Joel was pretty sure he would be based in Grantville for a while. He was being trained to be an officer and here and now, an ability to dance was, if not essential, very desirable. He was sure he would be able to continue training and maybe even drag along a few of his fellow officer trainees. Unfortunately, he wasn't sure where the army would be sending him when he was commissioned.
Carl, on the other hand, could tell me he would be working just outside the Ring of Fire on a major building contract. With a bit of effort, and the cooperation of his fellow directors from Kelly Construction, he was sure he could, barring an act of God, continue training and, outside of the summer period, be available for any performances.
Over the next few days it seemed as if I was forever dodging questions from parents about why their child hadn't been involved in the Bad, Bad Brillo production. The worst of the offenders were those who had been against their sons and daughters being involved in dance in the first place. Fortunately, the real ballet mothers understood just how unexpected the request for a private performance had been. That didn't stop more than a few of them dropping hints about how much their sons or daughters would love to perform if something similar was offered though.
It soon got to the point that I called a meeting of students and parents to discuss where I thought ballet was going here and now. One of the first things I told the assembled horde was that profits from the private production were going towards providing pointe shoes, and the development of improved pointe shoes. This went down well with all the girls and their parents. Most of them had firsthand experience of the bloodied torture devices called pointe shoes, or they had seen the damage.
I then described how I wanted to put on a full performance of Nutcracker next Christmas. There was a mixed rendering of ohs and ahs from the crowd. Some had, like me, missed the annual performance and were happy that it was coming back. Others made it obvious that they didn't want to wait that long. Many of the dancers just wanted to perform, but others were thinking about the money. They asked if there was any chance of me putting on performances for a paying audience like the private performance of Bad, Bad Brillo.
I was honest. I said that I was in discussion on that very thing, but I needed to have something other than Bad, Bad Brillo to offer. Maybe a few selected acts from well-known ballets, but casts had to be small. Also, I warned them that I didn't think future payments would be anything like the Twelfth Night performance. That performance had been the first performance of en pointe before a noble audience. One of the teachers suggested that we could put on inexpensive performances in the high school's auditorium. Say ten dollars for adults and five dollars a head for children to see a full-length production or a selection of scenes from famous ballets. We talked about that. Would we be able to fill the auditorium's seven hundred and fifty seats? How much would it cost to hire the auditorium? And would we cover our costs?
Then Deanna Matowski, ballet mother, piano accompanist, and programming planner for the radio station made a suggestion. What about getting an advertiser to sponsor the production of performance videos to be aired on the television as part of an arts program? Payments probably wouldn't be very large until we could prove the economic benefits, but if we shot the performances before a live audience in the high school auditorium, maybe the advertiser would meet the production costs, and the ballet company could take the gate.
The idea had promise. It would give the dancers something to work towards, and would generate revenue, something that would be essential if we wanted to hold onto performers. The only problem would be getting sponsors willing to do a deal. Maybe Helene Gundelfinger knew someone who would be interested in sponsoring some performances. I made a mental note to contact her.
One of the parents asked if Harvey had videotaped the Bad, Bad Brillo performance. Well, of course he had. That's why I kept him around. He recorded all my school recitals, and had been doing so for years. It was suggested that maybe I could offer the video to the television for public broadcast, sort of checking out the market before looking for sponsors.
I promised to review the video and then try to make contact with the television people. Staci piped up that the person to see was Janice Ambler, one of the O'Keefe clan. She then offered to arrange a meeting for sometime in the next couple of days. With everyone attending to the conversation I could only agree to the appointment being made, but I resolved to have words with Staci about putting her mother into an awkward position.
A couple of days later I was able to talk to Janice Ambler about broadcasting the video of Bad, Bad Brillo. She asked if I would introduce it, maybe even rope Brillo's owner, Flo Richards, into joining me in the studio to talk about Brillo. Maybe even bring the real Brillo into the studio, or failing that, get some footage of Brillo. I told Janice about the epitaph that Flo added when talking about Brillo. Somehow I didn't think "the Ram from Hell" should be brought into the studio. She agreed that maybe it might be better to film Brillo in his natural environment, and suggested that I arrange a time with Flo, and she would send some of the kids working on the television station round with one of the school video cameras.