Last month we asked for your help, and you got us over the minimum-subscriber threshold at Youtube. Our sweet new easy-to-chew vanity URL over there is youtube.com/stage33live... 600+ videos with 17,000+ views of 150+ individual performers / presenters / artists, and growing. 2,230 new views over the last 28 days. Not too shabby! No wonder we're exhausted.Everything is available through our website too, at stage33live.com/binge — recent adds include David Rosane and The Zookeepers, Chard DeNiord, Owen Nied, Verandah Porche and Patty Carpenter, World Under Wonder, Nick Badaracco, The End Of America, Izzy Heltai, Ezra Veitch, and more. 

Even though we're still finishing up footage from the can and haven't been able to put the new cameras to work yet, the video production quality has gotten way better. How? The new cameras came with a full license for DaVinci Resolve Studio. Having the right tools makes a huge difference. Huge. Resolve is good enough for blockbuster movies and hit TV shows... it's definitely good enough for us.

Everything from here on down is just cud-chewing. You're under no obligation. It's been over a year since we've had a show in the room — a co-bill with Jenna Rice and Emily Lyons on March 8, 2020. Our postponements now officially extend through the end of spring... and we normally don't book summer shows so there's none of those. First thing still on our schedule is at the end of August. The Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development is thinking that this summer's Covid guidance for venues will probably be the same as it was last summer anyway.And none of us Stage 33 Live volunteers have been able to get vaccinated yet.Robin, the guy who runs Stone Church down in Brattleboro, said — on the national news! — that they probably won't be able to have anything in their room until September. Didja see that? It was actually a really good segment. It talks about the Save Our Stages fund. We read the fine print, and it's another program that Stage 33 Live isn't eligible for. But we're stoked that it's going to be there for others. It's important. Lotta places are already gone, and more are going to go under as this thing lingers whether they get help or not... they've just slid too far down the drain.Speaking of which, Main Street Arts in Saxtons River put out a call for leadership in case you're interested in stepping up for that. There's no info on their website that we could find, just on Facebook: "The current board has explored other options, met with local organizations, and now we are looking to you. If any of you are interested in joining/leading our existing board, creating a new board, or restructuring the organization we want to hear from you. In the absence of new leadership we will be looking at dissolving the non-profit status. No one wants this to happen."There's a direct line of descent from the Rockingham selectboard's short-sighted (and just plain mean) vote last July to needlessly force Main Street Arts to remove its staging from the Bellows Falls Opera House for a major production that was postponed due to the pandemic. The board ignored pleas that the costs MSA would have to eat would likely kill it as an organization. And here we are. Heckuva job.The recent town election overwhelmingly brought in a new selectboard majority that promises to recognize the economic and quality-of-life impact of artists and the arts. From our bubble, that's an improvement and we're happy about it. Too late for Main Street Arts? Seems like. And that really sucks.Meanwhile in Keene, The Colonial Theatre is now The Colonial Performing Arts Center to the tune of more than ten million bucks. Yowza. They bought the building behind their existing theater (which they're also redoing)... a second "smaller, multipurpose venue tailored for emerging artists, local performers and educational programming." Seating for 150, standing capacity 280. All those words — "small" and "emerging" and "local" — are subjective.Also on that note, Next Stage in Putney (seating for 195) got a new director just in time for the pandemic, and it sounds like he'd like to do more like that at their place too.Stage 33 Live, in its best life, is perfectly happy to be — and specifically intended to be — a stepping stone to bigger and better stepping stones, so having some of those nearby is a good thing. Places like the Colonial and Next Stage (and MSA), however, aren't going to run bunches of shows that lose them money. They can't, it's business suicide. We're not anti-business, we're just not one... our operating budget isn't anything anywhere even remotely near those other places (for better or worse). We'd for sure like to make enough money someday to offer performer guarantees that take the chill out of lousy turnouts, and maybe even pay ourselves a little. Someday. Somehow. Our bottom line is our mission, not our payroll... but that said, we can't keep doing this for free forever either. We're forging a permacultural path to sustainability, hopefully. Building Rome and all that.Maybe we won't send out one of these next month. Probably will though.Hey look, pancakes.