Dear Friends,
I am working on a HUGELY exciting project.
And I come to you for help.
In the past, I have done weird things to myself to raise money for creative projects:
1. Bowled for my first commission
2. Run as fast and as far as I could for sixty minutes (to buy a plane ticket)
3. Shaved my beard to raise money for an off-off Broadway production (you can watch me get face-naked here).
And now I'm raising money in a way that is less weird, but just as challenging.
I am asking everyone I know to give me ONE DOLLAR to support my current project, RADIO GHOSTS.
If everyone gives just one dollar, the project will be taken care of.
To describe what I’m working on...
On February 1, 2008, a collaborative group of artists will present the next step in the creation of a work called "Radio Ghosts".
Radio Ghosts tells three overlapping, interwoven, and haunted narratives:
An expert on holographic theory (named William Tell) gives a university lecture on how everything in the universe is one giant hologram while his son, comatized by a gunshot to the face, sends him holographic phone calls through a portable radio and his wife speaks to him through the waves of the Pacific Ocean.
A ghost carrying a wool blanket shatters the world of a physical scientist when he sees her cross over to save a child’s life. The scientist tries to re-organize the world while hiding in an abandoned greasy-spoon diner whose only inhabitants are the specters who serve him coffee.
A physician falls in love with a patient who dreams of falling into fires and whose body slowly and continuously falls apart from a car-wreck that hasn’t happened yet.
Using Electronic Voice Phenomenon and The Holographic Universe as inspiration, "Radio Ghosts" is a multi-layered collaborative work that combines live performance and recorded sound, creating a real-time (bending), performative conversation between what is live, what is electronically composed, and what is beyond our imagination.
An "in-progress" version of the first 35 minutes of material was commissioned by Austin Script Works and workshopped as part of FronteraFest 2007.
Our next "in progress" production will be part of Friday Night Footlights at The Dramatists Guild of America in New York City. (Hot!)
We have completed the first act of the work and will be presenting roughly one hour's worth of material.
The presentation will take place in the Frederick Loewe rehearsal studio across the hall from the DGA offices, which means our audience will include some of the country's hardest-working playwrights. We are also expecting potential producers and industry professionals to be in attendance.
In addition to the showing at the Dramatists Guild, we are working hard at procuring a second New York showing during the same week, as well as an additional showing in Philadelphia leading up to the NYC events. We will confirm those details at a later date.
Soooooooo....here's where your dollar comes in:
We have managed to keep production costs low, however, producing a show (even in a workshop setting) and taking it to New York City is clearly a financial challenge.
In order to meet this challenge I am asking you to donate ONE DOLLAR.
(Of course, you are more than welcome to donate as much as you want, but I am only asking for $1 donations.)
And because I love and believe in people so much, here's what your collective one dollars will do:
A: Pay for electronic music composer Mike Vernusky's plane ticket. Mike is traveling from Austin, Texas, to work on this event (and we need him!).
B: Pay for actor Jeff Swearingen's plane ticket. Jeff is traveling all the way from Dallas, Texas, to perform in this project because he believes in it so much. In fact, he has ALREADY bought a plane ticket because he wants it so badly. Help us pay Jeff back for his awesome commitment.
C: Pay for travel to and from New York City. We will be making numerous trips from Philly to New York and are also hosting at least one additional actor from The Apple (if you're looking to be generous, 20 bucks is enough to travel one person round-trip from Philly/NYC on a Greyhound).
D: Pay for any additional production expenses. Because this is a collaborative creation between an electronic music composer and me, we will have to transport and/or rent sound equipment for the project.
My creative team feels like we can get everything done for about $ 1500 - 1700. Perhaps less if we can make some deals. But we are targeting $ 1700 as a goal. Between all of my collaborators and me, we are asking 1700 different people for a dollar.
How crazy is that?!
So please! Show your support for what is, for all of us, one of the coolest projects we've ever worked on.
And here’s how!
For your generous donations/gifts, please do the following:
Send me a check or a give me a dollar bill, either in person or via snail mail to the following address:
Greg Romero
214 Beck St
Philadelphia, PA 19147
Also--
Because they are awesome people, Philadelphia Dramatists Center (a 501(c)(3) organization) has graciously agreed to act as a non-profit sponsor. If you wish to make your donations tax-deductible, you can send me a check payable to Philadelphia Dramatists Center, with "Radio Ghosts" in the subject line to:
Greg Romero
214 Beck St
Philadelphia, PA 19147
(To learn more about PDC, and to view their IRS documents/certifications, visit their website at http://www.pdc1.org/)
I hope hope hope you will make the effort to support this very exciting project. The artists working on this project are all challenging themselves in ways they never have before, and the work we are putting into this project is full of passion, creativity, determination and heart.
All we need now is ONE DOLLAR!
rock on,
ROMERO
