The Goings On

It has been quite a while since we posted our first little post, so we thought we'd updated you with some of what's going on!

Although there have been many sleepless nights and minor panic attacks trying to get everything put together, most of the work we've been doing, quite frankly, is boring, and not super fun to tell everyone about. BUT we'll bore you just a little. As you may have seen, we did send in our Articles of Incorporation

Yayy!! This makes us an official non-profit company. This is incredibly exciting, and I'm sure we'll be even more excited once the 6-8 weeks we've been having to wait to receive them back has elapsed. After that, it's only a  million more forms and such, each taking about 3 months to get back, but we won't go into detail. Except that just one of those forms is officially estimated by the IRS to take about 109 hours to fill out. And it pretty much took about that long. Did I mention a lot of sleepless nights?

We have now begun fundraising. It's a tad slow getting it up and running, as of course it takes money to make money, and we're a bunch of starving actors. However, we are slowly getting some support, and we are so grateful for all of you.

We want to tell you exactly what we are fundraising for, so you know where your precious dollars and cents are going :). Well, currently, we are fundraising for our 2012 season. This includes:

• a company mask set of professional commedia masks - this costs about $600
• various props, costumes, and materials for sets, masks, etc. - we only need about $300 for this. Physical Theatre shows (at least ours) don't have too many fancy sets, and costumes tend to be easily purchased at a thrift store. In fact, we prefer it that way. 
• our first rehearsal session, to build our show- this will be in the spring for about 2 weeks. We will be developing our show, and holding a preview show/fundraising party at the end of the 2 weeks! Entrance will be free, so if you are going to be in the LA area, come see us! For this whole event, we need to raise about $3000.
• Our debut show! We will be performing at the CrisisArt Festival in Tuscany, Italy. We will be arriving a couple weeks early for intensive rehearsals, and possibly even working with a guest assistant director who can help us bring our show to the next level! For this show we need to raise at least $8000.
• In the fall, we are hoping to get to the New York International Fringe Festival. Again, we will be arriving to the city ahead of time to further develop our show. For this show we need to raise at least $7000.

So that's it! Quite a statement, I know. We believe our fundraising goals are very reasonable and reachable. We will fundraising like crazy! So we apologize for the slew of Facebook events, emails, and possible mail-outs. We do not want to pressure anyone at all, but we believe the more we can keep at the front of your mind, and offer sweet prizes, the more people will want to donate! The amounts listed above are our bare minimums, to cover basic costs of living and festival fees. We want to actually pay our actors for their hard work and time given!

Currently, the fundraiser we have going on is our Tut'Zanni Calendar Online Fundraiser. We have created a calendar with all original artwork featuring our little Tut'Zanni monsters! I will post the pictures up here, so you can see all the months :). Calendars are $25, and can be purchased at http://www.etsy.com/shop/tutzanni. All proceeds go to the theatre company.

Again, thank you ALL for your love and support, monetary or otherwise. We appreciate all of you. And, with that, let's bring on the arts!