Purpose of ARTC

2007/08/23

Submitted by Hal Wiedeman

Executive Summary (aka Cliff's Notes)

The purpose of ARTC is to produce original audio theater. We need more original material. We need additional production capability.

What direction should we go with ARTC?

I think it is worth establishing how we are going to figure out what that direction is. In order to facilitate this, there are some first principles that I think we need to resolve . The Laws of Thermodynamics have been paraphrased as follows :

1. You can't win. 2. You can't break even. 3. We're all going to die .

If you apply these laws to ARTC, you get the following

1. TANSTAAFL . 2. An organization must take in more money than it expends. 3. Our job as board members is to ensure that sufficient energy is expended to make certain that the degree of entropy decreases rather than increases as it would otherwise tend to do .

Some obvious corollaries:

1. If it ain't fun, we ain't gonna do it. 2. There will be occasions when the preceding doesn't apply. 3. There are limits on how many different things we can try to do.

The direction must be something the individual members want to do. I do not recognize the existence of “membership” as an independent entity in this context . For this reason, I am not inclined to poll the “membership” about anything. Individual members can and should be asked to give their thoughts as to what direction they want ARTC to go in. However, I do not believe that everybody can have an equal influence about what we should do. There must be some relationship between contribution and influence . Fortunately, we have the laws of supply and demand to help us establish what is of value:

Some examples (you can make up your own):

We have many more actors than we have roles for them to play; actors are therefore of limited value. We have writers; but we have a great need of good writing; good, prolific writers are therefore of great value.

The Prime Directive

I recommend the following Prime Directive:

The purpose of ARTC is to produce original audio theater.

The following are examples that do not work well with the concept .

Telephone Answering Machines, Music On Hold etc. is not theater. Books On Tape are not original theater . Snow, Glass, Apples is not original . Dramatic Readings are not original theater. Running a record label is not theater. MRAP.

On the other hand, the following examples work well:

CD Productions Live Shows at Conventions/Stage Door

Our educational goals which are required as part of our 501(c)(3) statement are satisfied by the educational process that occurs during each production. I, for one, always learn something. If we would like to do more, we certainly could. A specific educational program, however, would probably distract us from the prime directive. Our 501(c)(3)community goals are satisfied by our live public performances and outreach efforts to the visually impaired.

Exceptions

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

The fact of the matter is that occasionally we run into production opportunities that our members find intriguing or interesting for one reason or another that will conflict with the prime directive. As long as we recognize the situation for what it is and there are no adverse consequences (financial or time), we should accommodate these opportunities . We should, however, always go back to the Prime Directive when looking at possible trade offs.

Challenges

In my opinion, the two biggest challenges facing ARTC are the generation of new original material and the production of same. Fiscal stability is certainly important – but it really isn't the most important item. In a similar manner, food is important for life, but it doesn't feed the soul.

The generation of new programming is the most difficult of these challenges. TV networks spend vast fortunes pursuing a mere 15 hours per week of prime time . ARTC produced about 3 hours of original programming last year from a very small pool of active, but dedicated (and dare I add, talented and good looking ) writers. We have to encourage our existing writers to write more and we have to find new ones. In my opinion, there is nothing more important to the future of ARTC than the writers . It is what makes ARTC unique; otherwise, we are just another regional theater group with a gimmick.

While the generation of new programming is tough, the challenge of actually producing the material is not trivial. There are studio projects that exist in a half finished limbo. To the untutored observer such as myself, progress on some projects appears to be glacial, if not actually retrograde. I do not know enough about the production process to suggest a cure for the situation. It may require more staff; It may require fewer projects; It may require more resources. In any event, it is a serious situation that needs to be addressed.