So many crises.
Whether real or fabricated, natural or nurtured, necessary or needless, there are opportunities to make many things much better in countless incremental ways. Are enough of us able to recognize our chances to act, and then act? Do enough of us have the smarts and guts to make good change stick? Lotta times it'll mean that we have to change, and that can be hard.Soapbox yielded.- - -We've been diligently plugging away at the documentation backlog. The most recently finished ones follow, click any for a trip down memory lane to the good ol' pre-pandemic days. Or catch a show you missed. Or if you didn't make it here at all before everything blew up, have a taste... and when the time is right again someday, c'mon and join us. Ain't nothin' like the real thing. And you're already fam.These are in alphabetical order by first letter, a mix of local and regional and national. They happen to be all music, except Grant and Verandah read some of their poetry too. Remember, these people are out of work... if you like what you hear, Google 'em up and buy a CD or a shirt or a download code or something.We're nowhere near running out of work to do. And a lot of stuff is just begging to get re-tweaked, including some of these above. We got our paws on better editing situations for both video and audio, and man, it sure does make a difference.- - -A week or so back somebody told us that they miss getting our emails. True story, felt good. A couple nice words can really make an impact. Next person you see, give 'em a juicy compliment even if you don't mean it.This doesn't mean we're going to start bombarding you though, don't worry. Not everybody likes walls of text, which is one of our facilities. Maybe not artful or clever, but we got the "wall" part down.Since not everybody likes words, here's a meme.
Heh heh.- - -So when do we start shows again? No idea. The Vermont Arts Council, the National Independent Venue Association, a pained consensus of live music industry leaders, and others are predicting that most places like ours almost certainly won't be able to safely reopen before sometime in 2021. With new COVID-19 infection rates shooting up again nationally even as these words are being pecked out, renewed shutdowns are already cooking. Thankfully, Vermont's numbers are good! But this is no time to get cocky.Under current Vermont pandemic rules, it appears that Stage 33 Live could theoretically, possibly, start running shows... assuming we could jump through all the little hoops without getting stuck in them. We're not confident that we could. If we were able to get to the point of opening the doors, we could accommodate a socially distanced audience of approximately twelve in the seating area. Yes, we've had audiences that small before, and even smaller, but not on purpose.This also assumes that there would be twelve people willing to defy pestilence. Plus having enough volunteers who aren't also primary caregivers for elderly family members, or who don't themselves have pre-existing conditions that put them smack in the danger category. Not to mention finding performers willing to entertain getting or spreading plague. And the 33 Bridge Street building owners and tenants also have right of refusal.On this note, our third-season August 30th opening show headliner, Linda Sussman, who hails from hard-hit NYC, has wisely decided to reschedule for a later date in 2021. We of course support her. If we're able to run shows by the end of August, Pat Daddona is on the slate for that date to lead an impressive hand-picked songwriter's circle.If public shows are verboten but small private gatherings are still allowed, there's some possibility that we could maybe do a closed set with locked doors. And that leads handily into another wall of text. A really big one. If you're still with us, no harsh if this is as far as you want to go.
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Preface: This is
not
an appeal for you to send us any money. We're just flapping our gums right now. There's no emergency. If we get a matching grant or something, we'll shout for help.
We got entirely and totally skunked in last year's foundation grants, but we'll give it another go this time around anyway.
It's admittedly a little discouraging to see so much funding keep flowing to the same large, well-heeled performance and art centers for upgrades that they don't
really
need for things they already have. But we get it. If we were a philanthropic foundation, we'd want the most people possible to benefit from what we distribute. And that would mean funds for places with long track records in population centers. Because nothing succeeds like success and nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd.
To be fair, we have to own that last year's pitch was bad. Really unfocused. We didn't give them anything firm to latch onto. While we've accomplished an impressive hella lot by making random pennies-on-the-dollar improvements whenever there's a little money, and making more hay than seems possible of whatever unexpected material donations come along, that's hard to translate into foundation-speak. We're totally proud of the way things have come together by being seat-of-the-pants, catch-as-catch-can, bottom-feeding opportunists who let the cart lead the horse, but we gotta get out of that mindset for this.
So we've been working from scratch on a more focused narrative. Most grant submissions are online, and they have specific questions, and the text fields for the answers have restricted word or character counts. But getting the backstory down is good... it gives us something to work from so we can be consistent and coherent.
Probably nobody's going to see this in all its glory but you, and probably most of you aren't still reading. If you're one of those completionist masochists, put on your waders because here it comes. It's still a draft, but pretty close. It's way too long, of course. That's how we roll.
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Stage 33 Live is a 501(c)3 serving in Bellows Falls, Vermont since 2017. The poverty rate in the village exceeds 25%, but community members have supported the initiative with financial donations, items and goods, expertise, time and muscle, and most important, participation.Stage 33 Live organizes, promotes, hosts, and documents low-cost and by-donation live listening events showcasing local, regional, and occasionally national performers and presenters of original material that:
entertain, educate, and inspire an underserved population;
boost local and regional emerging creatives including singer-songwriters and composer-performers, and spoken word presenters of history, science, research, experience, poetry, prose, drama, and comedy;
contribute to overall community pride;
and bring outside dollars into the local economy.
It has also drawn increasing attention from wider areas, with audience members from at least five northeastern states and performers from as far away as the west coast. Despite the weekly publication Seven Days not being distributed in southern Vermont, Stage 33 Live was nevertheless a finalist in its readers poll for Best Small Live Music Hot Spot last year.The live listening events are recorded and filmed for additional downstream audiences to scale up mission fulfillment. Short clips are currently being posted online where aggregate views are approaching 10,000 with healthy growth. A variety program produced for radio and television is the next phase.It’s projected that half or more of all arts and music venues will close permanently if COVID-19 restrictions continue through summer or longer, which at this writing seems increasingly likely. The anticipated closure rate jumps as high as 90% for small independent venues like Stage 33 Live.Despite this, Stage 33 Live chose not to apply for COVID-19 relief funds. It was felt that other respected organizations across the state, most in wealthier communities, were much closer to the precipice. Sadly, it’s becoming clear that some of them aren’t going to make it even with emergency relief. Stage 33 Live was deliberately designed to not only withstand, but remain nimble in the lean stretches experienced by so many in the immediate community, where financial uncertainty is part and parcel of low income life.While this appeal is COVID-related, the effort is to directly benefit the communities being served rather than cover institutional payroll, rent, or operating costs. And the improvements will continue providing immense depth of service long after a resolution to the pandemic.Before the virus, emerging presenters and performers struggled financially. They’re now circling the drain — in particular, composing musicians for whom performance is a primary income. Spaces where performers and presenters can make livelihood will be among the last to reopen... and then, to significantly restricted attendance. It’s also likely that a high percentage of the audience will be reluctant to attend events until a proven vaccine is available and widely deployed.Many performers have been doing living-room livestreams on the internet using their phones and laptops, which is an excellent pivot. However, most suffer from poor audio and picture, and attract negligible to no new audience. With funding, Stage 33 Live could help elevate these good efforts with a three-pronged approach that would be provided at no cost to local and nearby performers and presenters of original material.
With some additional equipment, Stage 33 Live could stream closed-set performances from its theatrical stage with quality sound, look, and feel. A suitcase camera switcher/controller and two standard-definition pan-tilt-zoom cameras have been donated. Although it was an outrageously expensive state-of-the-art equipment package at one time, the technology isn’t compatible with current standards — though would still work well for this purpose. A refurbished office computer with a video ingestion dongle would complete a good livestream infrastructure for as little as $250. These live video streams would either be free to public view with a tip jar, or the performer/presenter could choose to engage a paywalled third-party service. It’s possible that some would prefer to skip the livestream and go directly to the documentation, which will carry much more weight and have much longer legs:
With additional camera improvements, Stage 33 Live can produce edited performance reels on quick turnaround with far higher quality video than it can currently provide. Consumer camcorders are presently being used for documentation. Two of the cameras are, in fact, white-label “children’s” cameras that provide footage marginally acceptable for web presentation, but far from broadcast quality. (There are no regrets — the beginning is the most important part of the work.) With the introduction of lower-cost 6,000-pixel cinema cameras, 4K bodies have come down in price. An entry level three-camera suite of matched basic bodies and lenses to provide professional quality broadcast media can now be assembled for about $6,000, until very recently an unthinkably low cost. The target equipment: * Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 4K bodies (3 @ $1,295 = $3,885) (certain vendors bundle a full license for the highly regarded Da Vinci Resolve editing and color grading suite)* Rokinon Cine DS 85mm lenses (3 @ $265.50 = $796.50)* Kinotehnik loupes (3 @ $89 = $267) to help pull accurate focus (essential)* Cfast 2.0 cards for RAW capture — UHS-II, Class 10, U3, 500+MB/s write speed (3 @ $300 = $900)* Gimbals, tripods, tracks, jibs, or other accessories and tools are not part of this improvement Participants could monetize the high-res documentation by premiering it through their own channels, and then continue to use it in any way they see fit, such as supplementing their press kits to help land increasingly bigger and better bookings. But the compelling reason for broadcast-quality cameras is to create broadcast programming that can profoundly impact the communities served, both on the stage and off. Specifically:
Segments and songs would be combined in a broadcast-ready evergreen weekly variety program distributed to media outlets, including regional public television and radio, leading to increased sales of the creatives’ work, signal-boosting far beyond their normal reach, and raising the visibility and reputation of Bellows Falls and southeastern Vermont. Ideally, the broadcast media will be attractive to businesses and foundations for underwriting in order to recoup at least some of Stage 33 Live’s ongoing costs including labor, and allow financial guarantees for presenters and performers when unrestricted performances can resume.
Incoming funds were already being set aside for these improvements, but with performances paused — and donations along with them — the goal is on the vanishing horizon.Stage 33 Live’s “actual dollars” budget belies the reality of what’s been accomplished through aggressive thrift, creative re-purposing, and hardscrabble ingenuity. This is both a source of pride and frustration. Stage 33 Live’s work on all levels has so far been entirely accomplished by volunteers, from scheduling and promotion to show-running, and on to audio mixing and video editing. There’s hope to eventually compensate at least some part of the labor, but to date all door money has gone to the performers, and all donations toward operating costs and equipment improvements.Success will be the doing and the dissemination to increase the visibility and viability of the participants, of Bellows Falls and the mid-Connecticut river valley, and of Stage 33 Live.For more information including programming schedule and history, documentation examples, and other details, please see www.stage33live.com and feel free to email [email protected] with any questions.- - -Whew.