Artists with dreams have crowdfunding to thank for their chance
Indiegogo hosted more than 9,000 theatrical and musical campaigns last year, and music projects are the single biggest category on Kickstarter, as artists crowdfund projects and performances
If you've ever had an idea, a dream, that you're sure would be a hit but that you couldn't finance, now you can do what Karin Ringheim did.
Ringheim had been waiting for almost 30 years for the congratulatory email she got in the spring. A well-regarded theatre festival in New York had selected the musical she has been writing, polishing and marketing since 1988.
But then came the big question: festival organisers wanted to know how she planned to pay the estimated US$20,000 cost of the 10-actor, three-musician show.
"I'm looking around, thinking: 'What can I sell on eBay?'" says Ringheim, a 69-year-old public health consultant from Virginia.
But a lot has changed since the era when producers called potential backers on a landline. Instead, she went to an organisation that raises more money for artists than the National Endowment for the Arts. Kickstarter, a crowdfunding website that directed US$251 million into arts-related projects last year, has allowed dozens of Ringheim's friends and family to chip in as small-scale theatrical angels.
By the time of its Kickstarter deadline, 134 donors pledged US$20,802 and it looks as if Ringheim will actually see her project, , come to life on a Manhattan stage next month.
