Community Arts

We are happy to report that we achieved the artistic goals of our project by providing artists and community with opportunity to be in and see these three (3) rarely produced musicals. Our Artists got to interact directly with the audience as the story was being told. During the post-show discussion with the audience, many patrons said they learned a lot about the shows and were able to reflect on how it impacted their lives and their own stories. Several audience members talked directly with the cast about how it influenced them or challenged their frames of reference. There was also much discussion after the shows with comments such as, “why isn’t this done more often?” amongst both cast AND patrons. We successfully helped the theatre-going community get closer to the issues being addressed by the musicals by getting closer to the material and physically closer to the acting community. Many people said it was their first time seeing the shows/ hearing the stories come to life. Second Fiddle also gave the audience get a better understanding of how a show is produced by giving a brief speech beforehand and also fostering audience/ actor discussion at intermission and after the show. We also provided Twin Cities’ performers with an opportunity to pursue dream roles and get direct feedback from the audience after performances. Twin Cities' music Director Kyle Picha got to play Gordon Schwinn, dream role for him in A New Brain. Kyle is usually utilized behind the piano and he got to show audiences his singing and acting chops, to which Cherry and Spoon said "It was a treat to find out he's also a wonderful leading man." It helped to send a follow-up email to cast members to ask what they enjoyed about the Second Fiddle experience and also what we could improve upon. Loads of people asked for more rehearsal time, but unfortunately without a more expensive contract with Actors Equity we can't ask actors to rehearse additional hours. However, we found that lots of people, Equity and Non-Equity volunteered to meet on their own time outside of Second Fiddle rehearsal to work on the material. This ultimately helped the shows, so our music directors have all made an announcement during the first rehearsal telling actors if they want additional rehearsal time that the MD would be open to helping outside of rehearsal hours. Second Fiddle successfully reached the community it intended to and we were always looking to expand our circle of artists and audience. We were aiming for those who loved musicals and wouldn’t get a chance to see them otherwise as well artists who want to pursue dream roles and learn new shows. A dramaturg was hired at the top of the season to do 3 informational packets for directors and cast about the show as well as program inserts for the audience. We gave the audience an informational flyer in the program of a shows history and the director also gave a brief history before the show. There was a great energy from the audience and artists alike that people were just excited to hear the story come to life. We also found that having an opportunity for audience to speak directly with actors opened up individual conversations about the show, process and story. Giving the audience the option to read about the show at their leisure was a treat, and some audience members actually emailed the artistic director after the production stating "It was so nice to have additional facts to look at when we got home". We made our project accessible by considering submissions of actors who may play against "type casting". One of our actors in A New Brain is supposed to be played by a man, but we gave the opportunity to a woman. Also, we reached out to a senior play-reading group who then attended every show. This created a lovely diversity of age in our audience. We are hoping to continue to have diversity onstage, both in age and race - giving opportunity to those who might otherwise get passed over for certain roles. We had 319 people total attend and were pleased that 1/3 to 1/2 of that audience was made up of seniors from various areas of the Twin Cities community who were just as eager as the younger crowd to learn about these rare musicals. We have a fantastic outcome this year. 50% of our artists this year were NEW artists to Second Fiddle (22 out of 43 artists were first time "Fiddlers".) We also saw our record attendance at August's performance with 175 audience members. 100% of artists said that they would love to be in or involved with another Second Fiddle show in the future and that it was beneficial for them to participate.