NAATCO
NAATCO, The National Asian American Theatre Company, struggles to provide theatrical performances as a non profit organization.
NAATCO was founded in 1989 by Richard Eng and Mia Katigbak to promote Asian actors, directors, technicians, and designers in classical and contemporary American and European works. Its first performance was in 1990 and has since produced 27 plays. It has maintained it non-profit status throughout its tenure. Now Rubén Polendo manages the organization as he tries to continue its traditions.
Its newest performance “Blind Mouth Singing”, by Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas and directed by Rubén Polendo, required a hefty amount of time, money, and in the end made little or no profits. Blind Mouth Singing is about a distressed mother who is trying to hold on tightly to her two sons and sister. One son, Reiderico, has conversations with his other side, Lucero. Lucero, an incorporation of everything that Reiderico seeks but can’t accomplish, finally takes over his body. He causes pain to the family and finally decides to leave for the city, to leave the mother.
Such performances require a large amount of funding. Even though it is small, Blind Mouth Singing required over a hundred thousand before it could happen. Director, Rubén Polendo, and stage manager, Hilary Austin, frequently look for funders to make such performances. These investments include grants, donations, and other sorts of endorsements.
According to Rubén Polendo, NAATCO has a board of members that annually contributes a certain amount of money, either from their personal wealth or from fundraisers. The government also provides money but a very small amount. Grants are harder to get because certain grants are selective to certain genres of performances. This leads to threats in creativity. Polendo aims to choose a play that incorporates many different ideas. Another struggle of a non-profit organization is the job and the work required. Blind Mouth Singing alone took about three months to put together. The organization first has to find support for its performance. Then the organization has to find an inexpensive place for the main performance and hire actors, designers, technicians, and other faculty. The performance is priced at a reasonable price, $20 for Blind Mouth Singing, but in the end, the organization hopes that they have enough revenue to pay off its debts.
A non profit organization requires a lot of work, sacrifice, and in the end it provides only intangibles. It is a gamble to make such expensive performances and price the tickets at low amount. A non profit theater organization such as NAATCO invests plenty of resources to receive little or no profits.