They Only Wanted to Help
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McFarlin has built sets, run lighting and sound, and stage-directed, so he understood the economies that could come from networking. “You wouldn’t believe how much lumber we’d be throwing away when we struck a set,” he says. “I thought we can get a prop and set exchange going, share resources, save money, and come up with something useful for everybody.” With the help of volunteer Web mistress Laurie Gibson and about 20 other dedicated souls, he added services like a searchable talent database; interactive technical and acting help; a letters section; a message board; and a selection of assiduously diplomatic, volunteer-written reviews. (McFarlin says they learned the hard way that “no one wants to hear that they suck.”) He submitted the site’s address to search engines and advertised it in a few theater programs, but what really made it boom, he says, was word of mouth.
Last summer, after more than two years of throwing his own money and labor at the site, McFarlin decided to turn nonprofit. “We put on a production of The Laramie Project as a fund-raiser. Two weekends at McHenry College and two weekends at a bookstore in Saint Charles, and nobody showed up,” he says. “It was a controversial play–we went in knowing that.” What he didn’t expect was criticism about the casting. His corps of volunteers took the parts; there were no open auditions. “People resented that. We lost about $500.” Now, McFarlin says, they’re in a catch-22: they’ll have to make some money before they can afford to pay the legal and other costs of becoming nonprofit. Last fall he sent out notice that in 2003 he’d start charging companies $100 a year for a basic membership (which includes listings in the “Theatre Companies” and “Opening Nights” sections) plus $50 per show for a review and a banner ad, which he says is less than break-even cost. He wrote to 30 theaters and figured he needed at least ten takers to stay afloat; he got six. Then, in January, the site’s message board went ugly, with users posting “venomous” personal comments about one another, and McFarlin began sweating his potential liability for what was said. “I blew my gasket. We’ve been doing this for free for three years. It hasn’t worked. I put up with all this bickering and nonsense and people don’t send me any money.”
