As I have proclaimed numerous times, Zach and Zebby's Grand Adventure is one of The Gnomic Tales that is part of The Gnomes of New Hope collection of Storybooks. The Gnomes of New Hope began life as a simple puppet show, a result of my working for The New Hope Arts Commission, serving as the Technical Director for The New Hope Performing Arts Festival. I performed this role for nine years, and during that time, I became frustrated designing, building and operating shows for a wide variety of people, some of which did not appreciate my efforts and others who did not understand what could, or not, be done, and still others who were demanding premadonnas. The whole gamut of circumstances were present, but what it added up to, was a desire to spend my energy setting up a show the way I thought it should be. A show that was simple and straight forward. A show that was innocent and good. A show that was for everyone. A show that was fantastical. A show that wasn't hard to understand, or too challenging, or religious, or political, or perverted, or hostile, or ugly in any way. A show that had potential to expand. A show that could become a film. A puppet show? A live action show? A stop-action film? An animated film? A show that had become a Project!
What started out simple has become complicated. Rats! What started out as a simple puppet show became a full blown musical theatre show and in order to build an audience for that show, it became a series of Illustrated Storybooks. Which is where we stand. Almost ready to release the first of seven Storybooks to the public.
But that's not all, or even enough. In order to produce this show, a work space needed to be acquired, equipped, and set up to accommodate the personnel required. That is in the process of being refined. Image of the Mind Studios is in a 10k sq ft warehouse space with 40 years worth of effort to set up a functional studio. But again, that's not all, or enough!
The business management to effectuate this endeavor must be in place, along with sufficient funding to carry it through. This too is underway. I will not discuss that here or now. Those discussions are now reserved for the IMS Producing Partners blog.
So whatever needs to be done, will be done. How long will it take is another question. But as Gerald Schoenfeld said to me once, "you have to have your ducks in a row". And that's what we're doing.
Mostly the work that needed to be done to set this up, needed to be done by me. But that time is coming to an end. It's time to take it out of my hands and put it into a system of production that employs a wide array of other talents. To do that depends on production management and finance. That's where we stand in terms of the theatrical endeavor, but also in terms of distributing the published goods.
I will leave those discussions for another time and place.
That's all for now. AG
