Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Economic Report: Jan 26


Economic report! At the last reporting we had just finished a successful set of shows in Florida. Since then we've ventured into Texas and back. We're glad to still be in the black. For detailed numbers on this stuff go here.

Our gas milage has improved 26.47 mpg at last recording, and of course remains the highest expense. Longer drives in the last week, and some low attendance shows combined to make this last week or so harder on us economically as well as physically than the previous part of the tour was. For about a week we were driving 5 hours a night, sleeping in the car and "showering" in gas stations. We brought those shenanigans to an end in Memphis, where the folks at the DeCylre Cooperative offered a comfy bed, a good shower, and even laundry.

The car is about due for another oil change. We should have enough time to find somewhere cheaper this time. We're still largely living off peanut butter sammiches and oatmeal. We've been experimenting with heating up angelhair pasta with gas station hot water and making the cheapest possible sauce out of tomato paste and garlic powder, with some TVP thrown in for protein.

We're planning to get back down to Florida come April, but that will depend on how broke we are (not the company, but Kate and I) when we're done with this. We've been tracking our personal expenses as well. We're draining our bank accounts at a rate of about $15 a day (Ben $15.82, Kate $14.60). This includes a few large expenses (last month's utilities, 1/3 of the car maintenance, one night in a hotel room, etc) living on less than $400 each ($379.70 for Ben, $350 for Kate) plus the roughly $50 in groceries the company has paid for is pretty damn frugal for life on the road.

Anyway, thus far we've proved that radically political DIY theatre touring is sustainable as long as the laborers involved can afford to lose money doing it. Which is to say, it's a terrible replacement for capitalist wage-slavery. hurns.


But that's only thus far. Maybe we get better at it! Maybe audiences' appreciation/interest/valuation grows. If not, we need to revise the experiment, and in the meantime, compromise.

We've got a list of compromises (artistic and economic) arrayed before us. Maybe at the end of the tour we'll discuss them. Until then, ta-ta!

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