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Good Evening!
I am reaching out this evening to try and find some manpower for a couple of upcoming events. First, we have been given the opportunity to sell water and Gatorade at the graduation ceremony. This is a pretty easy opportunity, but it will take 4 to 8 volunteers to make it work. We will have one station on the home side and one station on the visitor side. Volunteers would need to arrive at 6 pm to set up and should be finished by 8:30. If you are willing and able to help out with this project, please email or call at your earliest convenience. If you have questions, I will be glad to try and answer them. Second, we are still in need of some volunteers to help out with the box office and concession stand for the last weekend of Peter and the Starcatcher. Currently, we need volunteers for Friday night, Saturday morning concessions, Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon. If you are able to help, please sign up using the link below. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0c49acab29a3fecf8-boxoffice1 Our year-end banquet is scheduled for next Thursday, May 27 at 7:00 pm. We will have refreshments in the lobby beginning at 6:30 pm and begin the formal program in the Black Box Theater at 7 pm. This will be a time of celebration as we check out the year in review, hand out informal awards, the annual Pony Awards, and departmental awards. We will induct new members into our troupe of the International Thespian Society, announce officers for the new year, and have the 2021-2022 season announcement. The banquet is always a special time and you are welcome to attend with your child. I have requested an RSVP. If you have not seen the invitation, you can access it below. Please have your student make the reservation for everyone in your party. If you have any questions, please let me know and I will be glad to answer them. Finally, registrations are going well for our summer camp and we look forward to even more. If you know of any Kindergarten through 8th grade students who would be interested in participating in this camp, please let them know they can register at eastlincolnonstage.org/camp. If they register before June first, they can use the coupon code EARLYBIRD for a discount on the registration fee. Thank you so much for all of your help and support this year. While our banquet is intended to celebrate the past year, it is also my hope that it kicks off a year of celebration and rejuvenation for our performing arts programs. My best, Mr. Franklin
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Good Afternoon Everyone! Below are a few updates concerning the production over the next week and a half.
Good Afternoon! I hope everyone is well and that the rehearsal of British accents at your house is not driving you too crazy.
Tickets for Peter and the Starcatcher will go on sale to the public, Monday, May 3 at 8 am. I want to share a little bit of information with you about Saturday morning shows in case friends and family have questions. Children are welcome at any of the performances, but we will be doing some special things for our youngest audience members at these Saturday morning shows. There will be some modified language, audience participation opportunities, photos with cast members, and more. We are very excited about adding these enhanced performances to our traditional showings. Since we pushed Shrek back a month, it has made a quick turnaround for Peter and the Starcatcher (PATSC.) So, as hard as it seems to believe, we are moving in to our tech week rehearsals beginning on Monday which last until 8 pm. During these rehearsals, I reach out to see if we have parents willing to help us out by bringing a meal for the students. Most of our meal times are planned for 5 pm. If you would like to help but aren't able to prepare a meal or pick something up, we do have someone who is willing to take your donation and convert it into a meal. If that interests you, please reach out to me directly. To sign up for a meal, please click HERE. We have 15 students in the cast and crew and we have a peanut allergy. Additionally, we are looking for some volunteers to help with the box office and concessions at the performances. We will not have to deal with health screenings at this show, so our box office representative will simply be a welcoming face, checking off patrons, and working with the student ushers to get everyone seated. Our concessions volunteer will make sure that the concessions and merchandise are set up and ready for intermission, run the table during intermission, and put everything away after. Each of these slots are about 45 minutes in duration. If you are willing and able to help with one or more of these slots, click HERE to sign up. Finally, we are collecting food and drink items for the concession stand. The list of needs can be found HERE. We would like to try and have all donations received by Wednesday, May 12. Items can be brought to Mr. Franklin's office in room 302. I think you are in for a real treat with this show. I am constantly laughing through the rehearsals. Please help us spread the word so we can fill the audience for all of our shows. My best, Mr. Franklin Good Morning Everyone!
If you placed an order for a performance recording of Shrek, those are ready to be picked up in my office. If you did not place an order but would like to, simply pop me an email at gregory.franklin@lcsnc.org and let me know. Recording packages are $25 and include a performance recording and a picture collection from various performances. You may get your copy on either DVD/CD or Flash Drive. Thanks everyone! Mr. F Well folks, after two dress rehearsals, seven performances, two streaming shows, and a cast party, that brings Shrek the Musical at East Lincoln to an end.
I hope it was a good experience for you. It was not normal, but I enjoyed it. I especially loved watching the cast continue to develop their roles through the very last performance. That is what educational theatre is all about! I finally have my thoughts together on recordings of the performance. First, please help me share with your friends and family that these sales are very important to our ability to pay the bills from this show. Please encourage them to not simply purchase one copy and duplicate to share with others. I can't force folks to do the right thing, but I am going to try and encourage it the best I can. After all, any money that comes into the program goes straight back into future opportunities for the students. I won't belabor the point, but I hope you understand and will help me share that message. There are two options for recordings, both are $25. The first option is a DVD/CD combo. This will include a DVD of the performance and a CD with production pictures. The second option is a flash drive that will include the performance video as well as a production pictures folder. Please email any orders to gregory.franklin@lcsnc.org. They will be ready to pick up beginning the Monday after spring break. Any checks should be written to East Lincoln StageHANDS. If you have any questions, please let me know. My best, Mr. F Good Afternoon Shrek Families!
I hope everyone is well and looking forward to the upcoming performances of Shrek the Musical. I want to begin by thanking all of the families that generously signed up to provide a meal for the cast and crew during tech week and production weeks. These meals are a great time saver that allows us to maximize our rehearsal time, but even more than that, it provides a great time for the cast and crew to just socialize, laugh, and enjoy each other's company. I also want to thank everyone who has signed up to bring in items for our concessions. There are still several slots available if you are interested in helping out. I would like to try and get all the donations in by the end of the school day on Wednesday so I can make sure we have everything we need for Thursday's opening. You can still sign up HERE! Finally, we are looking for one or two volunteers to help out at each performance. One shift will cover the wellness checks required prior to entering the theatre. This volunteer will simply welcome our guests, ask the mandatory COVID-19 questions, and check their temperature. Unlike the run of Little Shop of Horrors, we do not have to record each patron and their temperature, so this will be a much smoother process. The second shift is assisting with concessions and merchandise during intermission. This volunteer will simply run the sales during that window. If you are interested and willing to assist with one or more performances, please visit the sign-up HERE. Ticket sales have gone well, and that is great news! As of 2 pm, there were 20 seats remaining for the entire run of Shrek. I am very excited that our new superintendent and at least one school board member will be joining the audience for Shrek. It makes me very happy that they will have the opportunity to see first hand how wonderful these actors and technicians are! There have been a few quirks with the online platform. If you have any issue purchasing tickets, please reach out to me and I will be glad to process them on my end. I do NOT want purchasing tickets to be a frustrating experience for anyone. If you have not already, I encourage you to grab tickets quickly before they are gone. Please let me know if you have any questions and I look forward to seeing you in the swamp! My best, Mr. F Good Afternoon Everyone!
As promised, here are two links for ways you can help over the next few weeks. 1. We are looking for individuals or groups that are willing to help us out with 10 meals for the cast and crew over the next three weeks. Sign-ups will take place using Signup Genius, and that link is below. Last year, we had some parents who wanted to help but were not able to actually get the food and make sure it was at school for meal time. In those situations, those parents donated money and another parent purchased and prepared the food. That offer still stands for this show. If you are interested in donating the money for someone else to prepare the meal, please contact me directly and I will get you more specific information. There are at least two restaurants that have offered to do food for us on different occasions. I am currently contacting them and am hopeful that they will still be willing to do a meal for the cast and crew. If you have questions, please let me know. Each slot has a meal time. Please notice they are not all the same. Also, we have students with nut and mint allergies, so please keep that in mind as you are preparing the menu. SHREK MEAL SIGNUPS 2. We are also collecting items for our concession stand. If you are willing to help with that effort, there is an additional signup genius link below that will give you more information about what is needed. In general, we are looking for a variety of chips, chocolate candy bars, non-chocolate candy, cookies, and drinks. We are asking that these items be turned in to Mr Franklin's office by Wednesday, March 17. If you have questions, please reach out. SHREK CONCESSION DONATIONS 3. If you are interested in a parent ad for the playbill and have not already submitted that information, please do that by the end of the day Monday. We will be finishing up the playbills and printing them around the middle of the week. 4. At this time, none of the shows are sold out, however opening night is close. There are about 120 tickets remaining. 5. This week is tech week, and that means it is an intense time for our actors and technicians. Our rehearsal schedule this week is from 3:30 pm until 8:00 pm. 6. Finally, I shared some financial information with the students earlier in the week to try and help them understand why their teacher is constantly trying to get them help secure advertisements and sponsorships. I am sharing that information at the very bottom of this post. I think, in general, most people don't understand what expenses exist for producing a show before we ever buy a costume, prop, or set piece. Unfortunately we are running out of time to secure these. As of Saturday at 1:25 pm, we have three sponsors and one advertisement. Last year we had 7 sponsors and 16 advertisements. If you are willing to help in the last few days, please let me know. Please let me know if you have questions. Mr. F Financial Information Shared With Students Earlier In The Week Good Morning Friends! I wanted to share a little math with you this morning to potentially help you understand why your teacher is super stressed about money and can't seem to quit asking you to help. *To start, it costs $900 to rent the scripts and rights to perform the show. *We must pay $110 each time we perform the show for an audience. (7 x$110=$770) *Rehearsal tracks and performance tracks together cost $750. *Sales tax on those materials is $169.40 Before one costume piece, prop, or set materials are purchased, the cost to produce the show is $2589.40. We are performing 7 shows with a maximum of 30 audience members per show. The maximum revenue for 7 shows is $2100. So, without sponsorships and advertisements, and zero purchases for any costumes, props, or set materials, we start in the hole $489. I did purchase a video license in hopes that we can sell a few DVDs of your performance. That license cost is $75. If we sell 15 recordings at $15, and take away the $75 license fee, that would bring in $150, leaving us still $339 in the hole before any purchases. I also purchased a streaming license so that we can try to get some audience members that way. The streaming license is $75. Additionally, for each streaming event, we have to pay either $35 or 15% of how much money we take in. We would need to sell 25 $10 streaming passes before we had to pay more than $35. So, let's say we have 20 streamers for each streaming event that paid $10. We have brought in $400, take away $35 x 2 for the events, and the $75 for the license, streaming brought in $255. If we sell out each show, sell 15 recordings of the performance, and have 40 streamers, we will still be starting in the hole $84 without purchasing any costume pieces, props, or set materials. You might say, but what about selling shirts! When we sell shirts, the ones we sell cover the cost of the ones you all receive for being in the show. So, I don't count that money in the big picture. What about concessions? The money that comes in from concessions is not significant, and is hard to even begin to estimate. As of right now, we have brought in $1350 in sponsorship money, and one $150 ad. I tell you all this to try and help you understand that advertisements and sponsorships are a bigger deal right now than they have ever been, and I have gotten less help than ever before. It is also a MAJOR deal to make sure that each show is sold out. For each empty seat, we go more into the hole financially. Good Evening!
I hope everyone continues to be well as we move into the final stretch of this production! I only have a few things to share this evening.
I hope you have a wonderful week ahead! Mr. F Good Evening Shrek Families, I wanted to take a quick minute to catch you up on a few production related items.
 Thank you for your continued support of the performing arts programs at East Lincoln! If you have questions about any of the information included in this update, please feel free to call or email Mr. Franklin at gregory.franklin@lcsnc.org or (704) 736-1017, extension 25302.
After spending some time with the documents and conferring with Ms. Avery and Central Services, I am thrilled to share that our requirements have not changed based on last week's Phase 3 extension. So, A Christmas Story will proceed using the same protocols used for Little Shop of Horrors. Tickets for all performances are now on sale online. I am also looking for some larger props and set items for this particular show. Since you never know what people have in storage, I thought I would put it out there and see anyone has a lead. There will definitely be more coming, but for now, these are the big ones. Please let me know if you are able to help with any of these items.
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AuthorGreg Franklin CategoriesArchives
May 2021
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