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Hey all!
First I want to thank everyone involved with “Birth and Afterbirth” for all of your hard work on the show. Attendance was a bit low, but we are just getting going so I foresee that getting better, especially after the fundraiser. I would like to hold a “post-mortem” meeting for the show. This is for anyone involved with the show in any capacity, and I would like to do this within the next week. I know that you have all been hard at it for the past couple months, but I think is very important. I want to have this same meeting after EVERY show we do for the foreseeable future. I want you all to come up with a list of what you saw that we did right, and what we need to improve upon. Also, this is a BLAME FOR ALL, PRAISE FOR ALL opportunity. We all had a hand in this, and we all share the triumphs and failures together. Let’s please keep our egos out of this, so we can get an honest assessment on how we can make ALL of our future shows better than the last ones.

Next, we will need to meet Wednesday at 7 pm at the church in regards to the fundraiser and Picasso. We can, if necessary, hold the post-mortem afterwards.

Dee got us a dumpster for this weekend, so we need to get a work party in the theater on Saturday and maybe Sunday. Check with Mike on details, please. I will be available for part of the day, but will also have rehearsals.

Speaking of which, my rehearsal schedule is now posted thru March 15th on the calendar at the bottom of this blog page. Anyone not in the cast please let me know if you want to come to a rehearsal. Some sessions will be closed (mainly for space concerns).

Thanks

Brian

Jan 31, 2010

Hey all,

Saturday work call had 6 of us show up. We got the marquee down and will need to find a way to clean up the front of the overhang – paint, trim, etc. After finding the building plans we were able to curtail the measurement party. If Phil needs any more numbers we can still get those. Wally & Charlie (?) worked on the basement some more. Mike D, & Dee (D&D, get it?) worked out ideas for the B&AB set. We also planned out what meeting on Wed this week will cover:

1. Building plans
a. For anyone who won’t be making this meeting who has any ideas for what we want the bldg to look like, please forward those ideas to a bldg cmte member prior to the meeting.
2. B&AB
a. Progress reports – Mike D. and Bruce please
3. DBD
a. Fundraising reports – Kate
b. Progress, concerns, etc

One concern from Saturday. When Mike arrived at noon the lights were still on from the last person in the building. We all need to remember (esp. key holders) to turn off the lights before we leave – every time! I’m sure you all remember your dad yelling it at you when you were a kid. It still applies!

Also, please remember to sign in whenever you come in to do any work in the bldg. We need to keep track of how many volunteer hours we are getting for any grants we apply for.

Thanks all!

BC

Latest change to the previous latest changes…

I’m not going to try to repeat all of the things going on that have been covered in the emails going around this week, but I want to discuss the high points for Great Falls. Starting with last weeks’ meeting, we reset dates for ‘Birth and Afterbirth’ to open February 12th and ‘K2’ to open March 12th. Both shows would run 2 weekends and be performed (as long as the venue was open) at the Chapel Theater. Also, ‘Death by Dessert’ would take place on March 6th at the Chapel Theater pending approval by the MAT board. Two different groups took pictures to show the out-of-towners what it looked like, while I spoke to Colleen of Colleen’s Restaurant about the catering. At the same time I checked with Marie (who holds the calendar for the Theater) about dates in the space for our shows. Saturday Feb 13th is iffy, as there is a group in there that morning, but we should be able to work it out. I was quoted $400/nite, but we may be able to work a better deal. Looking at the Chapel again (I haven’t been in there in years) I remembered how nice the space was. It is easily accessible (2nd floor, right off the elevator), has plenty of parking, and it looks good. The only problem I still have is the acoustics, but we just can’t have everything…

Thursday and Friday we held auditions for ‘B&AB’ and the entertainment group for the fundraiser. For ‘B&AB’, Bruce will complete his casting this week and begin rehearsals on Thursday (he has selected Jean as SM), while Glen has settled out his group and will commence rehearsals soon (TBA).

On Saturday Drew and I drove to Havre for the Strategic Planning meeting, while Dee, Bruce and Wally Skyped in. Check the montanaactors@yahoo.com account for the minutes. The first thing discussed was the need for all of us to put the company first, before our own desires or what we want for our local chapters.

Much of the first part of the meeting covered what we want to do with the building. The upshot is that I am getting in contact with at least 4 former board members of CSC to get signatures for a corporate resolution to transfer the building to MAT. We do NOT need to go through CSI. It will only add another layer of hassle and paperwork, and it is really not necessary. More to come on this.

We will also be getting the building open SOON. It looks like we will be paying off the utilities (this week?) and getting the lights and heat turned back on so we can get in to survey the damages. After that, we can start cleaning up EVERYTHING and getting ready for the facelift. HERE IS WHERE WE WILL NEED HELP FROM EVERYONE. Drew and I will draw up a prioritized list of what we need to get done. We will need to get all of this completed before February 5th, because that weekend volunteers from Havre and Missoula are coming in to help us get the renovations started! Let Drew or me know when you will be available to help out.

We then discussed the short- and long-range plans for the company. We worked on figuring out responsibilities for board members and officers, and the possibilities of adding local associate board members. There will be more discussion on this during a company-wide meeting in Great Falls on Feb 27th. We will be discussing such topics as education, touring, expansion and funding.

Toward the end of the day (6 hours later) we got around to our season. First off, we discussed our season opener. Both Jay and Dana insisted that we need to open the season with a big show in our own space the weekend after the fundraiser. My thinking is that we don’t need a big name show to kick the season off. Grant agreed and said that a lot of their success in Missoula comes from the fact that they do NEW shows with new ideas. ‘Rugburns’ has been a great success in both Havre and Missoula and performing it in GF will really cement the relationship between the chapters. ( if we can’t get a good crowd into the theater our week after our fundraiser, we never will) Then Havre offered to bring ‘Diary of Anne Frank’ after Easter, followed by ‘A Midsummer Nights’ Dream’ from Missoula. Check the calendar below for dates. I know that we are preempting ‘K2’ (again), but, as previously stated, we need to put what is best for the company first. The three shows from the three different chapters will show that we are no longer a community theater; we are part of a much bigger entity! We need to find a different place on the calendar to put it up, and we may be able do it in CS. Let’s work on it Wednesday at the artistic meeting.

Speaking of which, anyone interested in being on the artistic committee please show up at the church on Wednesday at 5:30pm. We will be discussing future shows. Please either email me your forms for proposed shows by Tuesday night or bring them with you to the meeting. Please have a few copies handy for others to read.

Well, I hope I have covered everything satisfactorily. And I hope I haven’t put you to sleep. But if I have, nitey-nite…

Thanks!

All,

I wanted to thank everyone again for all the work you are doing on the fund raisers. Having so many volunteer for key positions at the last meeting was VERY refreshing. A lot of people have been asking about what they can do, and it was great to be able to give out important responsibilities to folks.

We have a couple of new developments in the works. First off, because of their restrictive catering rules, we will not be able to use the Heritage Inn for our ‘Death by Dessert’ fundraiser. We are looking for a different venue now, but we would like to make it happen on March 6th. Please save the date on your calendars. As soon as we have a firm date for opening the theater and a good location for the fundraiser we will get started selling tickets & tables, and start contacting businesses to invite them.

Next, I have spoken to a couple of our people about directing shows. Janelle Munson has graciously offered to ‘uber-direct’, oversee and instruct the sub-directors for the one acts, our planned second season show. Anyone who is interested in directing a show in the near future (this season or next), please get in touch with me so I can put you in the pool for directing one of these one-acts. (this is not the only way to get to direct a show of your own in the next year or so, but it will go a long way!). Also, Eva Wright Burroughs accepted my offer to direct Bob McKinnon’s children’s show this summer. I will be getting with her and Bob shortly to cuss and discuss to particulars.

Remember that our next meeting will be Wednesday Jan 6th at the church again. See you there!

BC

Hey all,

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. In this post we have some fun things coming up, some necessary postponements, and some guidelines for getting a play you’d like to see us do produced.

Starting with the fun things, I will be discussing when we will hold auditions for K2 and Birth and Afterbirth with Wally and Dee. Since we won’t be in our own space as soon as we had planned, we will most likely run these as fundraisers offsite, just like Reggie and Justin’s shows. Stay tuned!

At 7pm on Wednesday the 30th of December we will be meeting at the church to discuss the fundraiser. This will be our major fundraiser for the year, so we need to pull out all the stops. We will need people to canvas businesses to get donations and invite them to the event. We need folks to act in the murder mystery. And we will need workers for the event – ticket takers, greeters, schmoozers, etc. At this meeting we will be assigning folks to all these positions. Please invite anyone who is interested in getting the theater back up and running!

This brings us to the postponements. As mentioned in the last post, due to delays in getting the building opened up we will be waiting until we have a firmer date on having all the utilities turned on before we set the date for the fundraiser (above). This also pushes back the first season show, Rugburns. Please show up for the meeting on the 30th to help us decide how and when we want the fundraiser to take place. I know that some of you are chafing at the bit to get started producing shows, but the timing for the rest of the season depends on when we get the doors open, not on an exact date. We need to put together the timeline from ‘D-Day’ on.

Now for submitting a play for consideration. I met with Drew and Glen to put together a list of questions that need to be answered for any show you would like to propose for production. You can submit this worksheet to me by any method (paper, electronic, etc). Please be as complete as you can, and feel free to add any info that you might think will make it easier to decide on the play. (if you want this in electronic format, let me know and I will email it to you).

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Montana Actor’s Theater – Center Stage

Production Proposal worksheet

1. Name of play:

2. Author:

3. Type (comedy, tragedy, musical):

4. Rights Holder:

5. Royalties:

6. Length of show (one-act? full length?):

7. Last time performed locally: by whom?:

8. Proposed director:

9. Size of cast (M/F):

10. Set description (blackbox, interior, etc):

11. Will this coincide well with any holidays or events?:

12. Does the play “fit” with our mission and vision and with our community?:

13. Do we have the personnel to put this show on?:

14. Estimate of budget for show:

15. Target audience:

16. Language concerns (accents, coarseness, etc):

17. Sponsorship tie-ins?:

18. Costuming concerns:

19. Tech concerns:

20. Portability to other stages:

21. What location do you think work best for this show?:

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Thanks for reading this, and I hope to see ALL of you on Wednesday!

BC

Hey all,

As a simplified way to convey all the info from the meeting last night at the church, I am simply reposting the email from Dana. It covers pretty much everything I was going to say. Thanks to everyone who participated. Also, if you know of anyone who is interested in the theater and has not been told about this blog, please feel free to forward this address to them!

BC
__________________________________________________

Hi everyone

Just wanted to kind of recap the meeting last night for Tianta, Dee (and everyone else).

I think that the meeting was very productive. There were several things discussed, so I’ll try to just give an overview of each and where we hope to be able to go with it from here.

1. Communication is KEY! Everyone’s voice equally important. All communications need to be open. Set up a distribution list in your email, include the montanaactors@yahoo.com account, use it, and hit “reply all” when you respond. Check the montanaactors@yahoo.com account, password is art. I know there was some confusion as to the barrage of emails flying at the start and we tried to alleviate that with “a chain of command” but that has led to the miscommunication and cliques that CS had before. Right now, it is of utmost importance that everyone be involved to the point that they want to be and open communication will make that possible. Use of the subject line will allow people to decide on their own if the information pertains to or is important to them. Yes, there still is a chain of command. Each function has a committee, but those committees also need to include all those interested. Advisory council should also be open to the general membership, decisions should be made by the council or by the full board if need be, but input needs to come from everyone.
2. Attitudes. There must be a conscious effort on everyone’s part to change from the way things have always been done to making this a positive, productive environment.—and that is going to take effort!
3. The Building. MAT has an attorney working through the legalities of getting CS Corp reinstated and making sure that when all taxes and bills that are known of now are paid that a clean title will be able to be transferred to MAT. (It is my understanding that Drew, his father and Mike Davis are the “committee” that will reincorporate as CS Corp.) At the point the title is transferred, CS Corp will dissolve or involuntarily dissolve. The building is a priority to all of us and as soon as we are sure that there will not be any additional problems and that the title will be able to be transferred, bills will be paid and utilities turned back on. We are not doing so prior to that for two reasons. 1. If we try to operate MAT-GF in a building owned by CS, taxes on the building will have to be paid (as CS will no longer be using the building for non-profit purposes) 2. Depending on the time-line, we don’t want to pay utilities on a building we can’t use. – That’s not to say that we want to procrastinate. We know the building is going to take a lot of work and money to get it to the point where we want it and we know that will take some time in between turning utilities on and opening the doors and those are expenses we are willing to incur. _Drew, what was the downtown improvement assn called that your dad was talking about?
4. The name. I have mixed feelings on this as well… When we first approached CS, we said “we don’t want your building and we don’t want you to lose your name/logo” and I don’t want there to be any confusion as to our purpose and/or mixed feelings as to where we are going. That said, a vote was taken to decide on a name and Montana Actors’ Theatre - Great Falls was chosen.
5. Responsibilities. The success/failure of this depends on all of us. Brian has an uphill battle ahead of him as the leader of MAT-GF but it is not all his responsibility, we must all put forth our best efforts and attitudes to help him. Mistakes will be made, have been made and we must learn from them, not focus on blaming/criticizing and focus on solutions. Full job descriptions, productions timelines, production teams will alleviate some of the confusion we have seen and time will help us to develop consistency in our way of doing business. – In talking about “jobs”, one thing I would like to see is that everyone would know approximately where in the process things should be on every show/event we do and if there is question as to whether something has/has not been done then the person questioning can go to the appropriate person and say, “Hey, are the posters done for this show, have arrangements been made for this location, when are auditions, who is going to mc, etc” – and if not, what can I do to help get this done? Yes, certain people have certain responsibilities but we are all human, need help sometimes and don’t ask for it. Production teams and timelines should alleviate 99% of that and if there are issues beyond that, then they need to come to the full board for resolution.
Deb has been working on job descriptions for Missoula, Jay and I have been as well and it needs to be a priority as well as the development of a system of doing business for GF. We will work on these things with your help, send them out for review to all of you and then take them to the board for approval. Feel free to make suggestions or if you would like to create your own preliminary job description – please do and send them to us.
6. Fundraiser. We are going to postpone Death by Dessert. It needs to be in conjunction with the opening of the building and we just don’t know at this point when that will be. We will start the title search process as soon as we have word from our attorney to go ahead, which should be in the next 10 days or so. After that we should have a lot more information on how long things are going to take and can plan accordingly. We will keep everyone informed. We will meet as planned jan. 30th (ask Brian for details).
7. Shows. As we try to resolve the issues with the building, we will be doing off-site shows and fundraisers to get our name out there, to create an audience, to raise money along the way, and to DO THEATRE. K2 and Birth and After Birth are already scheduled – I’d like to see a production team and timeline on both of those immediately. – Absolutely, if we are talking about a Jan. 23rd date for an opening. We also talked about Michael (?) helping to bring in a big-name for a fundraiser when we are a little more stable.

I am excited to see new faces and increased enthusiasm each time we meet and I know we can overcome the frustrations. We have the ability, the resources, the talent to do this – let’s make it happen.

Can someone get contact information to me for those people that were there last night and that I have not emailed here today? I’d especially like to talk with Mr. Adams (?) wife about her ability to help us with searching for and/or writing grants.


Merry Christmas!!!
Dana

I’m sure I missed something, so feel free to add your thoughts.

Current status

Hey all,

Drew and I Skyped the weekly Sunday meeting with Havre, and things are going well. Mike Davis, Jan Lovec and Drew Lovec were able to get most if not all of the information we need regarding getting the bills paid. I will email that information out to all and sundry (if you don’t get a copy, please let me know and I will get you on the mailing list). With this info we should be able to get people and money moving in the right directions.

Apparently we can let the utility companies know that someone besides Mike or Grogan is coming in to make payments, so that will work ok. But the first thing we need to do is to find out for certain what our “corporate status” is. If we are still a corporation we can simply deed the title over to MAT. If not we will need to incorporate again, at least long enough to sign the title over, and then either dissolve or let CSI dissolve involuntarily (doesn’t matter which). We may need to pay the government fees (the “non-profit taxes”) first before we can do the actual transfer, but it may be able to occur at the same time. Understandably, MAT would like to see the title transfer happening before we shell out the money for all of the unpaid bills.

I will try to speak to a real person at the Secretary of State’s office this week to find out about our status. If anyone else has hard evidence, please let me know ASAP.

On the artistic side, Justin Fatz’ show ‘Fully Committed’ is going up on Thursday Dec. 17^th at the Lobby Bar, 518 Central Ave. Tickets are available online at the MAT website or at the door for $12.50. This is a great show, with Mr. Fatz portraying 40 different characters. Let everyone you can think of know about it and get them down to the Lobby!. Let’s fill the theater for this one, folks!

First rehearsal for Tianta’s show was tonite, but I haven’t heard how that went. And we are still on for “Death by Dessert” on January 23^rd at the Heritage Inn. First meeting for getting this fundraiser rolling is going to be Wednesday Dec 30^th, so anyone (and EVERYONE) who wants to (NEEDS to) be involved please attend.

We need to make this one count. We are going to need people for all positions, from performers to representatives to corporations to staffers for the event, we want to start filling those slots as soon as possible. THIS ONE IS GAMETIME, FOLKS!