When Do You Turn to Plan B?

What do you do when things don't go as originally planned? Clubbed Thumb shares their ideas when they encountered that scenario:

We realized that the turnaround from mid-October, when the grant could be made public, to now, when our summer programming decisions had to be finalized, was not enough time to fully execute this program. Over the fall and winter, we had a lot of great conversations, many of which had/have the potential to bear fruit. Ultimately, the one or two projects to which we narrowed down could not be worked out for this summer. While we could put something in place to satisfy the terms of the grant on our original timeline, it would be much more valuable if we could continue to explore the proposed parameters of the grant. We are looking at 2011 for the partnering projects to happen. This situation however introduces an additional burden; we must secure enough of a firm commitment from a partnering institution so that grant funds will be spent by the end of March, even if the productions are a little later. Because that is right up to the margin, we have planned a September 2010 check-in, by which point if we do not have a relationship fairly firmly in place we will move to a Plan B. We have a rough-out of that plan now, and will hone it over the coming months as we re-engage with our initial conversations. Emilya (Emilya Cachapero, TCG)has made a good suggestion: going to our core playwrights to see what they are working on with other institutions, and seeing if we can find a good collaboration that way; we also have projects that were of interest, but could not be fit into the initial timeline. In sum ... we have our work cut out for us, but are excited about the further exploration of our idea.

--Maria Striar, Clubbed Thumb