As many of you already know, on September 15th 2011, The Tempest Ladies signed with our very first booking agency, Gardner Arts Network! What you may not know, however, is the story behind how this new partnership came about.
Jana, (who is back from gallivanting across the UK; we’re happy to have her back,) had contacted Jeannette Gardner back in January 2011 while we were all furiously promoting our showcase of ‘The Tempest’ for the APAP conference. The running joke amongst us Ladies is that Jeannette was very nearly the only person that actually answered her phone during that time. After countless calls to different presenters, endless answering machines, Jeannette picked up the phone and informed us that she was unable to attend our showcase but to keep her in the loop for our upcoming performances.
We did. We invited Jeannette to our spring performance at the Players Theatre and luckily she was in town and available to come. On a side note I’d like to add that those two shows at the Players Theatre were our most solid and gratifying performances yet. After two and a half years of working on ‘The Tempest,’ everything seemed to miraculously fall into place that night. The two new ensemble members of course brought a new light and energy to our group and performance, but as a whole, we all reached a point where we were able to simply relax into our production. We were able to play with the text, our props, each other, the audience and ultimately ourselves more than we ever had before. I can safely speak for all the Ladies in saying that it was a tremendous night of shows and our audiences also added an enormous amount to their success.
Jeannette was in our 7pm audience and after the show she told us she had thoroughly enjoyed it and would be in touch with us the following week. We were elated by this and I’m sure it was that prospect which boosted our energy enough to be able to get through a second run of this exhausting show with little to no break in between.
We followed up with Jeannette and after a short e-mail exchange we had our first meeting with her in mid June. To say the meeting was long would be an understatement. We left her office two and a half hours later than when we had arrived with a handful of instructions and a renewed sense of possibility. She told us to design a flyer and poster for our group, film a promotional trailer of our show and draft a study guide for the educational component that we’re currently developing.
Stella’s mom had done a painting of us in our harpy position once before and we all loved it. Therefore, we had the idea of asking her to paint another picture of all of us in different hats and different physical movements to use as our flyer. She agreed, felt honored and produced a painting which is electric, colorful, accurate and imaginative. The final product came out far superior to anything we could have even imagined. We are so thankful for and proud of her beautiful work. (http://cargocollective.com/shirleyverrette)
The study guide was entirely our responsibility. We divided the sections up into a summary of the show, a list of major characters, a series of different exercises and thought provoking questions, information on the period the play was written in, information on Shakespeare, information on The Tempest Ladies, and a series of different workshops. Although we were all involved in the creation of the study guide Julia Giolzetti deserves particular recognition for her work and contribution to it. And Laura Borgwardt takes all of the credit for the different workshop ideas and games. As individuals we all have our strengths but as a group we make up quite a unique force.
The video- you already know about. If you don’t know about it, read the previous blog!
We met with Jeannette periodically throughout the summer to touch base on the progress of our materials and to also look over our professional agreement. There were questions we had about the contract which Jeannette patiently answered. We felt we needed time to look over the contract more thoroughly and she likewise didn’t want to jump into anything before she saw our finished promotional video. We completed the teaser and the trailer by the middle of August and presented it to Jeannette. She had one minor criticism about the sound in one section but generally and genuinely loved it. The last and final thing therefore, was the printed materials for her to take along with her to her first conference.
She required 2 laminated posters, 100 flyers and 10 DVDs of our trailer. We had already designed our flyer and poster and so did research on an affordable yet high quality company and had those printed. As for the DVDs we thought it would be special to print a custom image on the face of the DVD itself. We settled on the image of our eyes which we also had used as our postcard image for our June 2nd announcement. The eyes on the DVD look great and surprisingly eerie. You can’t quite tell which way is right side up and which way is upside down. Spooky. We also took it a step further and had a stamp made of our Tempest Ladies Logo. On the DVD sleeve we stamped our logo on the front. The package as a whole unit is very innovative and utterly DIY. Merely because it’s a stamp and had to press each one individually, each cover is slightly different. To give you an example, on one of them I pressed the stamp so hard on the paper that our lady came out with a very distinctive handlebar moustache.
At the completion of all of the printing production, we met with Jeannette one more time. She approved the posters, the flyers and the DVDs. She went over a few details regarding the Performing Arts Exchange which is the first conference she is representing us at (It’s actually occurring this weekend in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and we are crossing our fingers that it’s a success.) She also told us that after sending out an e-mail blast about us, a theater upstate responded within ten minutes stating they were interested and wanted more information. That was definitely an exciting addition to an already exhilarating day! At the end of our chitchat and answering all final questions, The Tempest Ladies signed our name to be represented by Gardner Arts Network.
It is easy and simple to say that we are all very excited and positive about this next chapter of The Tempest Ladies. We could not have come this far without the support of others and the determination of ourselves.
With much love,
The Tempest Ladies
