Almost Quarantine | table read edition
31 startups launched over 31 days, 90 days to cashflow positive
Day 4: Quarantine Table Read
Professional actors & actresses reading scripts & getting paid
31 startups | 90 days to cashflow positive | do good | podcast | community | revenue guess
In January of this year, I helped Pennie Lane Trumbull in the podcast studio during an interview about the 20th anniversary of the film based on her life, Almost Famous. She was excited, anticipating that 2020 was going to be an incredibly fun and wild year.
Then COVID said, f#ck that noise.
It’s 2020, and we’re all f#cked.
I really can’t take the time to feel too bad for myself. I feel bad for our youngest son, who will likely spend the last three terms of his college career at OSU studying from his bedroom. I feel bad for our middle son, working full time from his room as a financial crimes analyst with no coworker interactions. I feel bad for our oldest son working from his apartment in Denver as a copywriter for a large global ad agency. Although I’m thrilled that he’s in Portland for the next two weeks so we can all be in the same physical space.
Family and friends are really all that matters.
I feel compassion for new parents. Compassion for parents to be. Compassion for the 55 million Americans that have lost their jobs. And for those that planned weddings during 2020. For those that had family members die alone and could not attend funerals. Sympathy for all students. For people peering into the financial abyss. Those who have missed mortgage or rental payments and fear that when protections go away, they will be booted from their homes. I feel for all the people whose pets are dying when there is so much carnage, disharmony, and chaos in the world.
Everyone is some level of screwed right now, and the best thing we can do is be there for one another.
Maude: You know, at one time, I used to break into pet shops to liberate the canaries. But I decided that was an idea way before its time. Zoos are full, prisons are overflowing… oh my, how the world still *dearly* loves a *cage.*
Back to Pennie Lane Trumbull. Sometime this spring/summer (time is melting together now), I was thinking about the cast and crew of Almost Famous poised to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the film. A celebration now canceled due to COVID. I was also thinking of my great friend Cynthia Fuhrman, the Managing Director at Portland Center Stage, one of the finest professional live theatres in the US. Shut down, like so many other things.
Was there anything I could do?
Is there some kind of startup that could help the actors, the actresses, the nonprofit organizations, and get them a little cabbage? A little lettuce, scratch, moolah, cheddar, smackers, bones, clams, scratch, dough, bread, bucks, or tamales? Wow, I just went all zoot suit on you there. Well, olden days, golden days.
So the Quarantine Table Read startup: simply professional actors and actresses (and perhaps some other surprise guests at times) online, reading a script. The same process that takes place on the set of a film or a live theatrical production where the entire cast sits down for the initial read-through of the script. Often the most hilarious and creatively inspirational moments of any production.
The money will go something like this: 1/3 to the talent, 1/3 to a theatre (or nonprofit), and 1/3 to promotion, production, marketing, Kiva.
Man, I love a good simple business model that is easy to understand — making things simple can be hard work. But, simplification can not only be useful, it can help you focus on the things that matter most.
Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies
The pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And though she feels as if she’s in a play
?She is anyway
So if you’d like to follow the Quarantine Table Read journey, please go to 31startups.com and sign up. Here’s looking at you, kid.
31 startups | 90 days to cashflow positive | do good | podcast | community | revenue guess