First Meeting With Clint

Met with Clint, the Artistic director of the BOTC tonight, to find out what’s going on, and to determine where I will be placed. The meeting was informal, at the Starbuck’s on Belmont, and lasted about a half hour. Clint thought this was all for a master’s degree, and I thanked him for his faith in my abilities, but informed him this was for my BA, and what I needed to do. So, he provided me an outline of what’s going on with the company, and we worked out where I would be.

Their production schedule for the year:

March – Show at the Acme Arts.

July –TBD Outdoor Show

Fall – A ‘mainstage’ show.

They want to attend all festivals, and have an independent production they want to have tour starting in January from one of their writers.

At their last meeting, the artistic staff set up some goals. Some realistic, some ambitious.

- The first is that BOTC is in a mentorship program with Redmoon theatre, focusing on fundraising. Clint is having another Board member, Mark work on this. I will be working with Mark. Learning about both companies, while seeing how one company can become something larger, could form the core of my final project.

- Increase the size of the theatre by 35%, branch projects with other companies, and organize a team to handle the additions.

- Grow the budget. Budget is presently $13K. Some of the Board think that can be increased to $75K in three years. I’m not certain if this is possible. The purpose is to begin to pay artists and staffers some compensation.

- Create internships for the individual projects, and manage the internships. Possibly a permanent program by 2012.

- Project coordinators for each show. This year, this will be done by each of the existing board members. By 2012, there should be a staffer.

Along with all this, grant applications for City Arts Council and two others are going to be due in early spring. I will be asked to assist. Clint will also show me the information from Illinois Cultural Data to see all the info they had to provide. Clint and I agree that post-internship, if this works out, I’ll do a ground-up grant application.

Personal Projects:

Talk with the staff at Rakasa about fundraising

Talk with others on grant writing.

Look into tools to determine information on attendees and fans.

Compare bruisedorange.org with other websites. Find out what tools are used to get information about visitors.

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