When we decided we would need to turn to Kickstarter to raise the funding necessary to mount a showcase production of “Speakeasy – John and Jane Allison in the Wonderland”, we learned that creating an attractive set of rewards for pledging was an integral part at how Kickstarter works.
(Find our Speakeasy Kickstarter Project Page and Video here)
Kelly Aliano became our Kickstarter advisor. She explained how the rewards program works, and the importance of having attractive rewards at every level of giving.
When you pledge a Kickstarter project, you can give any amount of money. But every project also has a Rewards Column, listing levels of rewards options, and rewards, or gifts, you may receive at certain levels.
The rewards are there as an incentive to giving, but even more so as a tangible way to say thank you. For Speakeasy we tried to show that we truly appreciate every pledge at every level by making a unique, tangible, collectible gift available at even the smallest pledge level of just $5.
Here are the Speakeasy Rewards, with commentary sprinkled in here or there to give background:
Pledge $5 or more
THE ALICE ACCESS:
Signed Thank You Speakeasy Postcard
Plus Thank You shout out on Facebook and Twitter and the Notes from a Composer blog.
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Kelly told us a lot of people want to pledge projects they support but may only be able to pledge a small amount. We want to encourage giving at all levels, because it spreads good vibes all around. A lot of Kickstarter projects offer pledge levels of $5 or $10, but the offered reward is only a “thank you” or maybe a social media shout out at best. Kelly advised us to offer a tangible reward at every level. The Speakeasy postcard will be unique to our Speakeasy showcase at the Theater for the New City, featuring a one of a kind illustration (soon to be unveiled on this site). Each postcard will also be signed by yours truly, the composer/writer of Speakeasy and mailed with a real stamp to anywhere on the planet. (This reads like a spiel on QVC.)
And there is of course, too, a regular social media shout out on Twitter and Facebook and eventually on Notes from a Composer to everybody who pledges at every level.
“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” is the song that put Cyndi Lauper on the scene and to this day is the song she is most identified with, even though she has had many other hit songs since, recorded dance albums, standards albums and blues albums and recently became the first woman to win a Tony for writing both music and lyrics for the hit Broadway show “Kinky Boots”.
And follow that up with Cyndi Lauper’s cover version featuring Puffy AmiYumi and lots of brass and Latin party flavor, retitled “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”:
Let’s move on to the cover versions by other artists, and of the many cover versions of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, this somber piano ballad take on the song by Gary Laswell is definitely the most popular. It is listed as a “demo” and appears to have been considered but not included in his “covers” EP. Nonetheless it has become one of his most successful recordings. He sings it in first person narrative, just like Cyndi, which would make him the girl that wants to have fun.
When I was researching Gay Culture of the 1920’s and 1930’s in preparation for writing “
Except I discovered, a year later after a lot more research into pre-WW2 Queer history and slowly consolidating the various characters and story lines of “Speakeasy”, that I couldn’t remember where I had read that inspirational tidbit about Julian Eltinge. For a couple panicked hours I poured through my notes and various history books, frightening myself that I may have imagined the incident and erroneously built a whole character and plot development around a fiction I only believed was history.
Maybe that is because his sexuality is in question and thus so is his place in Queer history. Julian Eltinge was by all accounts incredibly good at portraying women on stage. Believable. Entertaining. He performed in Vaudeville, Broadway, London’s West End and in Silent Movies and became very wealthy. However, unlike Julian Carnation in “Speakeasy”, Julian Eltinge, officially was straight. Although believed to be homosexual by many of his peers in the theater, Eltinge aggressively asserted his heterosexuality with extended engagements to women (he would ultimately never marry) and (likely staged) bar fights (methinks the lady maybe doth protest too much?). His personal life is shrouded in innuendo and speculation.
The bestselling Author Rebecca Cantrell has posted an interview with me about Speakeasy on her blog. In it I reveal some tidbits about Speakeasy and a song demo that had not yet found their way to Notes from a Composer. 
Notes from a Composer 