Persistence

Many people are very surprised to learn that the $1.6 million theatre we occupy at the Chicago Temple Building has been built by funding provided primarily by First United Methodist Church. Not only that, the Church is also donating the theatre space --meaning we don't pay rent for this stunning and intimate downtown theatre venue.

Everyone in the theatre community wants to know how we got this sweet deal, and more importantly, how they can find themselves in a similar situation. So I’ll share our story with you. But let me set expectations right: we are in our situation because of the people we are working with, not because we had some great sales pitch.

The Story
The story goes back to the founding of Silk Road Theatre Project. In the winter of 2002, I was calling area churches, mosques, and synagogues trying to sell tickets to our inaugural production of Jamil Khoury’s “Precious Stones.” The play is about two women, one Jewish, the other Palestinian, who have joined forces to organize an Arab-Jewish dialogue group, only to find themselves falling in love.

I had called upon Senior Pastor Phil Blackwell at First United Methodist Church. I am a very persistent caller…my background is in sales and marketing…and so was aggressive in calling my contacts at least twice a month to get a group sale. Because I was working at nights (typically between 7pm and 1am), I ended up leaving voice mails. In return many would call back and leave me messages during day hours when they were at work. It turned out that after multiple calls (and letters and emails) I sent to Phil, he called and left me a message about how he’d like to set up a meeting to learn more about our production and our theatre. He told me he was an avid theatre patron but wasn’t familiar with us.

After exchanging voice mails, we managed to get a face to face meeting. Jamil Khoury, our co-founder, artistic director, and playwright of “Precious Stones,” (and the love of my life), and I, visited Phil at his office at the magnificent Chicago Temple Building at 77 West Washington Street (across from the Picasso). His office overlooks the Picasso and is full of beautiful art objects and great books.

We had one of the best meetings imaginable. After learning about our mission and goals, Phil said (something to the effect of) “well, I’m not ready to commit to buying a set of tickets to your play, but I would like to offer you space at our church if you’d like to consider becoming our theatre in residence.” Jamil and I just looked at each other and had the same thought in our mind: “did he just invite us to become a theatre-in-residence? What is that?”

Through ongoing conversation, it was determined that the Church was looking to support our mission in a secular and independent fashion. We started using various spaces in the Church, ranging from their Choir Room to their Chapel; we used their basement (which indeed looked like a Church basement) for rehearsals and auditions.

From the Basement to the Main Stage
An opportunity then presented itself. The Church was remodeling their basement and started a conversation with us as their theatre-in-residence about what we’d like to see in the basement. The idea again hit us with the immensity of promise: we could actually contribute towards designing a customized renovation that would include a shared space for our theatre . We hired a bunch of consultants and started driving around the city looking at various theatres and talking about what we would want.. The Church made their architecture company available to us who reviewed the ideas we were gathering. To our great amazement, every suggestion we put out there (from box office design to theatre design…we went all out…we wanted to raise the floor, hide the hvac system, create private bathrooms for actors, have meeting spaces, etc,)was accepted!. It didn't hurt that our suggestions also fed into the design and space needs of the Church for their ministry.

We started with a modest budget of $250,000 for rehab but by the time the space was completed (took about a year to completely renovate), the Church had invested $1.5 million into the space. Silk Road invested $100,000 towards theatre technology equipment (i.e. risers, electric & sound system, etc). We inaugurated the space in Spring 2006 with great fanfare.

It is amazing to us that by the time we had our own theatre, we had only produced three plays, we didn't have paid staff; and our budget was less than $100K. In the last 18 months, our growth has been phenomenal. We now have two full time employees plus several part time contractors. Our budget is at $400K. We expanded our management office out of the theatre space into the South Loop so that we can manage our growth better. We are now producing three shows per year. We have attracted funders and donors who are supportive of our growth and see a success story they can get behind.

All this success came our way thanks to the generosity of the congregation and board of the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple Building…and because their Senior Pastor, Reverend Phil Blackwell had a vision and a bold idea for a theatre-in-residence. So what have I learned from all this? Keep knocking on doors.And though you might be trying to sell something small, the other party may want to buy something a lot bigger than your wildest imagination. I’m glad we kept our minds open and embraced risk and new ideas; it has paid off handsomely!