Hello. You've reached Paper Moon Repertory...

Bless you, Google Voice and Travis Bedard! Our baby (a.k.a. theatre company) has some digits--and I don't mean fingers. Now we've got our full contact info in place, which makes our website more of a reality.

Dave Meissner & I are developing Paper Moon Repertory in the best way we know how, which is to start with strong marketing and communication in place when we hit the ground. Yes, we're excited to put together a production and new script (that's the fun part, right?), but what good is that when you have no infrastructure for informing people of what you're about? It is show business, like it or not, and we can't neglect half of that phrase because we're of the acting persuasion.

Everyone looks at the basics. How much did we spend? How much did we make? Who is the audience, and how do we get butts in seats? We're lucky in that we already know who our target market is, given that we're gearing our initial projects for schools. But you still have to ask the harder questions because, plain and simple, you're still in competition for business: How is our fare unique? What will help build our credibility? What's the best card in our hand? What do we have that audiences need/miss? Would the customer perceive that we are professional at every contact point? And (from my product development days) do we have the WOW factor? There are hundreds of other questions to be asked, and all of these questions need answers before the website is launched, postcards are in the mail, and actors are off-book. Generating so many ideas and materials at once can seem a bit overwhelming (in the midst of wedding planning, no less), but we're confident that we're on the right track, even if it's a slow-movin' train.

*And if anyone out there has any suggestions for mailing list/data management, we'll gladly entertain them. I've used Filemaker Pro in the past for a database, but if there's a more theatre-friendly piece of software out there (and there must be), I'd love to hear first-hand feedback about its use. We won't be dealing with ticketing any time soon, but having that capability in the future is a big bonus.