Your Theater Company's Sustainability (Theater)

So, I hear you theater company is broke. I hear you are waiting on grants to come in. I hear your individual donations are down. You are having a hard time keeping your board members.
Well, friends, let's take a look at this!

1. Product:
When I was a kid, a store opened by my house in Louisville, Kentucky that sold things for your kitchen with olive patterns all over them. Spatulas and martini shakers and aprons and olives. And they ALL had olive patterns on them. Now, this store didn't last too long, and do you know why? The answer is because it is a shitty idea and olives are the wrong thing. If you put penises on the aprons or Looney Tunes characters on the spatulas, maybe you would stay in business.
That's the thing with a business, you have to sell something that enough people want for you to be successful. So maybe you should think about if your theater company sucks and sells olive martini shakers when I can go to Target and get a martini shaker with the Rolling Stones logo on it.
2. Evolution:
Sometimes things don't go the way you thought they were going to go. I could've sworn I was going to be a woman. Or at least Puerto Rican or Jewish, but fate had it's own agenda. Now I'm just a regular looking white dude, which has it's benefits, but at the end of the day I look just like most other people in our industry. That means I'm competing for work against Rob McLean, Geoff Button, Rob Kauzlaric, John Steinhagen, John Wilson and Trey Maclin. How do I do that?
Well, history tells me that if you want to survive in a hostile environment, you need to grow plates on your back or get an antler or something.
You need some tool to make you different and help you fend off predators and make people want to see YOU and not the House Theater. For example, I can put my leg behind my head and I'd like to see Dave Skvarla try that.
What can you offer me that I can't get elsewhere?
Seanachai has the market cornered on Irish people for example, so don't start another Irish company or you will probably fail.
3. Survival:
Everybody needs money, but do you really think that Chase Community money will really save you? It won't. Don't get me wrong, it can definitely help you out, but in the long run, you are going to need to make some changes. Let's take a look at the Journeymen. The Journeymen began in 1994, and in 1998 David Cromer directed the definitive American production of Angels in America, which got national interest in Chicago again until we blew it with Hizzoner. But the Journeymen couldn't survive with this one show! So they hunkered down and waited for their chance to shine again and now here they are with some sort of gay Romeo and Juliet which I bet is good but I probably won't see because Shakespeare with gay characters is like an olive shaped meat tenderizer to me. But they waited and lasted for the right time to make a peice of art that they NEEDED to make for whatever reason, and now they are back on top! Way to go Journeymen!

So listen gang, let's all take care of each other and get each others backs during this financial storm and also, stop making shitty plays. People love plays about politics and Ghostbusters, so just remember that. Also, please vote for my theater company in the Chase Giving, it just takes a minute and blah blah blah ;owiugahfweab

Your Theater Company
A+

-Anderson Lawfer, Eric Roach

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http://www.chicagostagereview.com/?p=7465

The Confession Stand (Catholic sacrament) GUEST REVIEWER Quierkki Boerkenhagan

I have a GodchurchBabyJesus review. The other day, at a street fair, I had too many Blue Moons at the Simon’s beer tent and I really had to pee. I can’t go into pour-the-pottys because as much as a I try and I try and I try, I look down. So there was this church and the door was open and everything. I asked this lady who worked there, well I thinked she worked there. She was lighting all the candles and she was crying so she must really not like her job but I THOUGHT she said first door on the right but maybe she said the first door on the left? But I went to the first door on the right and it was dark, dark, dark in there and I went in and I tried to find the light but you all, oh my God! There was this MAN in there behind this fence that had all these little holes in it and CHRIST that guy freaked me out, cause I thought he was one of those perverted catholic people that are always on the news and I was all like, “This isn’t the bathroom, beeyotch” but but then he was like, talking to me, calling me a CHILD and I was frozen in TERROR.

And then I was like to myself, “OMGOMGOMG –DUH Quorqi- this is a confession stand and I can’t remember about this room but I think am supposed to do bad things in here? And if I do them in here, I won’t get in trouble by my God? “

My God is different than other people’s Gods. That’s what my friend “Pallison” says.

And then I think I remembered something about beads and confession stands at parades and someone will give me beads like at the Mardi Gras so I lifted my shirt and showed the guy my boobies but the I didn’t get any fucking beads. I kept in trying, but he kept on gurgling. I think he was not feeling well. I said, “Whaza matter little fella?” I tried to stick my fingers in the little holes and pet him but he wasn’t in there anymore. So I tried really hard to do a few more sin things so I would go to Heaven and be forgiven, so I said lots of illegal God phrasings like “fuckin shit”, “God Damn baby Jesus” and a whole bunch of other stuff about sex and stealing lip gloss. Oh boy. I hope it was enough. I really had to pee, so after a couple of hours waiting for the guy to come back, I finally left.

But you know… God freaks me out, especially pictures of him with babies floating around his head, but it was very very very good and fun to use the confession stand and I am sure, vvvveeerryyy sure, that one day, I will be an angel.