Welcome to the Crowdsourcing Mornings segment! Every weekday morning, Geek Alabama talks about and features one crowdsourcing project from crowdsourcing sites such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and others. The hope with Crowdsourcing Mornings is to feature and help a project be successful and reach its fundraising goal. Please enjoy today’s featured project!
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Hello friends!
Thank you for being here, and for supporting King Gilgamesh & The Man of the Wild, a world premiere theatrical project telling a story that spans continents, cultures, and centuries. This is a one-act production featuring Ahmed Moneka and Jesse LaVercombe alongside acclaimed Arabic-maqam / jazz band, Moneka Arabic Jazz.
We are taking this show on the road! We’re honored to have been invited to Minneapolis, where we’ll perform at the Jungle Theatre, and then to New York City, where we are featured in the Public Theatre’s Under the Radar Festival, and performing at La MaMa, one of the most historic venues for experimental work in the city. But we can’t get this show to the Mini-Apple and the Big Apple without your support.
The Breakdown:
– We’re looking for help to bring seven artists from Canada (originally from Iraq, Greece, Sudan, Turkey and more!) to the United States for our shows in NYC.
– Ticket shares from our appearances won’t meet our costs.
– Even with support from host theaters, we have to spend $10,700 for work visas and $5,600 for flights!
– This is why we are asking for your help raising $16,300 to support this tour of King Gilgamesh. Thank you so much for making a donation.
“Under The Radar in particular is a huge opportunity to build momentum for future touring possibilities, but as self-producing artists we carry a great deal of the burden of the costs of touring to NYC, including housing, travel and visas. Having an outlet to perform and share our message is so important and we hope that our audiences will support the tour of our exciting new work. We want to tell this story far and wide.”
– Co-Creator Seth Bockley
WHY SHOULD I GIVE?
Because when you give incredible performing artists the means to tell their own stories, in their own way, and infuse it with the infectious energy of Arabic jazz music, you are helping bring magic into the world.
This play traces the friendship of “Ahmed” and “Jesse” as they meet in a Canadian coffee shop and forge a bond while confronting their differences – one Jewish, one Muslim, and each born in the shadow of the first Gulf War between the USA and Iraq.
A present-day story of friendship interweaves with the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, along the way tracing Ahmed’s real life journey from an actor-refugee in a new country to an acclaimed musician at the top of his game. Featuring themes of art, ambition, sex, fatherhood, mortality, and identity, this two-man epic illuminates the mysteries of love, death, and friendship in a moving, funny, tragic, and ultimately celebratory performance.
This project is itself the culmination of an epic international journey. Ahmed Moneka, a political exile from Iraq, has been searching for an artistic home since 2015, and this production represents his debut as a theater creator in the English language theater scene. Our band Moneka Arabic Jazz is an amazingly diverse group of artists who will support Ahmed’s story with their unique sound — the musicians hail from Sudan, Greece, Turkey and Canada. King Gilgamesh & the Man of the Wild is truly an international effort. Our show brings together stories, sounds and perspectives from all over the world — an unlikely and remarkable gathering.
Thank you for helping us gather communities together to share this powerful story.
As of January 10th, this project has raised $4,500 of their $16,300 goal. This project has 14 days left to raise the $16,300 or it will not be funded. For a pledge of $50, you will get a signed postcard. For a pledge of $100, you will get a personalized voicemail. To learn more and to pledge money, go to: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kinggilgamesh/king-gilgamesh-and-the-man-of-the-wild?
