Our dreams

Yes, we do need help covering the costs we have now, but we also need to build toward our future. These are some of the things we have in mind.

Pay our artists what they're worth

We've been fortunate to find talented actors, directors, designers and crew who work for far below professional rates. Why do they work for us repeatedly when they could be getting paid so much better? Because they love what Impact is all about.

But we want to pay our actors, designers and directors a competitive rate as well as give them the tools and materials to create the best-looking and best-sounding shows we can possibly make.

Improve the space we're in

La Val's Subterranean, as you know, has its charms—and its drawbacks. Our seats are not as comfortable as we (or you, we know) would like them to be.

Also, it's great being a theatre where you can bring pizza and beer in while you watch a play. But that also means there's a pizza joint upstairs that generates a lot of noise, from pizza numbers being called out to people playing pool to rowdy sports fans watching the big screen TV. We need effective measures to reduce noise, and that costs.

Save up money for a move downtown

Again, don't get us wrong—we love La Val's. But let's face it: it's not the easiest place to get to, the sightlines are challenging, and it's not accessible. Eventually we want to be in a slightly bigger theatre that retains all of the charms of our current space with none of the drawbacks. We want to be in downtown Berkeley, close to BART and restaurants, in a space that you will want to return to again and again.

To be honest, we already found a space we fell in love with. But it would cost us somewhere near $250,000 to make it into the space we want and cover our costs for the relevant time period, and we can't possibly raise that kind of money in the time we would have needed to. So we let go of that particular dream location, but we hope to be able to move into a bigger, better space within a few years.

(As of this writing [November, 2006], that space is still available, by the way, so if you're thinking of making a particularly huge donation, please don't hesitate!)