Today’s blog is written in a slightly guilty mindframe, because I’ve missed two days of blogging. I aim to blog once a day on my progress with the theatre/business, but this week I haven’t. I want to explain why partly because communicating is important, and partly because I’m hoping one day a future-theatre-person will be reading this and it’s important to hear about other peoples problems! (Hello future person)
I haven’t blogged this week because I’m having a motivation dip. I’m finding that, unsurprisingly, it’s really hard to keep pushing with a very long term project with a non-zero chance of never happening! And that even though I do really believe in the principles and mission of Hope in Hell, sometimes that belief can be shaken by others. The hardest thing is when people who are normally supportive undercut the project, either by asking random, very specific questions (But where will you GET the blackout fabric?!) and then act as though everything is doomed when I can’t answer, or when they question whether it is necessary/possible at all. The latter category most frequently takes the form of “But how will you have a high quality of theatre?”, “But how will you fund it?” and “But noone ever goes to art in Sheffield!”. These are all, in some way, valid questions. But having them asked in negative ways, rather than constructive, is wearing!
So. Having realised I’m not going to get through this by myself, I’m going to be recruiting for a Theatre Gang. Details will be in a future blog post, but it’ll mainly involve bouncing ideas around, holding me accountable, and wearing the Positive Thinking Hat (which will be passed around and will require the wearer to respond positively to whatever issue is currently being discussed). So watch this space!
In the meanwhile, I finished reading Amanda Palmer! Here’s my favourite quotes:
“If you’re asking your fans to support you, the artist, it shouldn’t matter what your choices are, as long as you’re delivering your side of the bargain. As long as art comes out the other side, the money you need to live is almost indistinguishable from the money you need to make art.”
“Since Kickstarter began, 887,256 backers have asked for the artists to refrain from sending them any kind of reward – that represents a little over 14% of their user base. Some people just want to help. You never know until you ask.“
“But noone ever goes to art in Sheffield!” You just send them this: https://www.thestage.co.uk/awards/ The Arts in Sheffield are thriving and I reckon it’s gonna be a damn good place to open a theatre! And tbh if anyone can make it happen, you can, I’ve never seen someone so determined. You keep being awesome and tell the haters to go hate elsewhere.