“It is more or less impossible to do any type of conscientious or exploratory work, if you are funded only by box office receipts.” — Yoshi Oida, long-time member of Peter Brook’s international theatre company, in his book An Actor Adrift
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Why Contribute?
There are so many organizations that depend on donations from ordinary people like you and me to keep going, and you have made your way here, at least considering making a donation to Immediate Theatre Project. Thank you!
And you’re here at a great time: Between December 2022 and May 2023, Immediate Theatre Project is embarking on a massive, matching, fund-raising campaign and raffle. Every $20 you contribute to ITP between right now and when our raffle and our season both end in June will get you one raffle ticket AND will have your gift doubled by a very generous supporter of Immediate Theatre Project. Doubled, I tell you! Drawings will be held (at least!) monthly and include dinner at The Blackbird Restaurant in downtown Asheville, a quiet getaway at a lake house in Saluda, and more.
And it’s not like we’re making it up; we really do need money. But maybe you wonder exactly what we use donations for, or why we need need donations at all. Maybe you wonder what we would do if money were no object? So do we! So before you choose to support us financially, here’s a short video we made in 2019 to peek behind the curtain and answer some of those questions. (Or you can hit the “Donate” link now, if you’d rather!)
Still there? Great. Here’s the thing: most plays cost more to produce than they make in ticket sales. The good news is that Immediate Theatre Project’s touring WVL Radio plays are relatively inexpensive to produce, and make money by touring to audiences all over the country. Once we recover our costs, the rest gets reinvested in the company.
The bad news is that the rest of our season works, typically, the opposite way. We spend about twice as much on any given play as we typically make in ticket sales. So even though the WVL Radio plays help off-set the cost of another play, there is still a gap. We fill the gap with grants and donations.
This is a problem that is built into the American non-profit theater model, actually: The more weeks you need pay your actors, the more money you need to make on a show to pay for that. But there are only a limited number of people who are going to come see any one play, so it becomes financially irresponsible to spend any more than necessary to get a good product. You either have to hire fewer people, pay people less well or not all, produce less ambitious work... or raise more money. Given those options, we’re going for “raise more money.” Because we want to be able to take more creative risks. We want to be able to produce plays that need a bigger casts, or rehearse plays for more than two or three weeks. And because we pay our actors weekly, bigger casts – or more rehearsal weeks – mean higher costs with no additional revenue.
Let’s dive a bit deeper into rehearsal weeks, as an illustrative example of how Immediate Theater Projects works: We rehearse most plays in three weeks, with only two of those devoted to creative exploration. That’s enough time to get a lot done, but still leaves a lot of material undiscovered. It gives us time to use what we know to create a great product, but not necessarily enough time to expand what we know. We do grow, of course, but it is largely by accident, not by design. But here at Immediate Theatre Project, we think the process is just as important as the product. The audience does not see the process, of course, but it does absolutely have an impact on the finished product, and actors who have time to consciously work on their craft will be able to expand their skills and bring that growth to every play they do after that, too. We want to be a part of a system that makes that continued growth not only possible but expected.
So our fund-raising goals are both long term and short term, for the benefit of the artists and the audiences alike. Still have questions? Feel free to ask. But thank you for reading all of this and thank for all you do to support Immediate Theatre Project!
Ask a Question
Got a question? We have answers! You can reach us by email here or by snail mail here:
Immediate Theatre Project
8 Fernlawn Rd
Asheville, NC 28805