The Cost Of The Show

As a side project entirely his own, Wauekesha Civic Theatre Managing Artistic Director John Cramer is looking to stage a production of the classic musical You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Cramer’s Alley Cat Enterprises is trying to raise funds for the production via Kickstarter. The production can be staged if $10,000 is pledged by March 4^th. Cramer states that production budget breaks down like this: 1/3 royalties, 1/3 venue costs (renting Waukesha Civic Theatre) and 1/3 marketing and production staff

In his open pitch for funds, Cramer was quite transparent about the costs of independently producing something in Waukesha. It’s interestinghis Alley Cat Enterprises staged a production of  Cotton Patch Gospel in ’05 that Cost $24,000 and made $25,000. A year later, they weren’t as lucky with I Do! I Do!a production that cost $24,000 and only brought in $16,000. In the open letter, Cramer states, “if we had Kickstarter then we either would have broken even before we started, or we would not have produced the show.”.

Kickstarter, of course, allows artists an opportunity to get money for projects directly from people who might be interested in them. Jonathan West was able to produce a staging of The SantaLand Diaries some time ago through Kickstarter. The way West had it set-up, every ticket for the show was sold in advance of opening night.

Those interested in finding out more, can visit the production’s Kickstarter page.

The beautiful thing about Kickstarter is that it allows the group to make an open pitch for funds via video. Here we have the cast itself pitching the project. Much like a production I’d seen staged at Off The Wall Theatre several years ago, this is a community theatre production of the musical starring children who are relatively close in age to the characters  that they are playing, as opposed to adults. And so what you get is children talking about the show they would like to be in. How cute is that?