How, Who and When to Ask, produced by Theater Resources Unlimited, Saturday, January 22, 2011
Theater Resources Unlimited opens up the possibilities for tomorrow’s productions with RAISING MONEY FOR THEATER: How, Who and When to Ask, an all-day intensive workshop about many crucial aspects of raising money for theater. The workshop takes place on Saturday, January 22, 2011 from 10am-6pm at The Players Theatre, 3rd Floor Loft, 115 MacDougal Street (below W. 3rd Street), NYC. Workshop fee is $175 ($25 off for members of TRU).
It’s a tough economy, no doubt about it. All the more reason why people need support and the skills to go about the business of producing. Attendees will acquire some basic tools and information that will help them to function effectively in these times and the better days that are surely ahead. From networking techniques to legal requirements and effective business planning, plus a wealth of first-hand experience from more than a half dozen producers who are currently active in the Broadway and off-Broadway worlds, audiences will receive an informative, empowering and inspiring day.
Faculty this year will include Broadway producers William Franzblau (Wonderland, Little House on the Prairie, Evil Dead, Say Goodnight Gracie), Cheryl Wiesenfeld (Play Dead, A Steady Rain, Legally Blonde, Elaine Stritch: At Liberty), Patrick Blake (The Exonerated, Play Dead), Jane Dubin (The Norman Conquests, The 39 Steps), Tom Smedes (Next Fall, [title of show]), plus attorneys Cheryl Davis and Bruce Lazarus, business consultants RK Greene and Sheila Speller; and a personal coach.
Other upcoming TRU workshops include Funding Panel: The Current Struggle on Thursday, January 20. Details about all TRU programs can be found online at www.truonline.org.
Admission is $175 ($25 off for members of TRU. Applications are available online at http://www.truonline.org/BootCampApp.htm. Payment by check may be mailed to Theater Resources Unlimited, Boot Camp, 309 W. 104th Street 1D, NYC NY 10025 (please include an application). On-line payment by Paypal or by credit card is available at www.truonline.org/store.html.
SCHEDULE
9am – registration and check-in, coffee and cake/bagels
9:45am – introduction of room (registrants)
10:00 to 11:00 – “Commercial and Not-for-Profit Asks: Defining the Differences” – with attorney Cheryl L. Davis. We will define terms, then focus on the not-for-profit side: the legal paperwork and structure that is necessary in order to ask for donations, and the responsibilities to your donors, plus the ways in which not-for-profits and commercial companies can work together.
11:00 to 12:00 – “Commercial Financing: Formalizing Your Ask” – with entertainment attorney Bruce Lazarus. The required paperwork and structures at every level of development, from front money agreements to private placement to Federal filings. And the limitations placed on asking.
NOTE: TRU Accountant Dave Spaulding of Janover LLC will be on hand to discuss and explain any tax or acounting issues that come up during the two legal presentations.
12:00pm to 1:00pm – “Networking Your Way to Money: Turning a First Impression into a Lasting Relationship”- speaker tbd.We will look at the nature of effective networking, how our beliefs affect our ability to present ourselves well, techniques for engaging others in our ideas, more.
1:45-2:30 – “Putting it in Writing: Business Plans and Grant Proposals” – RK Greene and Sheila Speller. How to effectively organize your presentation to potential donors or investors; writing a persuasive narrative and building a compelling case for support, whether for a not-for-profit or commercial venture.
2:30-3:30 – “The Care and Feeding of Investors: Identifying, Cultivating, Maintaining Them” – William Franzblau,(Wonderland, Evil Dead the Musical, Little House on the Prairie, Say Goodnight Gracie)
3:45-4:30 – “Looking Beyond Family & Friends” with producer Tom Smedes (Naked Boys Singing, Ace the Musical) and Jane Dubin (Beebo Brinker Chronicles, The Norman Conquests, Groundswell). The importance of creative thinking in identifying investors for your project.
4:30-5:30 – “How to Bring Partners to the Table”, an inter-active conversation between you and a panel of commercial producers. Moderated by producer Cheryl Wiesenfeld (A Steady Rain, Play Dead, Legally Blonde, The Exonerated, Elaine Stritch: At Liberty) and Patrick Blake (The Exonerated, In the Continuum, Play Dead), with the producers from this afternoon’s presentations.
Curriculum is subject to change.
PATRICK BLAKE is a writer/producer based in New York and San Francisco. In New York theater, he has produced In the Continuum at Perry Street Theatre, Noah’s Archive, Joe Fearless, The Exonerated (Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Court TV’s Scales of Justice Award) and The Soap Myth at Southstreet Seaport. He also produced Dirty Works at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He was Executive Producer for the short film, The Igloo, and the feature film Mr. Smith Gets a Hustler. He is the Director of New Play Development for Dog Run Repertory. Currently: Play Dead! at The Players Theatre.
CHERYL L. DAVIS is a partner at the firm of Menaker & Herrmann LLC. Her practice concentrates on intellectual property matters, including particularly copyright and trademark cases, and she has represented theater clients in connection with a variety of contract and corporate issues. A published playwright whose work has been frequently performed, Cheryl won the 2005 Kleban Award for her works as a musical theater librettist and her show Barnstormerreceived one of the 2005 Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Awards. She is a graduate of Princeton (A.B. 1983) and Columbia (M.S.J. 1986 and J.D. 1987) Universities, and an active member of the New York City Bar Association, where she has served on the Committees on Copyright and Literary Property and on Communications and Media Law. For more information, please visit her firm’s website at www.mhjur.com
Cheryl is the co-founder and Vice President of Theater Resources Unlimited.
JANE DUBIN is the President of DOUBLE PLAY CONNECTIONS, a theatrical production and management company committed to supporting emerging artists & playwrights in the creation and development of new works. Jane is a graduate of the Commercial Theatre Institute’s 14 week (NYC) and O’Neill Center Intensive (CT) Producing Workshops and a member of TRU’s Producer Mentorship Program. Broadway: The Norman Conquests (7 TONY nominations, winner – TONY, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Best Play Revival); Off-Broadway: The 39 Steps, Groundswell, starring Larry Bryggman, David Lansbury and Souleymane Sy Savane; Beebo Brinker Chronicles at 37 Arts (2008 GLAAD Media Award for Theatre); National Tour: The 39 Steps. Other: OPA! at TBG Theatre (Best Commercial Production, MITF 2008; TRU Voices Award for Most Promising New Musical 2007), Take Me America by Bill Nabel and Bob Christianson (Best Musical, MITF 2007), Count Down, by Dominique Cieri, at the Bank Street Theatre and MentalPause by Margaret Liston, at the WorkShop Theatre (MITF 2006) and Solo Play Lab (NYC) and Society Hill Playhouse in Philadelphia. Jane is also the consulting producer for Moving Mantras, a dance company inspired by the practice of yoga. www.DoublePlayConnections.com
WILLIAM I. FRANZBLAU is currently the lead producer on Frank Wildhorn’s Wonderland, coming to Broadway in Spring 2011. He produced the Tony Nominated Best Play of 2003, Say Goodnight Gracie and the revival of American Buffalo, the off-Broadway cult classic Evil Dead the Musical, the touring Little House on the Prairie, and co-produced the touring version of the Broadway hit, Beatlemania. He served as Executive Producer of three tours of the Moscow Circus on Broadway and North America. Mr. Franzblau produced CBS Live, an off-Broadway presentation of “The Honeymooners” and “I Love Lucy.” In 1991 he co-produced two successful Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles productions in addition to marketing their records and live videos. In 1992, Mr. Franzblau co-founded Interfilm Inc., a publicly traded company pioneering interactivity in film. He produced three interactive films for the company. In 1999 he produced Disney’s virtual reality theme park attraction Ride The Comix. He has also managed several multi-platinum international rock acts. Mr. Franzblau is also currently producing the international hit comedy Robert Dubac’s The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron?
BRUCE LAZARUS has provided legal representation to the Broadway and off-Broadway community for over 20 years including the original productions of BLUEMAN GROUP and THE LION KING, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and AIDA in his capacity as Director of Business and Legal Affairs for Disney Theatrical Productions. Bruce Lazarus has also produced the Lucille Lortel Award winning Best Play of 1997, SHAKESPEARE’S R & J and the Tony Award nominated Best Play of 2003, SAY GOODNIGHT GRACIE. He is currently the moderator of the BROADWAY PRODUCERS AND INVESTORS GROUP, an on-line Linkedin group and its quarterly in-person networking meetings in New York and Los Angeles. For more information about the legal aspects of producing commercial theatre please visit: www.BroadwayAttorney.com
TOM SMEDES is a Theatrical Producer and General Manager with experience spanning twenty-five years. He is currently producing the critically acclaimed Next Fall at the Helen Hayes Theatre in February 2010. Also, Tom is producing Ace for Broadway. He recently was a producer on the Broadway show [title of show] at the Lyceum Theatre and is one of the producers of the musical revue Naked Boys Singing! now playing at New World Stages in New York City and the 3rd longest running musical off-Broadway. NBS! has played in over 35 cities under Tom’s supervision / license. Tom’s recent productions include the London Productions of Side By Side By Sondheim and Musical of Musicals(the Musical!); the off Broadway productions of Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead; The Black & White Blues, A New Orleans Restaurant Musical; The Women of Lockerbie, with The New Group; the one man show entitled 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com, written and starring Mike Daisey at the historic Cherry Lane Theatre prior to its international tour of London, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and Sydney and People Are Wrong at The Vineyard Theatre.
CHERYL WIESENFELD – Broadway: A Steady Rain, Legally Blonde; Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; Caroline, or Change; ‘night, Mother; Elaine Stritch: At Liberty (Tony). Off-Broadway: In the Continuum; Shockheaded Peter; The Exonerated; Talking Heads; The Waverly Gallery. Ms. Wiesenfeld was the recipient of Theater Resources Unlimited’s 2007 “Spirit of Theater” Award for her ongoing generosity to young producers in the New York community, as well as her selfless support of the work that TRU does. She is one of the founding Mentors in the TRU Producer Mentorship Program, and to date has mentored six aspirants, including guiding one production to win four Audelco Awards, and helping another production find success in regional theaters.
TRU was founded in 1992 to promote a spirit of cooperation and support within the general theater community by providing information and a variety of entertainment-related services and resources that strengthen the business capability of producing organizations, individual producers, self-producing artists and other theater professionals. The company holds monthly seminars on a wide range of subjects important to theatrical producers and artistic directors conducted by panels of experts from both the commercial and not-for-profit segments of Broadway, Off-Broadway and the motion picture industry. TRU also publishes a monthly email community newsletter of services, goods and productions. In addition, TRU created the TRU VOICES Annual New Play Reading Series and the TRU VOICES Annual New Musicals Reading Series in which TRU underwrites developmental readings of new works for theater. In 2001, TRU began giving annual scholarships to The Commercial Theater Institute, to encourage the development of aspiring producers, created a Producer Mentoring Program whose mentors are among the most prominent producers and general managers in New York theater, and presents Producer Boot Camp workshops to help aspirants develop the business skills they need. In March ’08, TRU was associate producer of its first Equity showcase, Missives at 59E59 Theatre, a play that was developed in the 2006 TRU reading series. TRU programs for actors include an Annual Audition Event, Resource Nights and “Speed Dating” as well as free monthly actor events, including workshops.
Programs of Theater Resources Unlimited are supported in part by public funds awarded through the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, as well as generous support from the Friar’s National Foundation Association.
For more information about TRU membership, visit www.truonline.org or call 212-714-7628.
Leave a Reply