All done.

Well, I'm all finished at Theatre Exile. This last week I finished up rewriting the TD Bank proposal. It was a community grant and Deb thought we should go for Studio X since it is a space that could serve our communities artistic needs. I said we should shoot for Paper Wings since that's our outreach program that has a specific and measurable impact on the community. Deb decided to go for Studio X the first time around since TD Bank has quarterly deadlines. We didn't get it. So this time around Deb had me go for Paper Wings.
We did a lot more work on this one than other paper Wings proposals though. Deb had me change a lot of things and I found out the teacher for the program will not be involved next year, quite a shock since she's in just about every proposal I sent out for the program, but how could I know?
Before I left I updated the excel spreadsheet for the 2010-2011 grant tracking file. I moved all the grants we applied for last year into the new file and searched for any deadlines that were listed. Basically tying up any loose ends before taking off.
I learned a lot in this internship, how to conduct more detailed internet searches, how to write proposals and how to use excel, which is pretty important since every job I look at wants me to be proficient in it. But most importantly I gained more confidence in my writing abilities. I discovered that I can learn new writing skills, and I can learn them quickly. I feel much better about my writing capabilities. This was an amazing learning environment for me.

Been awhile.

April was a weird month for me. I haven't posted at all because not a whole lot has been happening. Deb has been really busy with other things so whenever I was able to start something I got stuck when she was gone and couldn't go over what I had written. So a few times I helped Tenley or Brenna out with some research or got some programs together for Bryan.
I did have one really bad day a couple of weeks ago. Brenna has been having me do some research on movie theatres to have us advertise Exile before shows. I've been gathering info on companies that do that but there aren't a whole lot. So one day, after unsuccessfully trying to get the copy machine to correctly copy a play script(it's a long story) she had me do more research. Well, I hit a wall. There were no more companies I could find and she had said the ones I found weren't the ones she was looking for. I told her I didn't know where else to look. Mark, our marketing intern said he would try. Within five minutes he was on the phone to someone. I hadn't managed that in three weeks of research, off and on. I felt like a total goober. It was bad day all around. I had failed at every job Brenna had asked me to do. I was actually pretty depressed. If can't do simple jobs like that what the hell am I going to do in the real world. But it was just a bad day, we all have them.
I also took my vacation. Our friends from Cali came for a visit and we went to DC and New York, we also spent a couple of days in Philly showing them the sights.
But this week went much better. We actually made headway on the Quaker Chemical grant. Actually I finally finished it, got all the attachments together and mailed it out. A week before the deadline. I like getting these out before deadlines. I'm also almost done with the Delaware Valley Grant. Deb and I will go over that more on Tuesday and we should have the narrative done then.
Only one more week to go and I'm done with my internship.

Oops, never mind

For the last week and a half I've been working on the Penn Council on the Arts Youth Empowerment Grant. It's been a great experience. I've had to do more research on Paper Wings than I've normally done before. Deb and I also decided that it was time to create an actual document where we describe exactly what Paper Wings is and answer many of the most common questions we get about the program. This way we can cut and paste a majority of the answers we need and refine them to fit in with the particular grant we're writing.
Well, this morning Deb comes to me and says that we can't apply for the grant because they offer too much money. The lowest grant they offer is $25,000 and Paper Wings never spends more than $10,000 in one year. I guess my idea of going for a $50,000 grant and paying me $40,000 to work there for the next year wouldn't fly, oh well.
It's been a great experience, I now have a new document on paper Wings that we'll go through sometime soon and set it up for future use.
I started to work on another grant but Brenna wants to speak with Deb about it more, they're not even sure about applying for it. I had to leave early for meetings today but I'll get the goods tomorrow and see where they want to go with everything.

March 6, 2010

Last week not much happened. I went in Tuesday and began to help them with the 1678 application. I pretty much copied and pasted last year's narrative into a new document and began work on updating it. Sometimes that's all grant work is, updating. Thursday I went to the career fair at St. Joe's, what a f-ing joke! Most of them were looking for nothing more than salesmen or telemarketers. What the hell kind of job is that for a college graduate. You don't need an education for either one of those jobs, I know, I've done them both. That's why I went back to school so I would never have to do that again. Or they were looking for interns which is fine for a summer gig if you're still an undergrad. Anyway, I was so disappointed in my experience there I immediately went online and did my own job fair. I looked up jobs I want and applied for a bunch of positions I know I can and want to do. One of them is a paid internship with the Philly Fringe festival doing development and fundraising. I'm also applying to other internships that are supported through the Samuel Fels fund. They're paid internships with a $6,000 stipend. Not bad for three months of work and it's a good resume builder. And then of course Friday was a snow day.
This week I went in everyday, which I love. I really enjoy going to the theatre, it's work that I like and it makes me feel good. I actually miss it when there are snow days or I'm sick. Deb and I made a list of things that needed to be done. Some of it was internet research which I'm getting better at, but still not great at.
The big project though was the Delaware Valley Grant application. DVG has a general grant form that several organizations accept so using it makes it easy to apply for several at once. Deb told me she started it once some time ago but it's a very daunting application so she never finished it. Now it's my turn to take a crack at it. So far not too difficult. I got most of the attachments in one file and began work on the narrative. We need to find out how the application is submitted, however. Deb thinks we use one application and send it off to the organizations themselves. I'm under the impression we send it to DVG and the organizations get the app from them, so we need to find that out.
And in other good news Brenna said she would try to get a list of actors together that I can contact about possibly doing a staged reading of my thesis play.

It's been awhile

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks, sorry. Last week I was pretty sick. I missed Thursday in part because I was sick and because of the snow. But we had a pretty decent week. I finished up the work on the TD bank grant, basically getting the online form filled out and working on the narrative. This week I attached all the necessary documents, which was good for me because I got to go through the computer files. I pretty much found everything on my own which made me feel a little more useful. I also polished off the narrative, now I just need Deb to go over it, make sure it looks good and then get it attached so we can submit it.
Deb was gone on Thursday and Friday, but that gave me a chance to learn a few other things. Clara was gone Thursday so since she's usually the one on the phones taking ticket orders I got to take her seat and do the deeds. I'm glad I got to, it gave me the experience I needed to feel more confident on the phones and take ticket orders when they need me to. Now I don't have to wish it's anybody but a ticket order when the phones ring and they need me to take it.
I also got to assist Tenley and Brenna in some internet research. It never hurts to do internet research since I'm pretty sure any entry-level job I get will have me doing the same. So the better I get at that the better off I am.
Marina and I have been talking about Temple's theatre program. The playwriting program doesn't offer a stipend or tuition remission but the directing program does. I've been thinking about directing for awhile, I've done a bit of directing before and I know I'd be good at it, but they aren't taking new students into that program until 2012, which will give me enough time to get some more directing under my belt, maybe some staged readings or small plays around town. Give me a taste for it and see if I still really like it. I'd love to go back and get my MFA, I just can't afford to take out more loans for school.

February 7, 2010

Marina was sick on Tuesday and I didn't want to leave her alone so I took it off to be with her. I know we didn't have any pressing deadlines so I wouldn't miss something big like the last deadline when I was sick. Thursday and Friday were pretty chill. More of the same in terms of housekeeping. More files to update. Deb had me go through and mark down all of the upcoming deadlines, whatever they were, and look up what was needed for them. The next deadline is Feb 26 which is the interim report for a grant we used for Paper Wings, our outreach program.
The week, as I said, was pretty chill. Some small projects to do and I realized I'm getting better at navigating the computer files so I needed to ask fewer questions which I'm sure makes some people happy.
I did start to fill out the online questionnaire for the TD Bank Community Grant, but pretty much every question was one I didn't know. So as people came into work I was asking questions. It all came down to one question which I could have answered through my file research, but Brenna and I decided it would be best to ask Deb that question. She didn't get in until late so that'll have to wait until Tuesday.
I've had training on how to use the ticketing system but without actually going through and selling a few tickets I don't feel comfortable doing that. I might talk with Deb and ask her if I can spend a day siting next to Clara and having her sit with me while I sell some tickets, this will get me more used to doing it and feel more confident watching the phones when they're out or in a meeting. Right now I'm kind of avoiding that when I can. So far only one person has wanted tickets when I was watching the phones, but it was for a staged reading, so I just took their name and number and handed it off to Clara when I saw her. I hate doing that, but as I said, I really don't feel comfortable using that system yet. I'll work on it though.

January 31, 2010

On the heels of last week is the continuation of the Fels grant. I said that I wrote the post grant report in three drafts and that Brenna was satisfied. When Deb went over it she realized that I may have missed something. The report had specific guidelines and questions that needed to be addressed, which I had. What I had tried to do in the beginning was write a report containing all the answers they required, but what happened was I had a jumbled report of various answers and some were missing. So I went through and basically made it into a checklist. I copied and pasted the question and below it had the answer. It took a couple of more drafts but I got through it and it looks much stronger. On Friday Deb had me go through, put everything that was required together and put it all in an envelope to drive it over the the Samuel L. Fels office to personally deliver it. I looked through the narrative and Deb barely changed a thing I wrote, so I was still able to write a complete report from scratch. And I learned something very important, it doesn't have to look like a term paper or an article, it just has to be thorough and well written.
I'm beginning to like grant writing, I feel I could be good at it and I find a real satisfaction in this kind of work.