First of all, I wasn't there. After paying the actors to rehearse ($10/hour), the $350 fee once I was accepted into the Spring Festival ( I can't remember what it was for), half the air fares for two local talented actors (who were splitting the role of Mike, and with whom I had worked before), the performance fees for the actors ($50/ performance per actor), I think a sound/light technician (maybe from the Festival people), renting rehearsal spaces, renting a church for an extra performance, paying for props and costumes and set pieces, and finally the director's fee ($2,000) - I probably spent a total of $6,000 - $8,000 to produce the play over there, after which I had no more money to fly myself over there and put myself up somewhere. But I was actively involved by phone, e-mail and bank account - Sylvia had set up an account in New York so I could transfer money into it to pay for things as needed. I was also advertising the play on a NYC theatre website (LocalTheatreNY.com), and I paid the producer of that website, Roger Gonzalez, to film the opening night performance ($200) - this is the 41 minute video you can view on YouTube with the link on this website,  "2020 Glimmer Video". I asked Roger about my trying to get a NY reviewer to attend the play, but his comment was, "It's hard to get reviewed in this town..." I did send e-mails to a couple of reviewers at some NY papers, but no response. Nor did I have a PR person - it's hard to get one to pay attention to you over here, let alone there...

Opening night was a Friday night - Sylvia called me after the performance to tell me the play went reasonably well, with Paul Loper playing the role of Mike - this is the performance you can see in the video - about 10 of the 50 seats of the Payan Theatre were filled - I could see the theatre on the internet and I liked its two chandeliers - I felt hopeful about the play! - we had two more performances to go in the Festival, and I thought maybe the audiences would increase - also, I had learned what some of the other plays in the Festival were about from its online advertising at LocalThetareNY.com, and I (of course) thought my play was going to be the best in the Festival - I had a good play ( I still think this), a good director, and at least two good actors in it who had performed in another of my plays, "Another Depression". The next day, Saturday, was a matinee for the play. I had previously volunteered to spend that day at San Jose State University (my alma mater) with some MESA students (Minorities in Science and Engineering Association) from Middle College High School, a local high school at which I like to teach. The students were all in workshops between competitions, and we adults were just hanging out in a big empty auditorium, waiting for them to come out. I was in good spirits because I knew that at 10AM (1 PM EST) The Glimmer was going to be performed again in New York. I remember putting my phone up to my eyes to see what time it was - two minutes to ten! - when the phone suddenly rang in my hands - it was Sylvia, my director! "What are you talking to me for?", I said, "Isn't the play about to go up?" "The performance is being cancelled", she said, "there's no audience, not one person..." We talked about it, and I put the phone back in my pocket with a bad premonition... I walked out into the SJSU quad and thought about what might happen - or might not happen - as I walked past the small classroom building where decades earlier I had taken playwriting classes from Dr. Harold Crain - I haven't made much progress in my writing, I thought... but then I remembered that my second one-act, "On The Celebration of Being Alone", on a bill with an Ionesco play, was produced to some acclaim there at SJSU as a grad project with an audience of 100 (probably to see the Ionesco play) - and that after I went home and there was a phone call from a producer in Soquel at The Staircase Theatre - he had already heard about my play and I went down there and we talked, but it went nowhere.. that Sunday night was the next performance, this time with Michael Lange in the role of Mike - but only four people in the audience. Sylvia heroically got a church where she had been rehearsing to have another performance, the next night, after our Festival run was over - 7 people, and then it was really all over - I had produced The Glimmer in New York City in Times Square, and yet only 21 people had seen it - later I got a check in the mail from the Festival producers for my share of the house - $90. Sylvia complained to me that the Festival organizers didn't seem to care enough to really promote the plays, that maybe they just wanted money from people like me who wanted their plays produced in New York City, and so I fired off a tempered ( I thought) e-mail blast to Roy Arias, the owner of the three theatres involved in the Festival, and he fired a blast back, saying I should have done more promoting of my own work ( he was right) , although he did say he was willing to give us another shot another time - we'll see how things play out now with The Glimmer, if they play out...      

Contact me at edballou@icloud.com if you are interested in producing this play.