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Yes, You Can You Be a Patreon

By Steven Leigh Morris

Stage Raw’s focus has always been the almost mystically vibrant yet historically maligned L.A. theater scene, which grew even more bruised by the gutting of arts coverage across the region in print media. It’s as though the breadth of the theater scene simply vaporized from most forms of institutional consciousness. This gutting of arts coverage (and news coverage) in print media was an international phenomenon having to do with all kinds of technological and financial changes.

Locally we felt it at LA Weekly, once a civic beacon for the L.A. stage community with a weekly docket of one to two major features plus 12 reviews per week, and its annual theater awards. When, in 2014, the LA Weekly dropped those awards after 36 years, and its theater coverage slid to two reviews per week, the theater writers of that newspaper banded together and formed Stage Raw. We vowed to maintain a newspaper’s editorial standards to the best of our ability, to keep alive the cherished tradition of a community-centered awards ceremony (that’s really an excuse for a big party), and to pay the critics at least the same token fees that were offered by the Weekly. We made it work financially with a little help from our friends who felt, as we did, that the work of L.A.’s theater community – particularly newcomers and undiscovered companies — deserve to be recognized, welcomed, praised and respectfully criticized in a public forum.

Stage Raw is now in its sixth year. Our stable of writers has expanded to include displaced writers from other publications, as well as public and private university graduates who share our dedication to local theater, and more diverse voices. Every year, we’ve celebrated our view of the finest work in theaters of 99-seats or fewer with an awards ceremony at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. The upcoming Awards ceremony is slated for Monday night, September 9.

Earlier this year, we completed our first professional mentorship program for teen journalists, underwritten by Z. Clark Branson. With Branson’s continued financial support, the Wallis Center for the Performing Arts will also be partnering with us for the next, expanded phase of that program. (Details of that partnership to come.) Currently, we’re working with HUMANITAS and LA STAGE Alliance to produce the first-ever Stage Raw/PLAY LA Weekend Theater Festival (Sept. 6-9), six new play readings and two colloquies, also at Los Angeles Theatre Center.

There’s more we’d like to do. More reviews, podcasts, website improvements, artist profiles, compensation for editors and fact-checkers. We’d like to evolve from a renegade website to more of a professional journal of our extremely important scene. We can’t do any of this by running on fumes – which has been our situation sporadically over the past few years. And this is why we’re trying out an experiment in fiscal stability through Patreon.

If you value what we do, you can become a Patreon subscriber of Stage Raw. A monthly donation. Whatever you can afford. And we’ll give you stuff in return. You’ll become part of our family. True, if you’re reading this, you’re already part of our family, but this way, you’ll get a place at the dinner table. And no, being a subscriber is not a guarantee of a review of a show you’re in or producing, or, it should go without saying, a guarantee of a positive review of a show you’re in or producing. Like being a subscriber to any newspaper, that’s not one of the perks. But you can read about the perks we do offer at patreon.com/stageraw.

LA theater deserves recognition and respect, and that’s what Stage Raw does. Professional arts journalism is an endangered species, due to cultural climate change. But with your help, we can make a difference, together. Thanks for listening, thanks for your continued support, and thanks for creating and viewing the dynamic spectrum of live theater in our weird and wonderful city.