March update — it’s a whirlwind of activity

Last week’s fundraisers were a BLAST — thanks to everyone who came out to support us (and to the many people who didn’t REALIZE that’s what they were doing, but had fun anyway!).

Sisters Bingo on Wed. 3/18 was a complete HOOT.  For a change, we were NOT the most fabulously costumed people in attendance at an event; I’m looking forward to makeup lessons from some Sisters for sure!  We enjoyed performing some numbers from the show in the gorgeous Green Room of the Veterans War Memorial Building, ‘though I don’t believe any of us won ANYTHING in Bingo.  And, feedback from the Sisters was great.   Organizer Sister Barbi Mitzvah wrote:  “I have to say hands down, you guys were the best entertainment we have had at bingo.“  — high praise indeed!  We don’t yet have final confirmation on the amount raised, but it looks like it’ll be just shy of $2000.  THANK YOU to JD and to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence!

Then, on Friday night we held our own fundraiser at Cafe Flore, on Market & Noe in SF.  Cafe Flore is a beautiful, busy and fairly small Cafe on a bustling corner in the Castro… and when we kicked off our event, I’d estimate that at least half of the patrons in the space didn’t know what to make of the crazy band shoehorned into the corner of the room and the oddly-attired people prancing around.  But, by the end of the night, they were ALL bidding on our goodies and dancing in the streets.  (Really.)  My own personal highlights included:  auctioneer Herbie Hatman convincing an initially-reluctant crowd that they DID need a bunch of cool stuff like a singing lesson from a diva and a tour of a chocolate factory; Debbie Sciales and Oliver Lowe dressing us up in Debbie’s gorgeous clothes and allowing a bunch of amateur models to be fabulous and adored; and some random guy in the crowd HAPPENING to be packing a harmonica in the right key, and blowing down the HOUSE during the final “Burn It Up” (which was extended to let him play).  And excellent time was had by all… and thank GOD the downpour happened about 5 seconds AFTER we finished packing the tent and loading it into the car.  Again, thank you JD — and thanks for celebrating your birthday with us!

NEW PEOPLE!!!

We’ve also added two KEY new members to our team:  Lissy Treuter, a USC film & theater program grad, is our new Assistant Director; and the famous Twan from LA is here for at least this week to help wrangle our Production details into order.  (With any luck, we’ll convince him to do more — but he’s one of those crazy guys who wants to be sure he can fully deliver before he commits.  What EVER.  In any case, it’s FANTASTIC to have him on board for as long as he’s willing to ride.  First impressions:  He knows everyone and can do everything.)

KNOW A GOOD SPACE WE COULD USE?

On the agenda for this week is scoping out possible August/September rehearsal (and preview production?) spots in the just-outside-of-SF realm.  Ideally, in addition to a place we could rehearse, the space would also allow us to house several (5-12) people during the rehearsal period (in tents would be fine, as long as we have access to showers and a kitchen).  And, we’d want to be able to set up a kitchen Burning Man- style to feed the live-in crew plus the larger cast/crew of 30-40 for an occasional lunch during a weekend rehearsal day.  Any leads?  Please email ASAP to production@burningopera.com.

THIS WEEK:  AUDITIONS and a PARTY!

The other big event of this week is Production Friday.  We’re holding scheduled auditions during the afternoon this Friday 3/27 (check out http://www.burningopera.com/cast_of_characters.htm for a list of major roles and how to request an audition).  We then have a Production Meeting from 5-8 for anyone interested in being part of the Production Team (http://www.burningopera.com/production_team.htm).  And, finally, a public party/meet-and-greet from 8-midnight — all at Mission Control at 2519 Mission St. in SF.  The public party will be very casual — BYOB etc. (we’ll have some mixers)  — but the plan will be to jam out some songs, enjoy dreaming together about what’s possible for the show, hang out together, and generally have some fun.  (We’re requesting a donation at the door for non-cast members, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.  And we ARE looking for Door Volunteers, so please let me know if you’d be willing to do Door Duty!)

I’m sure there will be lots more hard news to be posted soon… in the meantime, hope you see you SF-ers on Friday!

Fundraiser Raffle and Auction Items!

Hope to see lots of you at our upcoming Fundraising events!

On Wednesday 3/18 we’re the beneficiaries of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s monthly Bingo game and party.  We’ll perform some numbers from the show, and generally add to the overall mayhem — should be VERY fun! (see www.sistersbingo.com)

On Saturday 3/21 we’re throwing our VERY OWN fundraising party at Cafe Flore at Market & Noe in San Francisco.  Once again we’ll be performing some numbers from the show, debuting some video… and hosting a fundraising raffle and auction with some VERY cool donated prizes.

Just to whet your appetites, I thought it’d be fun to list  some of the cool stuff you’ll be able to bid on or win:

– Very cool skateboard decorated with BMAN stuff by a custom boardmaker in Florida

– Custom wine country tour for up to 8 people led by our Star Newbie Paul (aka “Bud”) + a nice bottle of wine

– Tour of TCHO chocolates for up to 8 people  with Burner and Chief Chocolate Officer Timothy Childs – Pier 17, SF

– Tour of BMAN office and archives for up to 8 people with Danger Ranger (must be used by April 15)

– Environmental/Energy Sustainability Assessment for your home or small business (or, if there’s interest, one of each!) by Michael Harrison, Principal of EnviroAssets, Inc.

– Voice lesson from Diva Marisa Lenhardt

– Glass BM-logo bowl handmade by glass artist Debralea Comstock

– DVD and a gift coupon for free on line lessons from the Temple of Poi

– $50 off coupon for beginner poi lessons from the Temple of Poi

– two pairs of free admission tickets for Kinky Salon

– Erik Davis’ book “The Visionary State: A Journey Through California’s Spiritual Landscape” — with possibility to get it signed by Erik

– Barb Traub’s book “Desert to Dream:  A Decade of Burning Man Photography” – with possibility to get it signed by Barb

– Holly Kreuter book & DVD “Drama in the Desert:  The Sights and Sounds of Burning Man”

– Jessica Bruder book “Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man”

– A very cool t-shirt 2xl – black w/ white design – reads “The Odd, the Strange, the Weird, and the Wholly Other Black Rock Desert”

– “Voyage in Utopia” DVD

– (2) Burning Man Earth posters from 2008 — amazing combination of over 100 pictures shot from an airplane of the city — with a magnifying glass, you can FIND YOUR CAMP!

– 1 Burning Man ticket (committed for RAFFLE)

– Pair of Burning Man tickets (for AUCTION)

Thank you so much to all the generous people and organizations who’ve supported us with these donated items!

Hoping to see you all there, ready to help us get this SHOW ON THE ROAD (literally)!!!

More from the Regional Summit

After our Friday performance/presentation, I went back on Saturday morning to help Scribe for a couple of the big-group sessions at the weekend Regional Summit at BMAN HQ in San Francisco.  The room was PACKED with people from all over the country (and the world) — both formal Burning Man Regional Contacts, and local leaders and movers-and-shakers who’ve been building community and leading projects the OTHER 51 weeks of the year (OUR PEOPLE!).

In the breaks between presentations, I was able to have some fantastic follow-up conversations with key people, and got one Big Breakthrough Idea:

- Met Kip from Pittsburgh, Cooky from Detroit, and ??? (no card, but promised to email me) from Chicago.  All three were VERY excited about bringing to show to their areas — and, since we’re talking to Toronto organizers about staging a version of the show there in the Spring, we’re looking at a “North East Tour” in the Spring using the Toronto production.

- Also talked a bit to Athena and Curious Josh from LA.  Looks like we’re going to miss LA Decompression (which I think is the weekend of 10/3 & 4), but this will give us the opportunity to “stand on our own” there, which has its own merit.  [And -- totally off topic -- Athena also told me about this stuff called Flower Seed Paper, which is not only compostable, but you can actually PLANT IT IN YOUR GARDEN, and it grows!  There's a sustainable model for show programs etc.!  It's also encouraged for business cards:  after someone transfers your info to their electronic contact tools, they can plant the card!]

- And I had a FANTASTIC brainstorming session with Sparky from Austin (the Flipside organizer).  First he asked whether we would like them to host a fundraiser for us (um, YES!).  Then we talked about how to move from “presenting the show in one theater” to “small regional tour” to “total world domination”.  One suggestion that he came up with was essentially “Roadshow in a Box”:  when we figure out the plans for the Stage Box, we keep all our detailed info — blueprints, construction instructions, Home Depot shopping list, etc., and be able to provide that to a group that wants to stage the show.  THEY build and source everything we need, and we’re able to seed the country (or world?) with MULTIPLE touring groups all built from the same model.  This makes sense to me, because if we’ve correctly represented the heterodoxy of Burning Man, ANY area with a rich pool of organizers, musicians, artists and performers should be able to pull off their own version.  WOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I mean:  of course there are still many many many details to work out before we’re ready to jump to this point, but I think the Fall tour and the independent staging in Toronto (assuming both happen) will be great laboratories to both DO the show and OBSERVE and DOCUMENT what it takes to do the show.

And perhaps more important even than all the specific individual conversations and creativity and ideas was the extent to which I’m REALLY feeling that our community “gets” and embraces what we’re doing.  JUST the juice I need to push to the next level!

Burning Man Regional Summit kickoff performance 2/27

Thanks so much to Andie Grace and the rest of the Burning Man team for giving us the chance to present some excerpts from the Burning Opera to a large and enthusiastic group of Regional Contacts and related friends, gathered at BMAN HQ Friday night to kick off their Regional Summit weekend! This is perhaps our MOST important audience, because THESE are the folks who’ll help connect us with venues, performers, community organizers, artists, local hosts etc. to make the Roadshow happen.

The whole volunteer group did an amazing job of pulling together to cover for the folks who weren’t able to be there: the band rocked in spite of Mark’s absence, with Kat giving the cues; Andy jumped in to sing his FIRST EVER lead on “Party’s Over”; meanwhile Paul covered Andy on drums; Dana covered low harmony in the Locals Trio during the same song; Robin looked and sounded beautiful in red velvet covering Deborah Frank’s Dreamgirls part in “I Know A Place”; Christopher sang the solo verses of “Gypsy Dogs”; Lisah was the Wind Diva in “Strange Weather” while DebraLea took over as solo Wind Sprite; and EVERYONE did a great job with truncated choreography, fewer people, and truncated songs.

Although we hope to have lots more conversations over the rest of the weekend and beyond, this was a fantastic start. We connected with the Seattle Regional folks who are enthusiastic and already brimming with ideas, and Christopher ended up with a pocketful of business cards and phone numbers from folks who want to help us bring the show to THEIR town.

We’ll do a little follow-up with the full Regionals group before the start of the formal meeting Saturday morning, but we’re well on our way.

Oh — and did I forget to mention that former-last-minute-Assistant Stage Manager Joshua Robson has stepped up to be Tour Manager? He told me that he’s a “detail person” and “can’t wait to get started” — and we can’t wait to fire him up and start him planning all the details of our Fall Tour!

All you SF folks — don’t forget our fundraisers 3/18 and 3/21. (Everyone else: we’ll accept your donations at ANY time! )

Thanks for your support!

Letting the cat out of the bag!

Although we still don’t have any contracts signed, we DO have permission to reveal that the “exciting venue” we’re working with for our Fall Tour is the fabulous turn-of-the-century spiegeltent of Teatro Zinzanni in San Francisco and Seattle. They’ve never allowed another show into their space, so we’d be the first, and we intend to do them proud!

Spiegeltent is a Dutch word that means “mirror tent”, and these are opulent spaces with wood and stained glass and velvet (and, of course, mirrors) that create a fabulously decadent and playful atmosphere… in the round! It’s definitely a space that COULD exist in the magical, mythical playa, and we can’t WAIT to fill it up with our show and our audience!

Our opportunity in the Zinzanni spaces is limited to their “dark days”, which gives us the potential to tour/do shows on weekends in other spaces. Here’s the current [TENTATIVE!!!] plan for the Fall — and let me emphasize again, NOTHING HAS BEEN FINALIZED at this point!:

Week of 8/24: rehearsals in the Zinzanni space and other SF locations;

Week of 8/31: BURNING MAN to audition performers for the Roadshow, connect with Art Bus folks and other local movers-and-shakers, shoot video of actors in costume on the playa for use in the show… MAYBE perform a few numbers if we just can’t help ourselves!

9/9-15 – rehearsals at Zinzanni and other SF locations;

Weekend of 9/18-19: PREVIEW the show at a slightly-outside-of-SF venue to allow us to test our touring setup capability, work out the kinks etc.;

9/22-23 (Tues-Wed): OPEN at Zinzanni in SF;

Weekend of 9/25-26: perform in a location between SF and Seattle — maybe Earthdance?

9/29-30 (Tues-Wed): PERFORMANCE at Zinzanni in SEATTLE;

Weekend of 10/2-3: perform in a location between SF and Seattle — maybe Portland?

10/5,6,7 (Mon, Tues, Wed): PERFORMANCE at Zinzanni in SF;

Weekend of 10/9-10: final performances, we hope in a great venue in LA.

We know this is ambitious, and we’re starting to assemble a great team (and have PLENTY of room for more help– see below). We got some fantastic folks together last night in the Zinzanni tent to be inspired and brainstorm, and here’s what we’ve got so far:

- Shannon and Kathy O’Hare, of Neverwas Haul fame (Google it if you’re not familiar with this amazing project) have signed on to be our Scenic Designer/Builders. Shannon has already shown us a preliminary sketch of a fantastic geared contraption that will be our projection surface and visual focal point… and he’s full of hundreds of other wonderful ideas to make whatever space we use uniquely ours.

- The sartorially splendid Debbie Sciales and Oliver Lowe have signed on as Costumers. If you’re not familiar with her work, check out Debbie’s Etsy shop (DAShandbag). They’re sure to make us look fantastic!

- Filmmaker, editor and longtime Burner Dean Mermell has agreed to be our Videoprojection Designer and Video Editor. Dean designed and edited all the video for our Stage Werx production, and has been shooting Burning Man images since Back In The Day.

- Social Artist Scott Levkoff is helping us work on Interactivity Design to ensure that the show is more than just a Show.

But we still need LOTS more help! Key holes in our team right now are:

- Webmaster: If you’ve seen our site (www.burningopera.com) you know we’re not where we need to be. HELP!

- Show Producer: An experienced theatrical producer who knows how to pull together this crazy carnival with minimal pain and maximum fun.

- Tour manager: we need venues, coordination of transportation, housing… and we will NOT be a small group. Has anyone taken a festival on the road successfully (on a low budget, working with the resources of a distributed community) and made it work?

- Lighting Designer: We’ll have use of the Zinzanni board in those tents, but we’ll have to replicate that look in our other venues — not to mention the overall challenge of creating a simulacrum of the visually chaotic world of the playa in a city-based indoor space!

- Art Wrangler: Wherever we stop, we want to fill our space with cool art pieces from the local community to help set the scene.

- Burning Man Camp Manager/Coordinator: We’ve all done this before, but there are still plenty of details to pull together, and we’d love a “camp Mom” (or Dad) to take charge.

…and of course lots of other help and support in many many smaller ways. We’re SO excited about this project — wanna help us make it fly?

-Dana dana@burningopera.com

Slooooooooooooooooow progress!

We’re in the “slogging through details” phase of the project, for sure.

Erik has rewritten (beautifully, I might add) our BRAF Grant Proposal; now we “just” need the detailed budget and timeline information.

To this end, Christopher and I met yesterday with Shannon and Kathy O’Hare to discuss in detail the scenic elements/”set box” concept to allow us to transform any space into our “mythic playa” and to travel with the show without having to re-set it each time for each new space. Shannon also had TONS of other great ideas, which makes us even more excited to get our Fall Production Team together and begin working on the Fall Tour.

Although the venue details are still unconfirmed, we ARE planning a, well, planning meeting for Tuesday 2/24 at 6pm in SF to begin working on Fall Tour issues. If I’ve not yet invited you and you’re interested, or you know folks who fit roles on our Wish List who should be invited, please contact me so I can provide details.

ALSO: We have a fundraiser scheduled for 3/18 at Cafe Flore in SF, and are looking for help wrangling raffle gifts and/or Silent Auction items. Got any interesting ideas?

Fall run update not QUITE ready for prime time

Christopher and I had an excellent meeting today with the Big Boss of a very compelling venue in SF — but, unfortunately, we weren’t able to “seal the deal” sufficiently to let us announce it today (as we had hoped).  We owe the venue management a detailed schedule plan; they need to confirm a few options with their internal resources — but the possibility is SO great, it’s definitely worth the legwork to try to make it happen.  Wish I could say more at this point, but not yet.

Watch this space for further updates as they become available…………….

Role wishlist

As we plan our Next Steps, we need a LOT of help.  We hope to be able to pay some key people SOME “honorarium” amount (based on fundraising and ticket sales) — in many cases, we hope you’ll be willing to sign on for love and the thrill of working on something really fun and exciting (and with a great team).

Key roles we’re looking for ASAP:

- Website manager/technology lead.  (If you’ve seen www.burningopera.com, you know why we need this!)

- Fundraiser/PR person

- BMAN Camp Manager.  (We’re not going to do the SHOW at BMAN’09, but we want to have a presence there to audition people, shoot video, make Art Bus and other Roadshow connections, etc.)

- Show Producer – an experienced theater (musical theater?) person with BMAN sensibility to wants to help make this next run successful.

- A Tech Director

- A Scenic Designer

- A Costume Designer

- Tour Manager

We’re having a meeting Tuesday 2/17 at 6pm (location TBA) that it’d be great to have folks interested in any of these roles attend.

—————-

LATER NEEDS:

- Carpenters, electricians, set-builders, etc.

- Prop masters

- Sound techs

- wardrobe and makeup people; more costume folks are always good

- and Art Wrangler

- Assistant Director (to work hand-in-glove with Christopher)

- Stage Manager

- Assistant Stage Manager(s)

- Music Director/conductor

(…and more to come, no doubt)

Please contact me if you have questions, are interested, or know someone who is!

dana- at – burningopera -dot- com (you know how to fix that to make it work; hopefully the spambots don’t!)

Brand new blog — LOTS to report!

At the suggestion of a good friend who actually does this stuff for a living, I’m creating a blog to track the exciting process of creating and producing this show (not to mention raising the money to allow it to move forward!).  I hope to bring folks along on the journey — and, on the way, involve as many of you as possible!

This has been quite a week: On Monday, my dear friend from Pittsburgh, the fantastic performer (and all-round stellar human) Phat ManDee (www.phatmandee.com) stopped to visit, and she and I drove into SF to introduce her to Erik and Christopher.  We had a great chat, hope to have a space for her in the show — and she introduced us to Shannon O’Hare of the Neverwas Haul — a Master Carpenter, experienced set builder, fantastic artist… and hopefully a collaborator on our “set box”.  (more on that in a minute)

Tuesday I had a brainstorming session with Gary Virginia, the Event Coordinator for JD Petras and Cafe Flore.  JD, a long-time Burning Man attendee and supporter, has offered to let us host a Fundraiser for the show at Cafe Flore on Saturday, March 21st.  He’s also offered to introduce us to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and have us be beneficiaries of the Sisters’ Bingo Night at Cafe Flore on 3/18 in exchange for some entertainment.  Generous AND fun — and Gary had LOTS of ideas about how to make a fundraiser successful.  ***I sure would like to find someone in the community who’d like to be in charge of both of these evenings for us.  Anyone interested?  ***

On Wednesday, Christopher and I spent about three hours together going over all the minutiae of planning our Next Steps:  the presentation at the BMAN Regionals Summit Friday 2/27, the fundraisers in SF and one in LA 3/15 (we need help on that one too!), a possible presentation/show for Google employees (we’re working on it!).. and, most importantly, planning for our Burning Man presence and our next run of shows in September/October.

We’re not QUITE ready to announce our next venue(s) — but, if Friday’s meetings go well, we should have a VERY exciting discussion about the planned Fall shows.  Until then — let’s just say that we’re hoping to do a run in SF, Seattle, perhaps LA, and perhaps some stops in between.  We’ve been gathering availability information from the Premiere cast and crew, and planning audition schedules (likely mid-March?).  We’d love to start bringing on key roles for the Fall shows — see my Role Wish List posted separately.

Today (Thursday) I chatted with Tomas McCabe, the Executive Director of BRAF about making sure our Fiscal Sponsorship arrangement with BRAF was solid before we start our fundraising push.  AND I did a draft of a Grant Proposal for BRAF’s 2009 grant cycle (which opened TODAY).  Although they don’t TYPICALLY fund performance, our show is otherwise such a perfect fit for their mission, we were encouraged to take the risk and put together an application.  Thank goodness we have Wordsmith Erik on the team, because I did NOT do such a good job — and suffered mightily while doing it!  We’re focusing our grant request on funding for the creation of a kind of “set box” — a stage element that’ll give us a projection surface, define the space as “ours” aesthetically, and allow us to mount the show in a variety of different venues without having to re-stage it every time.  (Looking forward to collaborating with Shannon O’Hare on this project!)

Also finally crunched the Stage Werx production audience survey results.  To my surprise, 74% of the attendees were experienced Burners, and 24% had never been to the playa.  (2% didn’t answer the question).  Average satisfaction with the show was a 9.0 (out of 10!) for the Burners, 9.06 for the Never-beens, a solid 10 for the “no answers”… for a grand total average of 9.03 overall.  I’m AMAZED given how haphazard this production was in a lot of ways — and in particular SHOCKED at how much the Never-beens enjoyed the show.  Although we intend the finished show to be for the “one step removed” audience, I think we all thought that THIS version was really only about preaching to the converted.

Oh — and did I mention that there are some folks in Toronto who’ve heard about the show and are interested in looking into putting on their own production?

So — LOTS of stuff going on in H2StAWorld.  Look for a big announcement Friday (or soon thereafter)!