Top Ten Totally Painless Ways to Support New Line

You matter. After all, New Line exists for you. Theatre isn't theatre without an audience.

And also, you are powerful. In fact, you are one of the most powerful marketing tools ever devised by humans.

New Line Theatre is a small nonprofit company, doing somewhat less-than-mainstream work, so we will always struggle financially. We could do Nunsense and South Pacific and not struggle, but we'd rather do Yeast Nation, Lizzie, and Sweet Smell of Success, so we struggle.

The most direct ways you can support New Line are to buy a ticket or make a donation. But we know lots of New Line lovers are starving artsies, and those aren't the only ways to support New Line.

But before we go on, I do have to mention one thing. When you go to our Contribute page, and you click on our Donate button, it takes you to a secure PayPal donation form. What's new now is that you can check a box that says "Make this a monthly donation." We've never been able to do that automatically before. I know that to some people (like me) a $150 donation seems beyond their means. But $20 a month doesn't seem that scary, and that adds up to a $240 donation! Plus, it's automatic, so you might not even notice... I know I wouldn't...

But even if you can't donate, there are a bunch of other things you can do to help us! Here are ten.

1. Unleash Facebook! If you haven't already, "Like" the New Line page on Facebook. And then visit our page regularly, and like, share, and comment on our posts, share our events, and invite your friends to our events. The power of Facebook is geometry -- you tell five friends, and they tell five friends, and so on and so on... So help us spread the good word! For us, nothing matters more than getting folks in our theatre door. In most cases, once people see a New Line show, they're probably coming back, and they might even become donors. So help us get them in the door!

2. Give your birthday to New Line on Facebook.  I've separated this out because it's a very powerful tool. Go to your Facebook home page, and look on the left side column, way down at the bottom of the menu. You should see the "Fundraiser" option under Create. Click on Fundraiser and Facebook will walk you through the process. It's easy, and you can painlessly raise some money for New Line!

3. When you come to the theatre, Check-In on Facebook. And take a picture of yourself in front of the set and post it on Instagram, and Tweet about it too! After the show, tell everybody how great it was and encourage them to come see it! Word of mouth is everything to a company like ours, and social media is our best friend.

In fact, do this for all the theatre you see in town! Imagine the power if all of us checked in on Facebook every time we went to the theatre. The rest of St. Louis would be astounded at how much great theatre is going on here, that they never even knew about.

4. Make sure you're on our email mailing list. And when we send you stuff, forward our emails to all your friends and family who might be interested. Again, it's the magic of geometry. If you're not on our list, just send a quick request to info@newlinetheatre.com.

5. Use Amazon Smile when you shop at Amazon. It's really easy -- when you're heading to Amazon to shop this holiday season (and all year 'round), just go to Smile.Amazon.com instead. You'll end up in the same place except, when you go to Smile, it'll ask you to pick a charity (you'll choose New Line Theatre, of course), and then whenever you buy anything through Amazon Smile (bookmark it!), New Line gets a small donation. And it really adds up! Last season the total in Smile donations was about $200! Imagine if all the New Liners used Amazon Smile this holiday season...!

6. Rate Us on Facebook, Yelp, Google, etc.! Like everything else on the web, it's a geometry game. Interaction breeds interaction. And also, people do pay attention to customer ratings.

7. Call or email our funders to tell them how much you love New Line! We've gotten a grant from the Missouri Arts Council every year for twenty-eight years. And until this current season, we've gotten a grant every year from the Regional Arts Commission. (Why we didn't this year is another story, but we hope to get our RAC grant back next season.) It would help us out a lot if RAC and MAC would hear from the community about how great New Line is. Our funders want to know we're serving our community well and have the support of our community. Show them we do.

You can call Michael Donovan, executive director of the Missouri Arts Council, at 314-340-6845 or email him.

You can all Felicia Shaw, executive director at the Regional Arts Commission at 314-863-5811 or email her.

8. Buy and wear New Line Gear! We've got a lot of cool New Line gear on CafePress -- we've got New Line t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs and glasses, greeting cards, teddy bears, rugs, lacquer boxes, pillows, clocks, jewelry, shower curtains, Christmas stuff, stuff for kids and pets! Some of this cool gear would make amazing holiday presents for St. Louis musical theatre lovers!

9. Get the New Line Calendar! Every year, we produce a calendar with high-quality production photos by Jill Ritter Photography. So order a calendar, display it proudly in your home and/or office, and let it be a great conversation starter with your friends and family about how cool New Line is! Plus you get to look at really great production photos all year!

10. Talk about our shows all over social media after you see them! It's important to spread the word, and to share New Line's posts, etc. But most powerful of all is direct "reviews" on social media from audience members. After all, great review quotes can go a long way, but if your best friend tells you that you have to see some weird show you've never heard of, you're gonna listen to your friend before you listen to a reviewer.

Some people these days bemoan the slow dying away of the "professional" theatre critic in this new information age, in which everyone can "publish" their opinions. I understand that, but I don't agree. Believe me, sometimes untrained reviewers can really get it wrong, but sometimes trained, experienced reviewers can really get it wrong too. I could name a dozen examples, but I won't. There is real value in "civilians" posting their thoughts about a production on social media, particularly when a show really powerfully affects them.

And we do a lot of shows like that.

In short, we have a potential army of New Line fans, and if we can mobilize all of you, we can have ever greater success, and our budget can get significantly healthier. Talk about us, advocate for us, post about us, tell everybody about all the cool, quirky, intelligent, thrilling musical theatre going on at New Line. Bring people with you to our shows who haven't been before. Tell all the college students you know about our College Free Seats, and tell high school kids about our high school discount.

In other words, Rise up for New Line!

Long Live the Musical!
Scott