Moderation is a Fatal Thing, Nothing succeeds like excess.... WE DID IT!
over 3 years ago – Thu, May 20, 2021 at 09:34:06 PM

884 of us. $60,314! 269% funded.  30 DAYS DONE. 

Thems some nice numbers to wake up to, on this first day of our post campaign.    Just to be totally honest, though, it's actually a relief for the campaign to be over and not to have to live and die the next 30 days to the shape of the graph and the beep of the KS alerts...! 

This update will be a list of exhausted and breathless thank yous, like an award's ceremony speech made by Gwyneth Paltrow, with the full knowledge that she is louder and more powerful than any play-off music could ever be...  

THANK YOU, to Brittany Chapman, our producer who orchestrated and ran this Kickstarter campaign, the very model of a modern major-crowdfunding-general.   To Sean Chia who provided brilliant design and marketing support,  to Ahndiana Flores who designed all our KS assets and the wonderful Tarot and Postcards, to Aniket Bhatt who cut our beautiful KS video and trailer, and to all at Prodigal who have been working on GRAY for more than 2 years now. 

THANK YOU to Chris and David, our amazing pledge manager and advertising team at Backerkit (who you will be hearing from VERY shortly with your post campaign survey); to the team at WayToBlue who helped us build out our Facebook following in very short order, and to the fabulous folk at Kickstarter, Oriana and Elise for advice along the way. 

To our press team, Jeremy & Kat at MotivPR who have been out pitching GRAY into the ear of everyone who will listen and even to those who won't.

To our publishers, Clover Press, Ted & Robbie who commissioned this and saw it through thick and thin (which is good, thick or thin, or is that a cultural preference?), and to the team on the audiobook - producer Mandi Price and director Milena Govich as well as Brittany - whose work is just beginning.  

To the GRAY artists:  Eugenia Koumaki, Diana Greenhaigh, Joana Lafuente: ladies, you take my words and set them into pages of beauty.  Thank you.  Now stop reading this and get on and finish Chapter 8, all these nice people are waiting! 

To our cast:  Lauren Patten, Richard Schiff, Samuel Barnett, Neil Brown Jr and Kiran Deol -- thank you for signing up for this adventure before it was clear it would happen.  Our cast will be growing in the next few weeks, and we have exciting announcements to come about who is joining our band, stay, as they say, tuned.  Thanks also to our fabulistic casting director, Venus Kanani for helping pull together the cast and to Justin Lillehei for wrangling agents.

To all our blue-tick friends who helped spread the word on social:  Jewel Staite, Neil Gaiman, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Stephen Fry, Tyson Ritter, Osric Chau, David Baddiel and I'm sure many others I'm forgetting - THANK YOU for using your power and platform for good (and for us). 

To other Kickstarter creators who spread the word about us: Unbound, Arcane Wonders, Winslow Dumaine, Out of the Box, Madeleine Holly-Rosing, our partners at Hatch Escapes and The Wild Optimists: we thank you and its an honor to be part of the KS creator community with kind and talented folks such as you. 

& most of all to all of you, friends, family and strangers, 884 of you, the Sisters of Gray, our Lords, Ladies & Lovers who gave of your money and your time to help us make some dangerous art. 

We'll get right to it.   

Arvind 

LAST DAY. I am in blood / Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er'
over 3 years ago – Tue, May 18, 2021 at 11:14:34 PM

A message from Dorian Gray

My Lords, Ladies & Lovers:

So here we stand. 

On the final day of our little flirtation.  

Time to declare. 

Time to pick a side. 

If you are one of the legions following me, undecided: this is your last chance.  

Come over. I promise you, it will be quite the experience.  Like feasting with panthers. 

If you have already declared,  the Sisters of Gray thank you. 

& for those who have chosen the other side. 

Well, you can't say we didn't warn you.  -- DG

"Yet each man kills the thing he loves
  By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!"

50k Stretch Goal Hit! Make Dorian Sing! Final 2 days!
over 3 years ago – Tue, May 18, 2021 at 07:35:01 PM

This one's from me, Arvind

Gosh, golly, gee, whizz  - looks like we are going out with a bang. 

We are into the final two days and you are just killing it.  We had one of our best days of the whole campaign yesterday, and today looks like being better still.   THANK YOU. 

50k stretch goal hit!  Behind the scenes video is going to happen, oh yes it is.   I'm going to be pointing a camera at all our lovely actors and capturing them at their unfiltered best as we record our show.   You'll feel like you're in the studio with us but without any need for all those pesky covid protocols.    We can't wait. 

Next goal - Make Dorian sing. Dorian is being played by Lauren Patten, who happens to have one of the greatest singing voices ever put into a human body.  If you don't believe me, here she is singing the very on-point "God is a Woman"

So, our next stretch goal, at $69k, is that we will have an original song written to be part of the GRAY audio-drama and Lauren will sing it!    Come on, help us get there...! 

The next 48  hours are going be exciting.   Thank you for being on this ride with us!  Can't wait to see where it takes us... 

Arvind.   Creator, GRAY

Final Weekend, Final Days, Time to say your last Hoorays
over 3 years ago – Sat, May 15, 2021 at 04:19:05 PM

A message from Dorian Gray

My dear Lords, Ladies & Lovers:

Well, here we are.  So close to the finish line. But of course, it won't be the end. It's not even the end of the beginning.   These heady Kickstarter days have simply been our flirtation. Our relationship is ahead of us... 

I'm so looking forward to the days ahead. When you can fall gradually, intoxicatingly, totally in love with me.  I know you are too.  But before that can all happen, we have a few more goals to meet, and a few more miles to walk together.  200% funded sounds pretty good, but you know what is better? More.  More is always better. 

"Everything in moderation, including moderation".

Think about it.  -- Toodles, DG

PS If you want to dive deeper into knowing me, here's an interview one of my "creators" Arvind did in which he's MOST indiscrete

$42,000 hit, 600+ backers, a week to go, new goal revealed!
over 3 years ago – Thu, May 13, 2021 at 12:52:12 PM

“Actors are so fortunate. They can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or in comedy, whether they will suffer or make merry, laugh or shed tears. But in real life it is different. Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications. The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.”

So,  if and when we hit $50,000 (and we can, we will, ) we'll produce a behind-the-scenes video of the making of the audio drama, a chance to see our wonderful cast and creative team at work as they strut and fret and bring GRAY to her immortal life.

And since we are shouting out to actors, if you haven't noticed BROADWAY IS BACK.   Jagged Little Pill resumes performances 21 October. That's all the more reason to back / upgrade to the Jagged Little Fandom level, or just to book tix to Jagged!