Blog #2: Phase 1, funding & fun

Unbelievable! Utterly unbelievable! What a fortnight! In brief, this is the fortnight's highlights: 1) a professional director 2) funding application submitted 3) session one of phase one completed 4) the promise of a production 5) two companies wanting plays for readings And here’s how it all unfolded. The first port-of-call was my nearest local theatre group to see what was doing with them this year: not much as it happens. But they were very complimentary about the project, said one or two might drop in to the playreading on Sunday (7th) and check it out. Interestingly they also suggested I contact the local council to check out the possibility of some funding. Funding eh? OK. So I went online, found the Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF) website and the specific local government council I had to liaise with. Knowing that relying on funding was the search for fool's gold, I started organising the play readings anyway. First I made sure the local hall was available, then I designed some flyers to post on local noticeboards. Next I contacted the local newspaper and placed an ad in its free classifieds section. Things seemed to be going along swimmingly, and they were. Then the first snag. My PhD examination reports came back after two and a half months (which is quite quick by all accounts). Fortunately there wasn’t much to do, but as my supervisor was just about to depart for an overseas gig, I was given a two week deadline to make the amendments and get them to him for approval. Not so bad, except, it was the same deadline as the RADF grant application and a couple of days after a book chapter deadline. Deeming that the funding application was most urgent, I set about getting all necessary paperwork needed to meet the many and sometimes baffling, criteria. This meant, amongst other things applying for an ABN--which I did through a tax agent (at a cost of $80). I mention the cost because it soon became apparent that money was starting to walk away like a frightened puppy whose just woken to find its mother is a grizzly bear! When I say ‘walk’, more like scamper...OK when I say ‘scamper’ more like the speed and unstoppable tsunami of bodies at the Boxing Day Myer sales a second after the doors are opened. It's all one way until the pocket is empty. Ah government grant applications. For all those readers not familiar with these convoluted intractable and utterly incomprehensible beasts, let me attempt to enlighten you with just one criteria: the budget. When I say ‘budget’ I mean pure unadulterated nonsense set unassumingly in tabular form, which even the bureaucrats concede is unfathomable and silly. For example, it asks to list all the expenses of the project, even those I intend to pay myself as well as items such as “in kind” contributions from sources such as actors, venue hirers, and printers. Hey guys, virgin here! It's my first time...at grant funding applications. I don’t know what the heck is going to happen, or how much it will hurt, or who’s going to give me what and where as in-kind contributions! Not to worry, I knew that there was an organisation who could Vasolene the mystery of these curly criteria ruffians. I approached Playlab and filled them in on the project. They, like the local theatre group, were complimentary and helpful. I also managed to get a few names for potential dramturgs and directors. (I would need these people, or at least one or the other, for various phases of the project.) I also managed to track down the person at the local council office who could help me with the application: but she was on sick leave and no one knew when she would be back. Nonetheless, I made an appointment, on spec, with the RADF Liaison Officer for the following Tuesday (5th). The application deadline was the following Monday (11th). Meanwhile, within a few hours of putting up the advertising posters on local noticeboards, I had a call from an interested person, a young actor, speaking on behalf of himself and his friend; both secondary students who had a reasonable CVs already. Now my thoughts turned to thinking about how many people I'd need for a reading, and what was the likelihood of people making the half-hour trip out of town to the hall where the readings were going to take place? I came up with a minimum of one! If just one person turned up, I had a couple of two-hander plays we could read--they'd read one part and I'd read the other; and that would be a start (of course six or seven was the dream) The meeting with the RADF Liaison Officer started promisingly. She said the project was just the sort of thing the council was looking to fund: local artist, using local facilities, for a community project. Perfect! And not only that, but although there were a few problems, mostly in the budget (like who woulda thunked it?!), it was a well-prepared budget--better than most. However, while I was still basking in the glow of self-satisfaction from these comments, she said that there was a problem with the time-frame. Essentially, the project would be over before the funding application process had been completed and grants allocated (June, 2013), which meant that I was ineligible for funding, unless I could defer the project to later in the year. From self-satisfied smugness to crest-fallen depression in twenty-three seconds... I was just getting over this bombshell, when she said almost off-handedly (or maybe toyingly) ‘Well, there’s always the out-of-round funding’. ‘The out-of-round-funding, of course’ I thought in my Maxwell Smart voice, ‘the old-out-of-rounding funding. Why didn’t I think of that, 99?’ ...Well because I’d never heard of it, would be one reason. With spirits raised I listened intently to her say I could use the same application form--with some modifications, to the budget. Great! The same form! Let’s go! ‘Yes, but wait...’ she said sweetly in that bureaucratic tone that says, ‘Man, you don’t know what you’re getting into here do you?’... ‘You will have to get the new application to me before the main round of application forms come in and swamp the office and the assessors’. ‘Oh’ I said trembling with knees tucked under my chin cowering inside the cupboard, ‘And when’s that?’. ‘Friday’ (8th). That was three days away and I didn’t have a budget or a professional artist. O yes, didn’t I tell you... There’s no money for me--the writer, driver and generator of the project--the money’s for a “professional” artist. I don’t get a look in, even though my side of the budget says the pocket will be $3000+ lighter. You’d think all the money I’ve spent supporting artists and theatre companies would count for something; I’m not even considered an ‘emerging’ artist. Anyway, the very patient and helpful liaison person, said she’d help with the budget, but the project would need to nail down a professional director or dramaturg for the workshop phase (RADF doesn’t fund play readings) if I wanted to secure the $1000 out-of-round-funding grant. Finding a professional dramaturg or director was like playing a game of ‘six degrees of separation’ with Kevin Bacon. The names Playlab supplied all proved a dead-end, but they knew someone who knew someone. It was during these calls, that we determined that the project didn’t need a dramaturg, but a director (for the workshop phase). Many emails and phone calls later, and with time running out, I found a director on the eve of the application deadline (7th). As luck would have it, a rather high profile Brisbane director with a CV that runs several pages. Overnight he sent me the necessary paperwork to finish off the grant application--with the budget the liaison officer completed (I still don’t understand what the heck she did). So a director was on board, the grant application was in, the advertising was done, all that remained was to wait and see who turned up for the first reading. Well no one... for the first half hour or so. There I was looking at the tea, coffee, fruit, biscuits, chips and other assorted victuals, on my Pat Malone in a quaint, but musty, hall surrounded by scripts, tapping away at the laptop...waiting. Minutes, which seemed like hours, ticked by. Then a car pulled up outside. I wanted to rush out and drag the arrivals inside before they had the chance to change their minds and jump back in their car and speed away, but I resisted the overt display of neediness and waited at the laptop, pretending to be industrious or something. A minute later a middle-aged couple stepped through the threshold and phase one was underway. They were from the local theatre group I'd spoken to the week before. They were very generous and read a play or two before one of them suggested I read, after all, he reasoned ‘You know the characters and what you want them to sound like’. Seemed to sort of defeat the purpose, if you know what I mean. Then an extraordinary thing happened. One of the readers said he wanted to “produce” one of the plays and did he have my permission to do so. After I realised he wasn’t joking, I quickly acceded the permission. He was the local theatre group’s director and wanted to put a submission in for the SEQ Drama Festival. Although the first session of the phase one was now over, and the worry that no one would turn up, somewhat allayed, the concern about finding actors willing to travel out of town to participate in the project, continued to trouble me. The two high school students didn’t show. I was chewing over this bone, when I received a phone message from a young second-year drama student. As we went to the same university we met on campus to discuss the project. She seemed keen enough; so I sent her a couple of plays--strategically, ones that might interest an aspiring actor. She responded later in the positive and suggested she might like to lead the actors in pre-reading exercises. This was good. It struck me that she was only a degree of separation away from other actors. Inspired yet desperate, I also reconnected with the high school students to see if they were still interested. They too were positive; and apologetic for their ‘no show’. But the worry of too few actors continued to nag away, particularly for next month's workshops with the pro director. I needed to build a coterie of interested individuals, people who would turn up at least twice. I needed affirmative action. The most obvious is more advertising. More advertising potentially means more people. More people mean more potential for the project to continue. These thoughts gripped me as I jostled on the bus for a seat with all the university and high school students going to their respective institutions. It also gripped me as I stood in the long queue waiting for a coffee at the university cafe. It also gripped me as I waited with my arms full of scripts for the students to finish with the ring-binder machine. It also gripped me as I 'swam' against a sea of students all going to their lectures and tutorials. 'Where?! Where could I find young enthusiastic people to help me? If only I could find a place....wait a minute!" I thought as I passed corridors of noticeboards... 'There's more than two theatre companies in Brisbane, maybe they have noticeboards! Nah! Too many oldies. I need young people!" the thought slowly dawned... Universities are full of ‘aspiring’ wannabes... Up went flyers. Not only around the university, but on nearby busways, and shopping centres. And the signs were favourable: all the contact information tags ripped off every single flyer. But alas, the phone and email remain silent. The worry continues. The last noteworthy happenstance was a call, somewhat out-of-the-blue, from a theatre company I’d been in contact with about a reading, which in terms of contact had gone cold for several months, all of a sudden said they were interested in conducting play readings of my plays. Not just a night of play readings but a couple of nights. Then another company contacted me about workshops and a play for the SEQ Drama Festival. This strange occurrence was down to the couple who turned up for the reading last Sunday. It turns out they are also involved with this second group and had mentioned my name. A selection of plays have been sent to both companies. What a fortnight. End Blog #2