SLSC Pillar #1 Reloaded

We didn’t quite make our first pillar in our 14-Pillars fundraiser. Nope, though at the time we started it there were 14 million registered accounts on SL, we haven’t yet seen every single one of them drop by and donate just L$1 to fill these 14 pillars, a million per pillar. We only raised about 0.25 of our first pillar. Now that we’ve had our fun with art in our last production, we must return to the nitty gritty fundraising again. So, here’s Pillar #1 Reloaded.

To kick off this fundraiser, Aberdon Enigma and Fauve Aeon of (Ardentia)Ars has donated 38,976 square meters of double-prim contiguous land in an Azure Island private residential estate. The land can be taken as a whole, or as parcels, with starting bids:

Seth 1 4208m2, 963 prims, L$1510/week tier @ STARTING BID L$6000
http://SLurl.com/secondlife/Seth/123/68/61
Seth 2 4416m2, 1010 prims, L$1575/week tier @ STARTING BID L$6000
http://SLurl.com/secondlife/Seth/69/59/57
Seth 5 4592m2, 1051 prims, L$1630/week tier @ STARTING BID L$6000
http://SLurl.com/secondlife/Seth/31/69/56
Seth 7* 8992m2, 2058 prims, L$2953/week tier @ STARTING BID L$12,500
http://SLurl.com/secondlife/Seth/197/214/63
Seth 3 16,768m2, 3837 prims, L$5193/week tier @ STARTING BID L$20,000
http://SLurl.com/secondlife/Seth/82/115/57

Or, if you want all of the above parcels,
ALL: 38,976m2, 8919 prims, L$12,871/week tier @ STARTING BID L$42,000
Note, if the ending bid of the smaller parcels is more than the ending bid of this large parcel,
the large parcel will not be auctioned off as a whole.

)))))))))))))))))) The auction will be LIVE Tuesday 9/23 at high noon SLT. (((((((((((((((((((((((((
at a special location on the land to be auctioned:
http://SLurl.com/secondlife/Seth/97/76/59

But, for those who cannot make it, a silent auction will be in session. Visit the parcel you’re interested in and find the pillar owned by your favorite SLSC-spectator avatar “Ticket Stand.” All donations are accepted and noted, but bid your highest bid to win!

In addition to owning great land for a great cause, winning bidder of each auction will receive a choice of three skins from the SL Shakespeare Company’s SL Globe Theatre Gift Shop. (The runner up will also receive their choice of two skins.)

*Seth 7 also comes with two free Adobe houses created by Azure Island builders!

Please contact Ina Centaur if you’ve any questions. ina.centaur@gmail.com

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Pillar #1: Ransom for the SL Shakespeare Company & SL Globe Theatre

Shakespeare, Second Life: The SL Shakespeare Company last month announced its Fourteen Pillars Fundraising Campaign, whose goal is to fill up all fourteen pillars to raise L$14 million, L$1 million per pillar. On Friday, July 18, to kick start the closing weekend of its month-long Twelfth Night staged reading series, the troupe plans to hold a “Twelfth Night MegaFundundraiser” in attempt to fill up the first pillar.

At 1 pm on Friday the 18^th, seven actors will be jailed for their acting crimes by “an evil director,” likely Enniv Zarf, producer and director of the Twelfth Night staged reading series. Each actor’s bail will be set to L$100,000. Their goal is to woo the audience with only improv acting and their wits. Enniv Zarf explains, “The practical point is to get all of them out by 7 PM so that we can give the encore performance at our previously scheduled time.”

For the remaining L$300,000, the Company also plans to turn the SL Globe Theatre into a true black box theatre—“black, black, and nothing else”—in the historic first ransom of a virtual building.

Ina Centaur, artistic director and executive producer, comments, “We are truly what we say we are—a group of thespians and other professionals dedicated to our craft, bound together by Shakespeare, and way-too-excited to wait for outside funding before beginning something truly spectacular within the virtual world of Second Life. Furthermore, beyond the fact that we are trying to be Shakespeare’s analogue in live virtual theatre (the man was the foundation of modern theatre; we aim to establish the foundation of virtual theatre), we are also trying to create good within and for the audience of a virtual world that has more often been associated with the bad. In turn, though the money would be raised to create the good within, we believe this good will flow out of Second Life through the positive impact of the experience we create.”

Centaur has also been involved with numerous fundraisers based in Second Life, most notably her recent notable contributions in the Second Life Relay for Life campaigns. Despite her success she holds uncertainty in this upcoming fundraiser, “While my RFL teams together have raised over L$3 million through passive efforts and huge bursts through short-term events, we had the relatively easy job of campaigning for an existing and well-established charity for a direct health-related cause. Albeit The SL Shakespeare Company is known to be a source of good in Second Life, the concept of campaigning for major funding for a good within Second Life may be too revolutionary for others to get. We’ve got some tough mileage ahead, both with the technology and production mechanics, and also with convincing people of our ideas… We’ll just have to see what happens.”

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Shakespeare, Second Life: In June 2008, the SL Shakespeare Company (SLSC) announced the “Fourteen Pillars Fundraising Campaign” to help raise capital for its highly anticipated full-length full-ensemble production of Hamlet and other Shakespearean works. The goal is to raise L$14 million to fill up all 14 currently-empty pillars of the Campaign.

In a backstage private presentation given to VIP and members of the 1300+ member SL Shakespeare Company group on Second Life, executive producer and artistic director Ina Centaur gave a brief recounting of the various Globe Theatres she had built on Second Life and other virtual realities, and also the Second Life land problems the Company had to face, which ultimately forced her to invest in purchasing four island simulators for the Theatre. She then explained the Company’s goals and revealed its financial status, “We’re not funded by any external agency other than our own passion for the endeavor—and that’s really also internal… And it is so rare to see that in a humanities project, but we have it! We’ve already done what other projects with hundreds of thousands of real US dollars could not do. But, to maintain it for any longer, we will need your help…”

The problem arose in April from the Company’s all-too-sensational, but all-too-sudden miniproduction of Hamlet: The Mousetrap, which featured a cast of a baker’s dozen live actors and introduced the faces of the play’s main characters, including Hamlet, Ophelia, Claudius, Polonius and Gertrude. Centaur explained the miniproduction’s major problem, “We tried our best to work the schedule based on the actor’s availabilities; but having Second Life as a second or third or fourth or lower priority simply won’t do for a full-ensemble full-length production.” Managing director Sabina Stenvaag stated, “Scheduling was chaos, and we’ve even had to deal with some last minute re-casting before a show opened.” Co-executive producer and director Enniv Zarf agreed that, “The only way a full-length full-everything production would work is if we had everyone taking Second Life seriously, take their roles as a full time first life job for a month.”

“We’re going to continue no matter what. We hadn’t planned to ‘demote’ our productions to staged readings, but we had to do so due to funding and because we wanted to be able to continue to perform,” said Enniv Zarf.

Ina Centaur explained, “Outside institutes and funding agencies do not seem to understand what we’re doing, and that perhaps explains for their reluctance in funding. We’re new and we’ve got a sprakling new idea. For the past eleven months, I have been spending a huge chunk of my time in both finding and fostering the SLSC. The theatre prides itself in its professional productions and large-scale venue—but those come at a cost. Practically everything I have done on Second Life is in attempt to break even and make the theatre self-sufficient within Second Life.”

The Campaign’s characteristic donation kiosk is a self-updating posterboard, which visually represents the fourteen empty pillars as printed woodcuts on aged parchment. As the funds accumulate, the pillars will appear “filled.” Currently, two kiosks are placed in the SL Globe Theatre. They will soon be dispersed on the walls of upcoming builds in the Shakespeare island simulator as “Elizabethan graffiti”.

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