you teach her that you’re in control of her body? If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out in the world. She has got to have command of her body. So when she goes out into the world, she’s going out with a command that is hers.

So, I’m going to be following Mr. and Mrs. Smith from now on, I think. Because I approve this message.

You quack me up!

Jokes, jokes, jokes!

“You quack me up” is a tag line on the joke section of the Ducksters website. Ducksters is a site for kids.

(Common sense warning: Don’t let your kids explore the internet unsupervised. Remember, even a previously kid-friendly website can change hands—and content.)

That said, Ducksters is—currently—a site for kids with lots of fun content. Today being a Silly Saturday, however, I’m going to direct you to the Jokes section. Most especially, you want to go to the Silly Jokes section,. There are other fun jokes in other parts of the website, but this particular section—you’ll be wondering where the rimshots are.

Just a sample—in honor of my nephew:

Q: Why couldn’t the pirate play cards?
A: Because he was sitting on the deck!

Ba-dum-bum

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants