Kickstarting Shakespeare

Got some extra money lying around? Want to help advance the dream of “more Shakespeare”?

Take a visit over at Kickstarter.com which tries to connect artists (film makers, mostly, it seems) with financial backers. I’ve seen random projects go by recently, and it only just dawned on me that I can type “Shakespeare” in ye olde searcheth box and see no end of ideas about how to interpret Shakespeare.

Many seem to be “We want to take our existing troupe on the road” projects, or “We want to record something we’ve already been doing”, but if you poke around you’ll find a number of original script projects looking to be turned into reality.

So if you want to do something with all that extra money besides giving it to me :), why not check it out? I have no affiliation to the site or any of the projects, and quite frankly I’m not fully sure how it works. They apparently run on (and promote) the “all or nothing funding” idea. So if somebody says they need $5000, and they only raise $4000, then both parties walk away with no commitment. It’s not like you as the contributor have to put something up front and then try to get it back later.   

How do you know, even with 100% funding, that the project will happen? Well, you don’t. And that’s where the risks come in. There’s a lengthy FAQ on the site that does a good job of explaining how they try to minimize this risk, though.