creating a/broad, March 8, 2014

Subtext of My Sponsor Pitch
by Cameryn Moore
@CamerynMoore

I have sponsors. Sometimes. Some years I have more than others; last year I had one. But every year the process is the same: send out letters, follow up umpteen times, get money or not, send thank-you letters and programs, wash, rinse, repeat. The letters, oh, they’re actually masterful cover-ups for my deep-down insecurities about whether the work I do is really worth it. I submit the following to you for consideration. (Subtext and inner thoughts are formatted like this.)

**********

Your customers want good sex. I help get people there, through thought-provoking live theatre that sparks conversations wherever I go. (My shows freak people out a little everywhere.)

I'm an award-winning performer/playwright with four sex-positive shows under my belt. 
(I still feel weird about calling myself 'award-winning', but it is factually true, so this is a big fuck-you to my own JerkBrain.) After four years touring these shows around North America and the U.K. I am taking my show Phone Whore back across the pond and doing four Fringe festivals in four months, including Edinburgh Fringe Festival. (I AM SCARED SHITLESS.) In September I return to the U.S. to tour through the beginning of December. (I have no idea which venues and cities I’ll be in yet, don’t ask.) I'm asking you to help make this year of trans-Atlantic touring (ooooh, trans-Atlantic, GOIN’ BIG) be a successful one, and join me as a sponsor. (Please give me money.)

WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT PHONE WHORE

(I don’t know if it would help more if people out-and-out raved about it. Most of my best quotes talk about how crushing Phone Whore is, which, I guess, it is, but…. Here, take a look:)

"by far the most intimate and insightful theatre experience you're likely to have" (Roverarts.com)
(They actually gave me eight stars out of four. I can’t figure out how to include that in anything, without it looking like a typo.)

"incredibly brutal, piercing, and thought-provoking" (ThreeWeeks, Edinburgh)
(With a sentence like this, ThreeWeeks STILL tried to give me a two-star review, the FUCK. They didn’t feel they could recommend it. PHONE WHORE IS TOO NASTY. This is why pull quotes.)

"a series of anecdotes that add up to a powerful whole... the play begins with wholehearted laughter but closes to stunned silence." (FastForward, Calgary)
(Can I get more like this? An objective reporting of response makes for powerfully true pull quote. Is this enough to convince potential sponsors? Do they want to sponsor things that freak people out? Uh. Shit. Okay, how about these?)

AWARDS and ACCOLADES
- Critics' Choice, Houston Fringe (2013)
- Official selection, Montreal Zoofest (2012)
- Pick of the Fringe, Victoria Fringe (2011)
- Best Female Solo, San Francisco Fringe (2010)
- Judges' Honourable Mention, Ottawa Fringe (2010)

(The last one always feels a little runner-up-ish, but I don’t care.)

Since 2010 I have performed Phone Whore over 180 times in 44 cities world-wide, (STUN THEM WITH NUMBERS. MAKE THEM THINK I’M A PRO) and my sponsors essentially end up travelling with my marketing campaigns. (Trying to find companies that are globally striving is not easy. I just assume that everyone is as keen as I am for global domination, or at least penetration, in their own sphere. That sounds more sexual than even I meant it to.) In the U.K. this year, I will be performing in Edinburgh, London, Glasgow, Brighton, Buxton, and Ludlow (I’m banking on other North Americans being as clueless as I was about U.K. geography, Buxton and Ludlow are tiny); upon my return to the U.S.  I will be in six other cities between September and December of 2014.  (I already said I don’t know which ones, stop asking!) Wherever I appear, my shows tend to draw educated, sexually curious or adventurous audiences. (WHO WILL WANT TO BUY YOUR LUXURY DILDOS, is the point I’m trying to make. I don’t mention that my shows also draw ignorant fuckers who think it’s stand-up and smug theatregoers who think they’ve seen everything. But those aren’t legit marketing demographics.) Sponsors receive prominent print and online placement in programs and marketing materials for these shows, and will also be included in social-media campaigns in the months leading up to and during the tour. (i.e. I will pimp your shit so hard you will end up buying your own products.)

Sponsorship packages start at $350, and there are lots of creative ways that we can work together at all levels. (My first year, a luxury vibrator company sent me 12 products for give-aways. TWELVE. I need to get back to that well-vibed state of affairs.) Please email me at littleblackbookproductions@gmail.com, or call 617-869-2970, and let me know what would be the best way to reach you. (They will never ever call me. I make the first move, and the second, and the follow-up to the second, and the third. This is just me pretending that we are going to interact in any kind of normal way.) Thanks for considering this. I look forward to working with you this year. 

(Please give me money.)

camerynmoore.com