Welcome to the fundraiser for Urinetown: The Musical, brought to you by Heart Strings Theatre Co!” I'm Ylaria Rogers, and I founded Heart Strings to create a platform for professional artist to work together to create high quality theatre and also create professional opportunities for those in the early stages of their career development. I want to see artists paid a living wage for their time and work.

Why is this fundraiser important?

This fundraiser is important because it contributes to a larger vision for performing arts in Australia: a vision in which artists earn a liveable income in return for their work.

Paid opportunities for professional performance artists in Canberra are few and far between, and those in musical theatre are virtually non-existent. There are many in the performing arts industry who consider being paid to be either an overly-ambitious or flat-out unachievable vision. Being paid for your work? Imagine!

As a professional artist, your options are usually to either get involved with an independent show under a 'profit-share' arrangement, or maintain your skills on a volunteer basis. A profit-share only pays artists after all other costs have been paid such as the set, the costumes, rights, and so on. Even skilled, professional performers are the very last to be paid, if they are paid at all; those on stage are the first to miss out on their income.

How are we making change?

Heart Strings has guaranteed a fee to our artists, right from the start of the process, recognising their time, energy and the money they pay to attend rehearsals. I've chosen to do this, even though it is a financial risk, because as an artist in my own career I've repeatedly put my heart and soul into productions, and failed to even recover my own costs.

Often we get told “… but this opportunity is ‘good exposure' ”. As a producer, and as an artist, I believe this culture has to change, and artists should be rewarded for their time, energy and skills with more than 'exposure dollars'.

What is this fundraiser for?

This fundraiser will help cover the costs of producing Heart Strings’ first performance which is Urinetown: The Musical! "A side-splitting sendup of greed, love, revolution (and musicals!), in a time when water is worth its weight in gold. (Is it not still?)”

The principal goal of this fundraiser is to raise money to pay our artists!

Why Urinetown: The Musical?

I picked Urinetown: The Musical because it's a parody of current global problems such as a scarcity of resources, drought, environmental and social catastrophe, and the question of how the fortunate should assist the less fortunate. The themes of this particular show present an opportunity to make use of recycled sets and costumes, which also frees up money to pay artists.

When is it?

Performances are going to run from the 16th – 26th of September 2021 at The Courtyard Studio of the Canberra Theatre. If you donate above a certain value, you’ll get tickets to the opening weekend, but regardless of how much you donate, you’ll keep our starving artists fed and watered so they can grow up to be real boys, girls and non binary pals!

The Creative Team!

The Cast

Why should I contribute to this fundraiser, you know, like… right now?

In 2020, COVID-19 highlighted to the world that entertainers have never been in greater demand, and yet our professional livelihoods are some of the most at risk, regardless of whether we are musicians, actors, singers, writers, visual artists or creatives of another kind. There has never been a brighter light shining on the circumstances of artists, and this fundraiser is a great way in which you can help keep that light on (and you can even come see what we've done!).

In Australia, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) is one of the peak industry and lobbying bodies which represents actors and musicians. The MEAA advocates a particular rate of pay for professional artists. Now, consider that it is relatively common practice to price a standard adult ticket for a musical at $70+, whether it's professional, or even amateur. The problem with these historical prices is that they very rarely recover sufficient money to pay artists for all, or indeed any, of their time for a show.

As a patron, you'd assume your $70 pays for everyone's wages, right? Well, at this point let me introduce you to my accountant friend (the one with the now-permanent look of horror on his face) who told me that if I wanted to pay my artists for Urinetown: The Musical at the MEAA rate, tickets would be six hundred and seventy seven dollars each ($677). That won't even pay for his therapy from looking upon this industry's standard business model. It is very important here that you don't leap to the wrong assumption: The MEAA's rates are not overly-generous, they merely provide for a living wage for artists.

What difference wil my donation make?

A big one! This fundraiser will help us to pay our artists and you'll be supporting the success of a company committed to payings its artists, both for this show and those (hopefully) to come.

* Please note that this is a fundraiser - tickets will also be available through The Canberra Theatre Centre at a later date, at a lower price. You can get tickets later, but funds raised here will contribute more towards our artists. Thanks!