Not only did we have a great time doing interviews and hanging out with each other, but we really had a blast interacting with the chat room as our supporters got to know each other and asked us questions about the project. We’ll continue to do these Livestream events as we progress with the show because it’s a great way of keeping our audience up to date in a very dynamic way. I’m sure we’ll also  keep making crazy video shorts as well because we’ve really enjoyed putting those together and the feedback has been positive. I did a blog post on our This Is Art blog with more details on how we put the Livestream event together, if you’re interested in more detailed information. One of the best functions of Livestream is that it records your broadcasts, so if someone missed out, they can catch up easily by watching the video. Let me know what you thought!

The Beautiful Soup Theater Collective had a great show yesterday! Alice at the Soho Playhouse is really starting to take off and all of us are really enjoying the new cuts and pacing for the show. We had a bit of a rough start but yesterday we all felt so good bout the production. I finally feel like I have a grasp on the new role I’ve assumed and I’m feeling like I’m finally doing my own thing with it. I can’t wait to get back into Dee’s shoes next weekend and muck around some more. We even had a little girl in the audience who was so thrilled with the whole thing and took some really adorable photos with the cast afterward.

We could really use your support next weekend because the owner of the theater is coming to decide if he wants to keep the show on. We need to get as many people there as possible. That’s right, the future of the our theatrical livelihood depends on YOU!

You can purchase your tickets on the Soho Playhouse website. Also, let me know if you want to come and I can try to arrange some sort of discount. The show is just an hour long and it starts at 1PM every Saturday so it’s hardly a huge time commitment. If you’re a blogger, I can definitely get you a comped ticket if you agree to blog about the show. Feel free to contact me at annerichmond (at) mac (dot) com if you’re interested. I’ll love you forever and ever if you come to the show next Saturday!

Let’s be honest, I already do love you forever and ever, but who doesn’t want more love of the “ever and ever” persuasion?

#1.

We’ve been running our campaign for This Is Art on Indiegogo and we have 12 days left to reach our goal. So far we’ve raised 96% of the money and we’re just $220 away. What astounds me, touches me, and humbles me is the vast number of people from all the corners of my life who have stepped forward to support this project. Friends from college and highschool, family members, family friends, industry professionals, cast mates, co-workers, fellow World of Warcraft players, fan community friends- so many people with such generous spirits are making this dream a reality. The money has come in $10s, $50s, and $100s, and every single person has had an impact on our ability to tell a story that Emily Floyd and I have been working on for over a year.

I’m just so unbelievably grateful for all the support we’ve received. It brings me to tears at times because I put so much effort into working on my craft to harness its power. I often work alone in subway cars and dark rooms with lots of Diet Coke and ramen to sustain me. Sometimes I begin to think that my ideas are just that- ideas, insubstantial as wisps of smoke and unworthy of consequence.

It is at moments like this, when I feel the powerful beating of war drums behind me, signaling a rally cry to all who believe in my magical artistic whiles (ok, this is getting a little overly epic but screw you all, I FEEL SUPER EPIC), screaming “We got your back, girl. Chase your mother-frakkin’ dreams.” NOTE: Literally, that’s what I hear in my head every time time someone donates. That and the drums.

To celebrate passing $5000 funded, Emily and I created the following video full of big news for the campaign and plenty of g33ky shenanigans. In keeping with the theme of this blog post, Emily is truly one of the most awesome people I have ever known both as a collaborator and a friend and it makes my heart smile when I realize the prize for all this hard work is that we get to tell our story together.

So if you’ve been waiting to donate, now’s the time. Every donation will be matched until we reach our goal on Indiegogo! Also, look out for details about our Ustream event. We’ll be releasing information about that very soon.

To those who have donated already, thank you for being so epic in every way and for supporting my work. Over 5,298 people have viewed our page on Indiegogo and we don’t even have a show made yet! Thank you. Thank You. Thank you. You are all awesome.

Also awesome: We were featured in the Indiegogo Newsletter! :) How cool is that?

In the spirit of awesomeness that is now consuming me, I want to link back to a few of our supporters with projects of their own.

-Danielle Earle has been a real champion of our cause, posting about our campaign everywhere she can and we love her for it. She’s also the creator/writer/director behind the webseries Brooklyn Is In Love, which is currently running its own Indiegogo campaign to raise money for Season 2. Go get ‘em Danielle!

-Tim Ferrara has been a friend of mine both through Emily and through playing World of Warcraft. Not only is he everyone’s favorite shaman, but he’s also a very talented artist with a great web comic called Honey and the Whirlwind. Go and read it immediately!*

-Annie Stoll is another supporter and friend who’s artistry knows no bounds. She attends many conventions and her work is very popular, both original and fan pieces. Check out her page!*

*NOTE: You can hear both Tim, Annie, and many others interviewed on my New York Comic Con coverage for The Anomaly Podcast. I also interview Ashley Eckstein (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Her Universe) and Marian Call (g33k musician extraordinaire!).

-J. Sibley Law has been supporting my work since the creation of my other webseries, O-Cast. He is such a positive presence in the web community and a genius to boot! He is the creator of Tango Dango, an online webseries channel with unique programming posted every single day.

-Justin Nichols is a friend from high school and a supporter of the show who has just graduated from art school and has begun his postgrad acting journey (just like Cami and D in This Is Art!). He’s currently working on a show called Peter and I that all of you should like on Facebook so you can follow their progress. DO IT!

-Victor Solis is a new friend to the show with his own series, Generic Girl. It’s superhero comedy webseries about the adventures of roommates Gillian & Pete (aka Captain Freelance) as they battle villains, unions, and a mysterious ancient machine. They have 10 hours left on their Indiegogo campaign, so check them out and help them try to get as close to their goal as possible!

#2

We reopened Alice at the Soho Playhouse last Saturday and it felt so good to be on stage with Emily, Steven, and the rest of the cast. The show itself is a lot faster and truly is turning out to be a delightful romp in Wonderland.

The people in this cast are so talented and what’s more, they’ve all been so supportive as I get over this sickness that has been plaguing me for the last two weeks. Everyone has gotten me water, run lines with me through coughing fits, and just been extremely patient with me which I appreciate so much.

In a few weeks, my friend Steven is coming up from Florida to see my Off Broadway debut. He is another person who is awesome! I can’t wait to galavant around the city with him and have him in the audience!

If you’re reading this, you should come to the show cause the more people we can get in the first few weeks, the better it will be for us in the long run. So come and watch me rap, improv with Steven and Emily, and dance the frug with the Queen of Hearts. You won’t regret it!

#3

This morning I got into Pottermore! I never thought I would because I’m so heavily scheduled over the seven days that they are running the early access event that I figured I wouldn’t have time to check the site often enough to see if the magic quill was there.

If that sounds like crazynerdspeakese, here’s the deal. For seven days, they’re accepting people into Pottermore, the new online interactive Harry Potter experience created by J. K. Rowling. Each day at a random time, a magic quill leaves a trivia question on the Pottermore site. You use your answer to figure out the web address location of the quill and if you get it right within enough time, you can sign up for Pottermore. However they only accept a certain number of people a day and after they’re capped for the day, the question disappears and you have to wait till the next day to check the site over and over for when the next clue appears, etc.

So where was I? AH YES. Awesome people. Namely, Kenny Mittleider, an online friend who hosts the Knights of the Guild Podcast and M*A*S*H 4077 Podcast. This morning as I wiped the sleep from my eyes and perused Twitter, I saw Kenny announce the clue was up on Pottermore. He had posted only a few minutes prior so I immediately dashed to the site and sure enough, the question was up and I knew the answer too! I quickly pieced the clue together to find the location of the quill. At first it sent me to a Sony site where I could buy Harry Potter things and I thought, “No, damn you! Your marketing is wasting precious time!” I quickly reloaded the page and sure enough there it was! The page invited me to sign up for Pottermore and choose a username (they give you five preselected options to help protect your identity). Out of my options, I chose NightThestral197 in order to stay house neutral. After all, we’re going to be sorted once we get to Hogwarts! Within moments I finally had proof that I was, in fact, magical!

There is an awesomely heartwarming part of this story. It began with Kenny’s frustration over continuing to miss the quill on the site. The next day, he was shocked to find a thoughtful friend had signed him up for Pottermore. He wrote an adorable blog entry about it which is how I came to know the whole story.

Why, you ask, would someone forgo their own chance at Pottermore for Kenny, you might ask? Because he is awesome, kind, and generous to everyone. DUH!

Kenny is a huge Potter fan and even has a tattoo of the Hogwarts crest to prove it! When I visited LA for Blizzcon last year, Kenny took me to Whimsicalley, a Harry Potter themed store. We had the best time and I bought a wand for my mother who is also obsessed with all things Potter.

So our Potter fanship (mashup of friendship and fan! Come on, I thought that was clever!) goes way back. At any rate, I’m so happy that Kenny passed his good karma my way and I was able to get an early acceptance letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I wouldn’t have been able to do it if he hadn’t thought to share the news with his friends on Twitter. Since Kenny didn’t get a chance to see his name written down in the book of magical folk, I quickly photoshopped his name into the image and put a little white mist behind his name for highlights and voila! I sent it off to him this morning so he could feel official in his magical aptitude.

And that, my friends, is why I learned that people are awesome this week.

This past week, I’ve been rehearsing for Alice Off Broadway at the Soho Playhouse with the Beautiful Soup Theater Collective. We’ve been rushing to get the show back on its feet in time to start our open ended run. It’s been really fun to return to working with this particular cast and of course, stepping into my new roles in the show is very invigorating. In addition to the Gryphon and the Seven of Hearts, I’ll be taking on the role of Tweedle Dee. The show has also been shortened to an hour and it’s playing at 1PM on Saturdays starting July 30th. We could really use some good crowds on the first few weekends if you’re in the NYC area. If we do well, they may add Sunday performances and possibly increase our pay rate. If you or any of your friends are bloggers who want to see a free show and write about it in return, I can put you in touch with our director. We’re currently trying to get the word out to as many people as possible. Oh! Apparently there will also be a segment on CBS about the show at some point, so I’ll post about that when I get more information or even possibly a clip to share. Let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to more of me beatboxing and rapping in Wonderland? What, you don’t believe me? Exhibit A:

A few weeks ago I preformed in a concert called Miscast to benefit Beautiful Soup’s new season. We were asked to select songs sung by characters we could never play. I sang “Agony” from Into the Woods with Emily Floyd and “C’est Moi” from Camelot. Needless to say, it was a very valorous and princely evening for me.

Beautiful Soup Theater Collective is also having a “Monologue Slam” to perform some new works and raise more money for the season in mid August. I’ve been asked to write and perform something for that evening so I’ll post more information on that when it becomes available. I will probably be dusting off some material from a one act I began writing in college called 10 Days. The show is a dramedy about two gamers who meet online and agree to meet in person and spend ten days together. Laughter, tears, and hijinks ensue.

Emily Floyd and I have also been very busy running our Indiegogo campaign to fund This Is Art, our comedy webseries about the postgraduate misadventures of a Broadway-or-bust diva and a kooky performance artist grasping at validation in the NYC art scene. After just a week, we’ve become over 50% funded, which is just astounding to me! Thank you so much to everyone who has donated and passed our information around on the web. We appreciate your help more than you know. I also wrote a post on the show’s blog offering insight into our progress and our crowd funding tactics.

Near the end of last week, we said that if we got to 50% funded in two days, we’d release a surprise video. To our astonishment, our donors nearly instantaneously helped us reach our goal! So, of course we created the following video to celebrate our progress, our gratitude, and the journey still to come.

That’s right people, I’m a red head now. It’s a new look, but a day later I’m over the shock and really diggin’ it.

Everyone has been so generous and words cannot express our appreciation, but we haven’t crossed the finish line yet. We still need to raise $2,390 in 24 days, so please help us in whatever way you can. If you’re able, please consider donating to our Indiegogo campaign and becoming part of our This Is Art family. Even if all you can give is your ability to spread the word, we benefit a lot from being linked on Facebook and Twitter. You’ll not only be helping us fund the show, but you’ll be helping us increase awareness of our project which is absolutely invaluable. With every donation we get one set closer to realizing our dreams. It’s definitely an exciting process.

Now back to work. These lines aren’t going to memorize themselves, people!

I have spent over a year in collaboration on this project with my partner, Emily Floyd, a fellow NYU Tisch graduate. We are both children of a new artistic age- a time when the advantage of open internet syndication is allowing artists all around the world to create and mass distribute their own content without having to depend on major networks to “green light” a project at the outset. Emily and I have written and developed the entire first season of our new show and are planning to broadcast it online in weekly episodes beginning this fall. This project is important to me not only because I love our story, but because if we are able to produce it with the high production value it deserves, we’ll be able to shop it around to professional industry distributors, hopefully leading to a financially viable future for the show both on the web and beyond! If this project is successful, I could be creating narrative content for the web as a full time career. This is an amazing concept to me, considering how much of the time I’m multitasking, working day jobs during the day and rehearsing/performing at night. It’s an exhausting existence and I know I could be more productive with my creative endeavors if I could truly focus my energy in that direction.

Our production team is currently ready to shoot the entire first season of This Is Art at the end of August. We have a big idea, the passion, and the drive to make this happen, but I’m reaching out to you today to ask for you help. We need to raise $6000 over the next 31 days in order to make this show happen. If we don’t meet our goal on Indiegogo by then, a year of hard work, laughter, and determination will end right there.

We are raising the money on Indiegogo because it gives us an easy way to spread the world virally around the web and because it gives our potential donors freedom and ease of donations no matter where they’re located. Donations can be made easily by credit card and depending on the amount they choose, they’ll receive a special thank you gift in return for their contributions, up to and including executive producer credit on the show.

So please, take a moment to view our introductory video featuring test footage and behind the scenes interviews with some our cast on our campaign page.. You’ll also find more information about the project and our aspirations. Spread the word on Facebook, Twitter, and by email if you are able and/or inclined. You can also check out our website and read our blog for updates on our progress.

Please consider donating to our project because you’ll not only allow us to realize our dream, but you’ll also be supporting new media entertainment, an industry that is redefining what art is every single day.

I just completed the run of Beautiful Soup Theater Collective’s ALICE AU PAYS DES MERVEILLES at The Soho Playhouse. It was very well received and there has been talk of an extended run. When I have more information, I’ll be sure to send it your way! It was a wild ride, as befits Wonderland, and I’m happy to know that the journey may not be at an end.

Now it’s time to prepare for fundraising to make This Is Art on Indiegogo. We are planning our video shoot for this Thursday and starting the campaign at the end of the month. You can keep up with all of our developments and news on our blog.