Put ‘Em Together and What Have You Got?
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lists, cobranding publicity, and romancing donors at each other’s fund-raisers. And they’re not stopping there: Melissa Thodos is creating a dance for Bumppo’s holiday show, A Child’s Christmas in Wales, and Bumppo actors will be a part of Thodos’s winter concert. No point in jealously guarding your audience when you know they’re going to be stepping out, Ross says. “They’ll only see your show once, so why not give them good advice as to what else they should see?” Ross and Larsen think this kind of sharing will appeal to funders, and are planning to bring other groups to the party. Word is they’re already playing around with Fulcrum Point New Music Ensemble.
According to Czerniecki, Montreal is well organized, has unprecedented support from government and sponsors, and won’t be subject to the problems–distance, 9/11 aftermath, overprogramming–that plagued previous venues. In fact, he says, the Montreal group’s in a certain comfort zone: a few weeks before the meeting they dropped a note to just under 700 organizations asking if they’d come to games there in 2006 even if they weren’t sanctioned by the federation. Of the 455 groups that responded, 91 percent said they would. In light of that, he says, maybe the official games should think about rescheduling–2007 might be nice. But he warns that any other host city will have the same difficulties working with the FGG, which “doesn’t behave like a sporting federation” and “doesn’t organize the event” but wants to control it. He says the Gay Games are in the hands of an old guard, “a dozen people who control the information,” and that Montreal will host a meeting in January to “explore the possibility of a new international organization that is democratic and representative.” Welcome to the revolution.
