Press and Ticket Sales!

I know it's been over a month. Things have been really busy but in a good way. In the last month we've gotten some articles written about us. One is from a local Santa Clarita art blog, Proxart. They're good people and they wrote this article about us . Also LA aggregate review/theatre site Bitter Lemons wrote about us here.

It's all sorts of exciting. I just hosted an informal mixer for shows at the fringe and you can read about that more over at Friends Like These's blog here. It's been great and we're three weeks out from opening.

Our costumes are also awesome. So much to talk about. I promise to update again this weekend!

Tickets are on sale too. Check out www.valentinoplay.com for more info!

Budget Update (57 Days to Go)

It took me about a week to finally get around to updating the budget and budget projections. Since we are still trying to run this show under $3,000 it is important that I keep it updated and on track.

This is about what we've spent so far:
$1500 Rent at The Complex
$200 Fringe Fees
$110 Quarter-Page advert
$150 Rent at Fringe Central for our FREE showcase
$10 Website domain name
$25 Business cards
$100 Misc. Meeting expenses
(TOTAL $2,095)

We are committed to:
$200 Valet/Front Person for both weekends
$100 Banner for exterior and Post Cards
(TOTAL $2,395)

According to these rough calculations we have about $600 left to spend. That number doesn't include the potential $200 back from our deposit at The Complex. I know for sure I want to put another $100 or so into marketing, which is our second largest expense after rent now. Costumes, gels, and rehearsal space are definitely on the "short list" of things we need to put money into. As of right now though it looks like we may come under budget.

Friends are Awesome

While sitting at breakfast with a friend yesterday, I was inevitably asked about the Valentino production. She had mentioned before that she wanted to help, but I wasn't quite sure what role she could fill. Volunteers are good, but they become even better once they start talking about their past tech-ing experience. So it looks like we found someone that's tech'd in the past and will be able to learn how to run the boards for our show. I'm very excited that this pressure is off of me and our stage manager.

Marketing Talk

Above is the the image we will be using for most of our marketing. We did buy a quarter-page ad in the Fringe Guide and a very similar image will be used on the post cards that are soon to be printed out.

I was in an online discussion at Theatre Face earlier this week with established theater companies talking about how to market your show. The biggest word that came out of it was "Focus". The full transcript of the interview (and digression) is available to read here. It's been nice seeing twitter reconnecting me to the theatre community here in Los Angeles and out in the rest of the community.

The next step for marketing is the postcards, banner, and then the press kits. I am still putting together our press list and it looks like we will be designing electornic press kits for everyone.

FREE Showcase!

The big announcement from the Valentino team is that we will be offering a free showcase of scenes from "Valentino: a play in verse" at Fringe Central on June 19th at 12:30pm. We've decided to direct some of our budget towards this project in order to generate some interest and offer something back to the community.

We are very excited about this and are hoping to have a large turnout for this event. Fringe Central is located at Theatre of Arts Arena Stage, 1625 North Las Palmas, Hollywood.

Exciting News!!

There is some exciting news coming this week (hopefully) about the production.

In other news, we've made some changes to the budget and rehearsals just started. Definately moving along!

Read-Thru (79 Days)

Today was really productive. The team came up with a mock advertisement for the Hollywood Fringe guide and we held a read through at some donated space. Yesterday I spent all day baking cookies for our actors today (Yummy). Here are some cookie and cast photos from where I was sitting: