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Support NAMT While You Shop This Holiday Season!

Did you know that you can help support NAMT simply by doing your holiday shopping online? Just use this link to access Amazon (or go to smile.amazon.com and select NAMT as your charitable organization), and shop as you normally would. Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of your purchases to NAMT — it doesn’t cost you (or the merchants you’re purchasing from) a thing!

 
But wait, there’s more! Buying New York theatre tickets? Head to Givenik for discount offers, and we get 5%! They also have group rates on theatre, opera, and even sports!

Finally, if you find yourself with some free time and some opinions over the holiday break, why not fill out a few market research surveys at Opinions For Good? Op4G will pay you for your time (usually just a few minutes and a few clicks), and you decide how much to share with NAMT. It’s easy and fun; everyone wins!

 
Of course, if you just want to remember NAMT in your year-end giving, you can give here now, or check out all of the ways to support us (including our Players Program and corporate event sponsorship opportunities) throughout the year.
All of us at NAMT wish you the best for this holiday season, and a wonderful start to 2016!
 

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NAMT News

Support NAMT While You Shop This Holiday Season!

Did you know that you can help support NAMT simply by doing your holiday shopping online? Just use this link to access Amazon (or go to smile.amazon.com and select NAMT as your charitable organization), and shop as you normally would. Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of your purchases to NAMT — it doesn’t cost you (or the merchants you’re purchasing from) a thing!

But wait, there’s more! Buying New York theatre tickets? Head to Givenik for discount offers, and we get 5%! They also have group rates on theatre, opera, and even sports!

Finally, if you find yourself with some free time and some opinions over the holiday break, why not fill out a few market research surveys at Opinions For Good? Op4G will pay you for your time (usually just a few minutes and a few clicks), and you decide how much to share with NAMT. It’s easy and fun; everyone wins!

Of course, if you just want to remember NAMT in your year-end giving, you can give here now, or check out all of the ways to support us (including our Players Program and corporate event sponsorship opportunities) throughout the year.
All of us at NAMT wish you the best for this holiday season, and a wonderful start to 2016!
 

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Video Series: Measure What Matters

Our friends at TRG Arts have launched a video series called Measure What Matters: 6 Metrics Arts Leaders Should Track. Every Tuesday from now through October 20, they’ll be posting a brief video explaining different ways your organization can use data you probably already have “to assess [your] current situation, stabilize [your] business model, and start generating working capital.” 

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Do you have opinions? Do you want to get paid to share those opinions and help NAMT at the same time? Opinions 4 Good (OP4G) is an online market research company that provides funding for nonprofits across the country by sharing the fees from their clients with us. Here’s how it works: You sign up for OP4G using this link, and designate a percentage of your fees you’d like donated to NAMT. Then, whenever you have a few minutes, take some market research surveys on the site and we both get paid! It’s that simple. And we promise you won’t get any spam. The average survey pays $3.50 for about 10 minutes of your time.
Plus, OP4G will donate to NAMT for each new member who joins their online survey community, so you can help us just by signing up.
 
OP4G calls this “digital volunteering.” We call it easy and fun. Members of our staff have signed up and taken the surveys — we’d never recommend it to you if we hadn’t tried it!
Join today and donate to NAMT without spending a dime.
Thanks!

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Fall Conference 2011 - Inspiration in Tough Times

In addition to the Festival of New Musicals, NAMT held our annual Fall Conference for our members and invited guests last weekend.  Since it takes place in conjunction with the Festival, the Fall Conference typically focuses on new works.  This year we decided to take a more holistic approach, looking at the overall health and future of the art form and the industry.

We couldn’t have asked for a better start than the keynote speech by legendary director and producer Harold Prince.  Hal spoke passionately about his long career and the state of the field today, with particular focus on what he sees as a lack of mentoring opportunities for young producers and artists, and a lack of singular “creative producers” in a world where making theatre has become prohibitively expensive and making a living as an artist seems next to impossible.  That sounds dour but it wasn’t!  I think the attendees were inspired by the challenge to support young artists and create work with passion – something at which most NAMT members already excel.

From there we heard from a wide variety of educators about how they are working to train exactly the next generation that Hal spoke about nurturing.  We spoke about young musical theatre writers who have never heard of Sondheim (!), who are coming to the field with stories to tell and all sorts of musical styles in their backgrounds.  Plus actors, directors and more, and how we’re preparing them to enter the industry with new works and classics alike.

The last panel of the day was a challenging one, addressing the issues of racial diversity (or lack thereof) in musical theatre.  This hour-long session could easily have been twice as long, as the issues ranged so widely, including color-blind casting (“I prefer non-traditional, color-specific casting,” said Ralph Remington of the NEA, meaning a conscious choice made to change a character’s race), diversity of stories being told, and audience outreach to different communities. It was a great discussion that barely scratched the surface, but challenged attendees to think about these issues and how we can serve the art, and our communities – both artistic and in the audience.

Day two began with an unexpected bonus: Ralph Remington from the NEA talked with us about changes at the NEA and the current state of federal funding for the arts.  As anyone following the news will have guessed, it wasn’t the best news we heard this day!  But it was a great opportunity for NAMT members to gain insight into the granting process and have a dialogue about the challenges they face and the goals of the NEA.

Segueing nicely, four NAMT members shared stories and case studies of how they’ve been able to keep costs down during the recession without sacrificing the quality their audiences expect.  Attendees came away with adaptable, scalable ideas they could use in their own theatres. 

The next panel looked at the challenges of recording new shows for promotion or sale, especially regional productions.  Cast albums are essential to getting new shows “out there” to potential new fans and producers, but they’re expensive to make and rarely make much money back. Fortunately our panel included people who are passionate and committed to preserving new shows, including Sh-K-Boom Records founder Kurt Deutsch, and the Grammys’ Elizabeth Healy, who made sure we knew that any cast album can be submitted for a Grammy Award, not just Broadway shows, and that without submissions the category could be in danger.

Next up was a continuation of last year’s session on continued life for new works – the challenges of getting second productions and beyond.  A lot has changed in the last twenty years or so.  How does a new work enter the canon, especially if it doesn’t go through Broadway first?  There were no easy answers, but the NAMT members seem to be leading the charge to keep the new works pipeline going.

After lunch and some small group discussions, we came back together to end the conference with a session on new looks at classic works, and how NAMT member theatres are adapting classics to fit their spaces and budgets, and to appeal to new audiences, with the support of the licensers and estates.

It was a very inspiring and information-filled two days, only slightly hampered by unseasonal snow!  I personally always find our conferences very energizing, as I love seeing our members and hearing about all the great theatre happening around the country.  It’s encouraging to see members sharing ideas and resources, taking techniques that are scalable and adaptable to organizations of all different sizes.

NAMT conferences are open to members and invited guests only.  The next one will be held on March 22-24, 2012 in Seattle and will be about marketing. I hope to see you there!

Photos by David T. Cole

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Supply & Demand

Have you heard of the controversy surrounding Rocco Landesman’s remarks at last week’s new play convening at Arena Stage? To simplify, Rocco questions the increase in arts institutions in the last 20 years, when audience participation in the arts has decreased, begging the question — Is there too much supply and not enough demand? You can read his blog post and comment as well on the NEA’s site.
The NAMT Board is about to embark on our strategic plan retreat. One of the key questions raised by our members in the survey you completed in December mirrors the issues addressed by Rocco: audiences. How can we keep current audiences and attract new audiences to the theatre? What innovative methods can we find, as a field, to bring audiences to musicals? What role does new work play? These are big questions. I am excited to tackle these issues with our dedicated board members. Our goal is to have the final plan approved by the Board for our Spring Conference in San Francisco, to present to the membership. NAMT is in a strong position today, as an organization, and we look forward to great things to come.

Kathy Evans
Executive Director

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Join Op4G and Help NAMT!

Do you like to give your opinion? Do you like pocket money? Would you like to help NAMT support the development of new musicals? Now you can do ALL THREE! Last week we told you about our new relationship with Op4G, and I wanted to mention it again because I am so excited about its potential to help you and NAMT. In my long career of hearing businesses tout “win-win” scenarios, I believe this truly is! Op4G is a market research company partnering with not-for-profits to find a select demographic base for their corporate clients. If you join, you get paid for giving your opinion on surveys and a portion of your payment is donated to NAMT. It’s easy to join. Go to www.Op4G.com and click on the orange “Join Op4g” button. When asked to “select your non-profit”, select National Alliance for Musical Theatre. Indicate how much of your payment you want to donate to NAMT – between 25% and 100%.

Please spread the word by sharing this link. If we can get lots of people to join Op4G and choose NAMT as their not-for-profit, we could create a donation income stream to help writers and producers that will last for years.

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