$9,000 for Season 9

Season 9 is here and we are in full swing preparing readings, workshops, school visits, library story hours and of course Tour 9: Twelfth Night.

This season our goal is to take you on an adventure without you ever having to leave your backyard. In order to do that though, we do need your help. Travel costs money, so while we don't want you to have to travel more than down the block, the transformation of your "backyard" into somewhere magical requires a few dollars and cents and also requires our company to travel to you.

Season 9's Projects Include:

-NINE workshop

-NINE ambitious staged readings

-NINE story hours

-an adventurous art contest where we will announce NINE winners

-a NINE Book Book Club

-NINE new soup recipes

-and TOUR NINE: Twelfth Night (we would change the name to NINE-th Night but...we had to draw the line somewhere)

Our Season Nine Budget is an ambitious $25,000, which when you look at what we're doing...is actually pretty small. We survive by being frugal and relying on a lot of in-kind donations (housing is huge - see more below). We have several grants that we are working on and many of our tour locations are able to provide stipends for us. We are so grateful to everyone working on this, but we still do need private donations to - quite literally - keep us moving.

If you are able to help with a donation, it means that we can keep visiting towns with small populations, schools with little or no arts budgets, neighborhoods where the community is hungry for art, but also hungry for food. We want everyone to feast, on Shakespeare and soup. Please donate today so that we can all feast together.

The $9,000 we are asking you to help us raise will go directly to the artists:

-Food Budget ($1,800): When we can we cook and eat family style. It is our preferred way of eating, so we don't have to spend a lot. Sometimes we do have to eat on the road, and while we pack sandwiches and snacks, sometimes eating out is needed (plus, then we get to support local businesses and your local economy, and sometimes even hang-out with you). 

-Off-set Housing Budget ($900): During our residency in Southern Illinois we rely on amazing families who generously offer beds, showers and often great conversation, but sometimes we are on the road and haven't yet made friends with beds to spare, in those instances we find homes in hotels or through AirBnB, and while we aren't staying at the Four Seasons and we are frugal - sometimes beds aren't completely free

-ARTIST SALARIES ($6,300): Yes, we pay our artists, they are working 40 hours a week and are working away from home, they rehearse, they practice on their own, they become an inspirational crew of costumers, prop-makers, van-packers, sound designers, musicians and even help with some administrative duties and that's not even the performances; our artists help teach when we visit schools, are ambassadors for us, for Shakespeare and for theater. While they love the work, they have bills as do we all, and we don't want them to go into debt because of the work they are doing

Help us take care of our artists so that they can take care of you in your backyard and others in theirs.