I Know What I’m Doing This Weekend
First off, we made our pre-event goal for Die Laughing and that is amazing! The board offered a $500 matching grant prior to the opening of Die Laughing and we have already raised $500. That means we’ve actually raised $1000. Which is amazing.
This blog entry is about my weekend schedule. I’m not just the Artistic Director of Fearless Comedy Productions, I’m also a performer. I’ll be performing a lot this weekend so here, in tiring detail, is what I’ll be doing.
Friday, March 6th
7:00 PM – We kick off the marathon with Fearless Lab. I’m going to be judging a Vilification Tennis match featuring the last four winners of our amateur show – Nick Glover, Molly Glover, Eric Thompson and Duck Washington. There will also be stand-up comedy, short form improv and a variety of other stuff. We also kick off the marathon with a $250 matching grant so help us get started right!
Saturday, March 7th
Midnight – PowerPoint Karaoke. I’m one of the presenters in my favorite improv game of all time. Presenters are given a series of slides that make no sense and must make up a presentation based on the slides. Also presenting will be Windy Bowlsby and Dawn Krosnowski. It should be amazing. Also, we have a $250 matching grant from CONvergence during that hour!
Why do we want to Die Laughing?
I’m spending most of this week working on Die Laughing for Fearless Comedy Productions and that means I’m writing about the event. A lot.
So please forgive me if you’ve seen this information before. It’s important so I’m making sure that it shows up in a lot of different places.
Today’s blog is going to discuss why we are doing a fundraiser in the first place. It is really easy to ask people for money. It is a lot more important to make sure they know why we are asking for money.
Our goal for this event is $10,069, which is a juvenile joke. That’s our specialty! It also is probably not enough. We’d be much happier if we made closer to $15,000. I’m going to try to explain why.
Geeks Without God Spins Yarn at Die Laughing
Die Laughing was an amazing experience for a lot of reasons but one of them was the opportunity to record a couple of live episodes. Audience feedback really makes the podcast so much more fun.
This week’s episode features local comedian Elizabeth Ess. She wanted to talk about the Hobby Lobby case now before the Supreme court and we were happy to oblige. We spent a long time talking about the details of that case and making jokes.
There were also a lot of interruptions as we tried to reach our fundraising goal. I thought I was going to cut the interjections out but in listening to the raw file, it actually was kind of fun. Hopefully listeners will agree.
I edited a few things – mostly conversations with people in the back of the room – but for the most part, the episode is as originally recorded.
So hey, if you want to hear us talk about religious liberty and head shaving, this is the episode for you!
Geeks Without God Get Into a Mexican Standoff
This weekend, we recorded two podcasts at Die Laughing. On Friday night, we talked to local comedian Patrick Bauer about his favorite filmmaker, Quentin Tarantino.
I, of course, felt the need to discuss how Bill is completely wrong about Batman at the end of Kill Bill, Vol 2. Because if you are going to talk about the awesomeness of Tarantino, you need to spend a little while talking about his most egregious mistake.
We traverse the whole of his filmography, spending strangely small amounts of time on Django Unchained. As one might expect, I enjoy a nerdy film conversation so this one was a treat to record. It was also a treat to record in front of a live audience. Thanks to everyone who came out!
Putting it Together – Die Laughing
I’m moving my Putting it Together blog to Sunday. It used to be on Monday but I decided to switch things up. If you are OCD, this is probably messing with you. Otherwise, you probably don’t care.
As I write this, we aren’t even halfway through Die Laughing. I don’t know if we’ll manage to raise the funds we hope to raise with this insane idea. I really hope we make it (looks like we will). I’ll tell you one thing about this crazy show I already know – I want to do it again.
Running a theatre company is expensive. And the more you want to do, the more expensive it gets. I would love to tell you that everyone can raise all the funds they need from ticket sales but the truth is, there is hardly a company in existence that makes all of their money that way. Fundraising is a reality that most companies will have to face.
So we have to raise money. The idea, however, is to find ways to make the fundraising enjoyable. Because nobody likes asking for money all the time. And people get tired of being asked.
Making it enjoyable for the audience is obvious. I’d like people to show up for some percentage of a fifty hour marathon. I’d like to believe they will enjoy some of it.
But it also has to be enjoyable for the people putting on the event. Any event that lasts fifty hours is a lot of work. If you aren’t having any fun, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.
Grail Diary 