Lets Help Get Zoe To Juilliard
Zoe is my Arts Emergency mentee who has beaten extraordinary odds and been offered a place at Juilliard.
This session was about Zoe Agbonkonkon - my really amazing Arts Emergency mentee. (For those who don’t know Arts Emergency helps young people from working class and underrepresented backgrounds into careers in the arts - you can volunteer to mentor for them and give an hour or so a month of your time - I really recommend you do)
Zoe is pretty special human. At her first session she announced she was off to NY to audition for Julliard one of the best acting programs in the world. She got down to the last 10 of 150 on that trip. They invited her back for a recall. Julliard isn’t an acting training for the fainthearted or for the starry-eyed. From what I hear from NY friends and from Zoe it’s all about seriousness, commitment and dedication to craft. Zoe is those things. So she went off to that recall…and she got in. Over the moon.
But this incredible offer - which includes the school paying the four years tuition fees - comes with a sting. To get a student visa she has to prove she has her living expenses for the first year. She can’t work there of course. And NYC is eyewateringly expensive. And the course starts in August. And the US student visa deadline ….is May.
Zoe has a GoFundMe and and has been working tirelessly to raise funds. Zoe was able to join D&D on the Monday - the day of action - and we ran a session together to gain ideas. I also was approached by several people throughout the weekend who had ideas and thoughts.
My main takeaway from all this is this. However daunting the task the power of the community - ideas, seven degrees of separation, people sharing the QR code - it’s all possible if we put our collective brain to the task. I’m so grateful to those who despite the vastness of the task sat down to give it some time.
Just sitting down with us and giving your time and your energy is huge. It makes a difference.
We plotted out a continuum that stretched from great to scary.
Rich people sponsoring the whole thing > Regular folk donating what they can and sharing the QR> GoFundMe pot and it’s incremental climb > Loans from donors interest free > Loans with awful terms / interest. Great to scary.
Sort of a subheading because the network matters was ‘General connections from D&D and elsewhere’
In this category came -
Grants that have fast strands (e.g. Artery, Genesis, Foundation of Contemporary Arts, Artist Relief, Genesis, Backstage Trust perhaps). I feel grants and trusts are mostly going to be too late in this turnaround - though useful ideas did come up of places that might move a bit faster. There’s also a job of research because a quick search found that some are focussed on orgs rather than individuals
Direct approach to successful actors who are vocal about changing the sector on social media, or to their agents, Conservatoires Uk - what alumni were from where?, influential people who make things happen (maybe Edda O’Brien, Tom Morris, Stephen Fry, Stormzy, Ethan Hawke, Colman Domingo)
Phelim said he would speak to Anthony Roth Costanzo and Jonathan Holiday both of his production of Aknaten.
Robert Aramayo might be a good person to approach as he also won a scholarship to Julliard. His agent is Molly Cowan from 42 Management.
Moving along the continuum from donations / giving towards the loan ideas came up of interest free loans from donors if grants / sponsorship was not possible - at least it would be better than the onerous high-interest loans there over in the absolutely-worst-case-scenario. Other loan ideas came up e.g. Creative Uk, Arts Impact etc. an interest free loan could be useful - quick searches came back with the majority being for organisations or businesses but perhaps someone could help us find through the maze of that line of enquiry.
Adna announced she had ‘access to investors’ and advised us that Zoe’s GoFundMe story was too long. She went off and tried an edit which she emailed to me. Thanks Adna.
It’s a lot of course. I feel excited by the ideas and I notice peaks and troughs in levels of hope and energy.
Phelim suggested it’s not so much we’re sat here asking to find the money more that we’re ‘covening a field of possibilty’.
I like that.
Other’s offered emails and went off and came back to think. Chairs were moving around and our session kind of continued as people stopped by anyway - most of the room had heard of Zoe’s story by this point.
Towards the end of the morning something shifted in terms of what we could control and this picked up the spirit, people became more animated as they dug into the real work and action we could take.
It becomes all about the story. Telling the story.
Amelia from Tarawa asked Zoe about sharing her heritage and where she lived exactly in London to tap into connections with similar stories. Wonderfully it’s Talawa’s 40th year this year - and she offered to put her thoughts to who might have ideas from there. Perhaps a Ugandan film-maker she knew could help make a reel. She also suggested checking out Upshot Reels on socials as they make brilliant actor mono reels - to do it in the style of that. (Zoe - you can borrow my self-tape kit also of course)
Earlier Phelim had suggested that in order to put Zoe’s story out there it might be good to see her doing her stuff - could she do a speech or write a speech to perform and record and share online. I wondered since time was of the essence maybe there are some great texts that suit her story. After a search Viola came up (12th Night) ..and Henry V which Zoe had done for Julliard. (Zoe - ask Tim Crouch when you see him on Weds - he’s a Shakespeare nerd and will have ideas)
Adna had more thoughts about building up Zoe’s story especially to attract doners. Using reels / insta / tictok etc. Tell us about yourself. Maybe make a plan of content to release with different bits of your story - e.g. the recall audition at Julliard what it was like and who you met. Tag the tutors - it helps their visibility and they become aware of your seriousness.
Isaac had contacted Jeffry Boakye from Radio 4’s Add to Playlist, actor Eric Kofi-Abrefa and Kofi Smiles Radio Humberside. (Amazing contacts Isaac!) about sharing Zoe’s GoFundMe - what other radio interviews could Zoe do.
It was felt what was most missing in Zoe’s story so far is the sense of jeopardy. What is at stake if she doesn’t get to go to Julliard? Raising that sense of urgency. How to close that last 20k gap? It needs to be in the story. Zoe cannot defer her place to raise money later. (Do they need bank balance or would inkind support work e.g. offers of places to live?). US authorities need their proof by the end of this month. Using the tools of story telling - what’s at stake for our heroine? What is the adventure, the obstacles to overcome?
D&D weekend has clashed with something for me recently - it was so good to be back. I am as always in awe of this process every time I come here. It was great to have Zoe here today.
Huge thanks to each person this weekend who put their thoughts and action to Zoe’s cause.
To everyone who voted on their feet to sit and work through the issues,
to find me and tell me how moved they were to hear her story,
to those who had thought about Zoe’s story overnight and had already emailed people
or even were doing so stood up talking to me,
to every person who went over to the noticeboard to scan the the QR code.
To every single person who makes every single share going forward.
To each one of those people we met in the room and each of their connections who share her GoFundMe in the future - you are the best kind of people - thank you.
This is open space.