SMCT Board Meeting Minutes

Jan. 19, 2013 – Eddy Building

Board Members Present: Bob Hollis, Liz & Eric Dubois, Laura Giorgianni, Chris Brostrup-Jensen, Andy Affleck, Kaila Rubin, Steve Carter,  Jake Farnum, Emily Chretien.

December 2012 minutes accepted as written.

Currently Board Meetings occur on the third Sat. of the month & it is proposed to change them to the 4th Sat. of each month starting with the March meeting. 

We would like to get sponsors for each Playbill & to provide T-shirts.  Is anyone able to coordinate this? 

Judy K. is doing QuickBooks for us, which will help with balancing our Year End Budget. 

Bob’s “Gain thru Loss” has brought in about $400 to our savings.  Last raffle raised about $248 (Wonderful Life).  FileMaker Pro cost us $840 for another 2 years.  Still working on a new server, but having DNS issues.  Per Dennis C. the Server is running but DNS not working correctly.  Working to resolve the issue so we don’t have to take down the current website.  

Cuckoo’s Nest was excellent but needed more people at each show (5 more at each show would have moved us out of the red).  Why after 10 years are we still not drawing a dedicated base?  Location (Foster vs. at school)?  Marginal success with Seasonal Playbill ads, but mostly with our own group (or about half & half).  NEED A SALES TEAM & SALES MANAGER!   Difficult because we don’t have a set season.  Could sell Season tickets.  Need BIG sponsors, like Cardi’s or CVS, etc.  Chris (bass guitarist) is a truck driver & plans to talk to some of the people he’s involved with. 

Invite reporters earlier – Motif wants to come by March.  Need a Special Interest Reporter to write our own stories & submit them ready to print.  Could we get someone like Kim Fusco or another writer to do this?  Kristin Russo is teaching full-time now.  Invite Groups to come.  Snail mail to targeted sources (like Music Stores for JCSS).  Community Calendars.  Libraries.   Internal (email) appeal to our former cast members & ask them to bring a friend. 

Shakespeare going well.  Wants to do a performance for the Boy Scouts in Cranston, but are there licensing issues?  Rehearsal diary is available on Facebook.  Tyler V’s last show with SMCT before he goes off to college.   Carol will check the barn for props.  An email will go out asking for help to everyone.  If we sell out can we add additional shows?  Same problem with licensing requirements.  Need written permission.  Steve C. can get light trees.  We need to move the lights from school & bring light board, dimmer packs, cables & the lights to set up for the show.  Dennis, Eric & Bob can help with this.  The show is on March 2 & 3.  Would like to run a rehearsal for the show on Friday night, but can’t count on this unless we pay to reserve the space.  Must take everything out of the school on Friday as they are not open on Sat.  Will need all morning on Sat. to set up.  No build-outs.  Andy will send the script to Bob, Steve & Kaila.  Buy everything at BJ’s.     

Our JCSS is more about Judas than Jesus & all about the music.  Great voices for our main characters.  Good voices for everyone else.  Mix of professional musicians.  Score not fitted to instruments, but we have someone transposing the music.  Still no Musical Director.  4 people were lined up & either had job changes or moves that made them unavailable.  3 people involved with the show have taught voice & are helping.  Still hoping to hear from some of the cast/musicians who are checking with people they know.  Heather Christie is going to be our Stage Manager!  Costume Team = Liz, Lisa, Marty & Cindy.  Nathan is heading this.  Isabella is our Keyboard Player, but she needs a performance quality keyboard.  Can we borrow one?  Should SMCT buy one?  Can we rent one (estimated at $50/week).  Must have 88 weighted keys.  Music teacher recommended a Casio Previo 130 w/USB port ($600).  Need it now!  With a case it goes up to at least $800.  Steve just bought a Yamaha Grand for approx $600 for home use, but one for church was about $7000.  Electric piano vs. synthesizer (doesn’t usually have weighted keys).  Would Robert’s give us a deal or sponsor us?  One more thing that ends up in the barn.  How sensitive to temp & damp is it?   MMS; Purchase a Keyboard/synthesizer w/weighted keys & case, max. $1000.  Other Tech;  In ear monitor is better, but costs $600 each for a transmitter & receiver.  Have 5 electronic musicians.  How many channels needed?  Steve will look into rental.   Bob helped with ‘Rent’ in Tiverton & they had the band on stage.  We plan the same.  Need to know how much space on stage & what other needs they have.  Singers must be able to hear themselves.  Need 5 build-outs on one side of the stage, 3 on the other & at least 1 in the middle.  Need 2 more for Tech.  Look into buying staging.  Would need 8 x 16 (cut into 4×4 sections).  Want seating for audience of 225.    

Creative issues still being hashed out.  Currently we have Shakespeare (Andy A.), JCSS (Bob H. & Nathan D.) & Jungle Book (Emily Chretien, Laura G. will produce, Liz D. is Mentor), but the Fall of 2013 isn’t set.  Maybe The Crucible (Chris B-J) or Rumors (Bob H.), & then the Holiday show, maybe Christmas Story (Artie or other director?) or The Man Who Came to Dinner or Christmas Carol or a Get Merry…?  Spring 2014: Maybe, Finnegan’s Farewell, an Irish Themed Dinner in March, plus Chicago or Three Musketeers?  Current goal for Fall 2013 is Crucible & XMAS Story, & for Spring 2014 is Chicago (Heather Christie, if she isn’t attending Brown by then).     “Annie” with Jake Farnum directing is a possibility for the Summer 2014 Children’s Theater.  Jake F. wants Annie to be an adult play, not “Annie, Jr.”, a children’s version.  Show requires a lot of children & it’s harder for them to commit to rehearsals during the school year.  It is a XMAS themed show & would be good for a Fall/Holiday slot, but we do our Summer shows to give talented kids a chance to play major roles.  Annie is a good show for them to get that experience.  Many new kids start in the summers & we do have quite a few turning 16 soon (summer shows are for children age 6-16).  Our 16-18 year olds often get their 1st directing experience during summer shows.  2014 will be Jake’s Senior year of High School.  Possible alternative is Doctor Doolittle (musical).

Improv – Meryn is holding off until after Shakespeare.  Jake will check with her. 

Combat Workshop went well.  4-5 people attended & Frank said it was enjoyable.    

Need to start assigning User Names for BIOS based on real names as people forget which email they used for us to send password resets.  Dennis wants to tighten security/control for productions.  Also, need a way to reduce the list of shows some people have been in & just have them pick top 3 (or some number) of parts for Playbill.   

Need to have a secretary/clerk on the audition panel, just to collect & hand out the audition sheets & track the numbers, etc.  For musical auditions, someone should run sound.

Youth Group hasn’t met in a while. 

Laura G. is awaiting further valuation of Tech items before any progress can be made on Insurance.

Life Cycle of the Show meeting scheduled for 2/1 @ 7:30 PM at the Dubois house.  Goals; define roles, ID tasks involved.  Directed.  Produced.  Technical. 

Follies auditions in March & performance in May.

 

NEXT MEETING – Feb. 16, 2013 @ the Eddy Building (10 AM).