Chimera's Going to PF2022 and RVK Fringe 2022!

I'm Chris DeFilipp, the artistic director behind Chimera Theatre Collective, out of Portland, Maine. This summer we're excited to bring you two projects, one small and one GINORMOUS, and are in need of a little help to make them happen.

 

FIRST: VILLAINY! ...or something. at PortFringe 2022!

First, a 20-minute original piece that we're creating with our friends at Polyphonic Theatre Ensemble called VILLAINY! ...or something. in a triple feature that will also feature additional 20-minute pieces by our friends at Jo's Jurassic Dinos and the mysterious (but I've heard also fun) group Yankee Doodle. It's going to be a fun little diversion in our home fringe, and we're excited to make some laughs and maybe a few revelations for our audiences. In true PortFringe fashion, we are still developing the script of the show, but our teaser of a marketing description is as follows:

 

VILLAINY! (...or something?) is afoot. Though honestly we don’t know if we really thought this whole thing through… so just... give us 20 minutes of your time… or else your will shall be mine! Erm… ours? Anyway… we shall see. *dramatic cape flip* And then maybe we’ll all learn something. So there!

 

 

 

 

While this show won't need many resources, we'll need to spend some money on marketing materials and procure a few bits and bobs of props and costumes to make it the best it can be. I'd also love to be able to pay our collaborators for their time and any resources they've contributed to the piece. We'll get to the budget part of that in a moment.

 

SECOND: Story Gauntlet is going to RVK Fringe in ICELAND!

The second, far more resource intensive project on our horizon: our 2021 PortFringe piece, Story Gauntlet: Love, Death, and Wallpaper, won The Reykjavik Award (an award given by PortFringe's sister fringe, Reykjavik Fringe), which means that we get to bring the piece (and a few of our performers) out to Reykjavik Iceland, this summer for two performances at their festival!

 

The festival runs June 23, 2022 through July 3, 2022, and our performances are on July 2, 2022 and July 3, 2022. Most of us plan to be at more of the festival than just our performance weekend to help drum up audience members throughout the week and have some time to explore the city since none of us have been there before.

 

 

 

 

We're very excited about this project, although our format is going to be slightly different with a different cast than we anticipated (of our original 8 members, only 2 could make time to go to the festival). So, we're presently only bringing 3 folks overseas: Natalie Osborne, original Story Gauntlet company member; Tara McDonough, PortFringe committee member, improviser, and friend of the show; and myself, Chris. We are hoping to supplement those folks with other artists in the festival or who live and work in Iceland.

 

However, international travel, especially for two weeks, comes with many costs. So, while we have paid everything upfront due to our timeline and short AirBnB supply (it so happens that the end of June is a popular tourist season in Iceland), we are hoping that we can raise funds to cover everyone's expenses.

 

So while we are technically set to go to Iceland, I (Chris) would not be a good producer if I didn't want to make sure Chimera could cover at least some, if not all, of the travel expenses for all three performers going out to the festival in addition to any payment they would get for their time. And unfortunately, in the process of covering some of those group expenses (lodging and car rental) I have completely diminished my savings before we have even started our marketing push or procuring print materials for handing out while we are at the festival.

 

So this is where your help comes in: any support you are able to help give us will make sure that everyone's travel expenses are paid for the two weeks we will be in Iceland, that props for both shows are able to be procured, and that marketing materials for both shows can happen. It will also ensure that everyone going to Iceland will be in a place that they can pay their way for food and experiences in Iceland and focus on the festival and experience we'll be participating in.

 

What We Need:

 

Presently, this is what expenses are looking like for both shows:

 

This is a total, already, of about $7376.15 in expenses!

 

These are productions, and some ticketing income will happen! (Hopefully!) Which means:

 

There will likely be ticket sales for each show, and our hope is that in a worst case scneario, ticket sales will cover some of these expenses, but we are hoping that we can use them to split the profits to pay our artists for their time and talents.

 

For PortFringe we could expect anywhere between $150 (if we have really low attendance) and $750 (I believe close to the max) in ticket expenses. This is in large part because of our three performances, after which we are splitting all ticket sales with the other two shows on our docket.

 

For Reykjavik, the maximum we could take home in ticket sales would be the USD equivalent of $3,360 (the festival takes about 30% of the $4800 max we could make), but I would like to be realistic and recognize that we're an international act and unless we knock it out of the park on our marketing (you never know!), I would be surprised if we got half as much. So, I don't know how much to count on, and we'll again want to give some payment to our artists who participate, even if it's small, for their time (in excess of travel reimbursements).

 

We are ALSO hoping to host a fundraiser preview event prior to Reykjavik to test our ideal format, but it is doubtful how much we will make at that event and it's possible that we'll barely break even between venue costs and the ticket sales. But if we do raise money here, we'll put that also toward this total!

 

There's about 3% and change fees from GoFundMe for processing on each transaction, but there is no platform fee here like there is for any other platform like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo, and GFM allows us to get money as it comes in, so we're hopeful this will be useful!

 

Risks & Challenges

 

We've already paid for our trip and production fees for PortFringe, so at bare minimum, these two productions can still happen.

 

But I think that everyone going to Reykjavik will be in better financial situations should we raise the funds to reimburse travel expenses.

 

This being said, I think we have a solid grasp on our goals, and I really hope that we'll set ourselves up so that none of us are going to Reykjavik with money as our primary concern.

 

FINALLY:

 

I'd just like to thank you all for getting this far and for your support! If you cannot donate, I completely understand, there are MANY good causes and projects right now. But if you help us share and spread the word to your family and friends, you could help Polyphonic and Chimera bring a great little piece to PortFringe without worrying about the budget, and can help those of us going to Reykjavik, just a scrappy little company from Maine with friends across the US, make a bit of an international imprint and bring back new stories and connections to our friends here in the Greater Portland area, all without needing to worry about if we're going to have enough to eat while we're there.

 

And finally, perks are generally frowned upon on GoFundMe, but I'll be thanking donors on the Chimera social media channels (unless you ask to be anonymous), and we might do some fun general thank you updates when we get to Iceland to share our journey with you!

 

Either way, your support (financial and vocal) is much appreciated. I am so excited to get to work with my friends at Polyphonic again, and I never thought, a year ago, that we'd be bringing a version of Story Gauntlet anywhere, let alone live, and it's such a great opportunity.