Mandatory Post O-The-Day

My promise to myself to write on this blog at least once a day hasn’t always been fulfilled, but I do try.

My main worry right now is money. Money for me, and money for the show. Two simultaneously intertwined yet independent ruling forces.

Rehearsals for this week are over, but the work goes on. For instance, last night, I spent most of my time pulling together the costume list. This task was made all the more difficult since our Stage Manager, who was in charge of getting sizes and measurements from the cast, did a half-assed job of it and only took half the measurements or none at all. The ones she did take, she screwed up; for instance, how can someone 6′1” and someone 5′2” have exactly the same inseam of 32”? Dude, this is not brain surgery—I swear, I am surrounded by idiots.

However, just charting the costume changes is an act of fruitless anachronism since there is no money in the till to buy any outfits. As planned by M, each person in the cast has at least three costume changes. THREE times THIRTY equals NINETY outfits we need to buy with $0. Even if I had raised $1000, it would still be nearly impossible. Methinks this production will quickly devolve into one of those “everybody wears black” artsy fartsy stageplays! Damn, I hate those.

So where did all the money that we were supposed to have up-front disappear to? In case I hadn’t mentioned it before, M was supposed to draw from a line-of-credit that he told me he had. Turns out, that line of credit dried up while he used it on his “projects”—like, redoing his dining room, landscaping his yard, etc. And me? My credit is all maxed out just trying to get by these days. My money is being spent on overdue bills, late fees, and medications. At this point, I’m relying on our program’s upcoming advertising dollars—which aren’t materializing either.

I think we’re screwed.

At present, M is in the Buckeye state visiting relatives and—at this very moment, right now—he is hitting up the local SalArmies for costuming and notions. Keep your fingers crossed.

People keep accusing me of not doing my job as producer. By definition, a show’s Producer is the one that both manages a production and comes up with the cash to put it on. However, these same pissy people keep forgetting that I have a co-producer—M—and he is the one that is supposed to be the one in charge of cash flow, NOT yours truly. I’m marketing and PR. I was very up-front with him about being flat broke. I can do many things, but generating cash flow out of thin air isn’t my natural aptitude. If it were, I wouldn’t be living in Crappyass USA, that’s for damn sure.

UPDATE: M just called in his initial shopping report. He bought 20 black tee shirts for $40 and nothing else yet. I laughed—he was insulted. I told you this would turn into an all-black production!