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Not a particularly good month for the Minstrel in September. Our potentially best show of the month had to be cancelled when Finest Kind had to cancel their tour due to an illness of one of their members, Shelly Posen. (The information originally released was a strep throat. It turned out to be considerably more serious. The full story is in the October Newsletter.) That, combined with a rather lackluster performance on the other three shows left us with an average paid attendance of 70 for regular shows and 53.3 including the Open Stage. We showed a loss for the month of $556, but that will be partially offset by $334 next month, because MUF graciously forgave us our rent for the cancelled show. That credit will be applied to October's rent bill.
The cancellation of Finest Kind came on top of another cancellation by the opening act, Sharlys Dugan about a week prior. (This had been due to factors beyond her control depriving her of the time she needed to prepare a presentable program.) I had been scrambling to find a suitable replacement for her when the news from Finest Kind came on the Wednesday evening before the show. That was too much to try to patch, and I decided to pull the plug. Within an hour of the news, I was able to create a special cancellation message to go out by Constant Contact to both the Minstrel-Gram and Membership lists, and on Facebook and Twitter. Lori Falco posted a special notice on the Home Page and Minstrel Page on the FP website. Staff was notified by email. Bill Henderson posted himself outside the building on Friday night to explain the situation to anyone who hadn't gotten the message and arrived expecting there to be a show. It speaks well of our communications that only about 5 vehicles showed up with disappointed would-be customers.
Last year, after we received a rather precipitous rent increase notice from MUF, Elizabeth and I had met with MUF's President Nina McCormack and Allison Miller, the Minister. We had engaged in a fruitful discussion which resulted in a partial rollback of that increase, and an agreement that there would be more regular communication between the two groups. I had arranged to call Nina on a monthly basis just to stay in touch. Over the past year we seldom had anything of substance to discuss, and the process began to feel like a formality. It often took several calls on my part before she would return them, or I managed to catch her in. That didn't bother me too much, since I really had nothing to report to her. More recently I have been unable to reach her, and my calls were not returned. I've decided to abandon the monthly calls, and only try to reach her when there is something to report or discuss. If the Board feels I should resume trying to reach her, even if I have nothing to say, I will do so.
Only one new booking was made in September: Diane Perry to open for Brother Sun (at her request.)
Respectfully Submitted:
Mike Agranoff
Program Chair
The Minstrel Acoustic Concert Series
Morristown, NJ 07960, USA
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