Funding for New Swan helps cover the salaries/housing for the professional actors that work side-by-side with our talented students. Our acting company features a healthy mix of professional alumni of UCI Drama, and current students chosen from our graduate and undergraduate population. Bringing professional artists to New Swan is central to our mission, and allows us to maintain our high standards of performance excellence. Each professional actor costs a minimum of $10,000, including housing.
Funding also helps us maintain our theater itself. The New Swan Theater is a 15 ton, portable, mini-Elizabethan Theater. It was designed and built at UC Irvine and won the OC Arts award for Best Contribution to the Built Environment, 2013. Like a wooden boat, the theater is in need of constant maintenance and upkeep. This year, funding will help us purchase new seats and replace the wooden infrastructure. New seats costs $6,000. Replacing the wooden infrastructure costs $8,000.
Funding helps cover the cost of costumes. Whether set in the Elizabethan era or America in the 50’s, our costumes tell us who the characters are and where they’re from. Since the audience sits close to the action, the costumes have to be built to perfection. Each play’s material cost for costumes comes to $5000.
