Preparing and Adapting

We here at Nosedive Central are finalizing our plans for staging Infectious Opportunity this spring and will most likely be sending out all the information on the show sometime in March. In the meantime, we're gearing up for our Soul Samurai night on Thursday, February 19. Tickets for that are actually going very, very fast, so anyone in the New York area that wants to see Vampire Cowboys' latest (which writer Qui Nguyen himself has said it's the best thing he's ever written) and drink heavily with the Cowboys and Nosedivians, send me an email very, very soon.

It's very interesting that Laura brings this up now that we here at Nosedive Central are working on a new business model. And by "new business model," I mean, "a business model at all."

Since we first formed the company back in late 1999, early 2000, we've produced in a "spend first, ask questions later," way. We put stuff on our credit cards, get loans, and sign contracts for spaces and worry later about how we're going to complete payments on the space. For many of us, getting the work staged was too important to worry about pesky little details about cash flow or revenue.

We really can't produce that way anymore.

It's not just because our entire economic infrastructure is collapsing, or that being in debt in your 30s isn't quite as hip or adventurous as it is when you're in your early-20s. Those are huge factors, of course, but mainly, we can't stage shows that way anymore simply because with many producers' job security (mine included) now being a joke, we simply can't start each production at "zero," pour what little money we don't have into the show, then pray that box office returns will at least get us paid partially back. (Little inside baseball fun-fact: that plan sure didn't work on Colorful World.)

Plus, with the rents of theatres going up substantially, the cost of staging a show, even on the cheap, has gone up considerably since we started (our first play, Monkeys, cost a grand total of $2,400 to produce).

I'm very glad to see everyone in Nosedive is on the same page about this and are setting things in place to make sure the company can stay afloat.

I know, I know, a theatre company now talking about how to be fiscally responsible. Will wonders never cease? (Though, to be fair, it took us nine freakin' years to start.) Will these new money saving and fundraising techniques work? Who knows? At least we'll be moving in the right direction.

Pinching pennies,

James "Cheap Bastard" Comtois