After months of bouncing ideas for shows off each other, pitching shows to established production companies with little success, and facing road block after road block for our creative endeavours, we came up with a simple solution to our complex problem: If you’re not provided opportunities to pursue your dreams, create your own.
Under the leadership of our founder, Alan Pronger, we started establishing a non-profit society with our very own rag-tag group of musical theatre enthusiasts. Having a non-profit at the helm of a production has multiple benefits: You get discounts on resources like theatre and rehearsal space, more people are willing to donate to a non-profit than a for-profit company or individual, and incorporation gives you added liability protection while producing. Plus, being a director of a non-profit you believe in is pretty darn cool.
With this in mind, our mission statement came naturally. What did we want to do? Create theatrical experiences that imitate the absurdity of modern life, because life is a little bonkers, if you really think about it. Who do we want to create opportunities for? Emerging artists, so they can share their passion for performance with a wider audience. How did we want to do it? As a collective. Did we want to make money from it? No, don’t be stupid, this is art. Money is a byproduct, not a goal. Still, it would be nice to break even.
Naming our society was a little more difficult. Our first attempt at a name came from Alan’s tattoo, a Lark. In addition to being his family’s spirit animal, ‘lark’ is a noun that describes a merry, carefree adventure or innocent, good-natured mischief, or a verb meaning to have fun, frolic, or a romp. Not only does this perfectly describe Alan, but also the type of show we wanted to put on. Lark Productions it was.
We began branding and coming up with different concepts of how we wanted to represent ourselves. Our partners at Spark Creative, headed by Tim Kraumanis, came up with the silhouette of the bird in our logo, which was taken directly from a photo of Alan’s tattoo. It was perfect. We felt like we made it. We had out team, we had our mission statement, we had our name, and we had our brand.
However, we hit a road block when we discovered that “Lark Productions” was already taken, used by a video production company in Vancouver. After coming up with the perfect name, this was a huge blow to our original enthusiasm. Going back to the brainstorm wall, we came up with a number of alternatives, but when “Too Fly” was suggested, it instantly stuck. “Too Fly” alludes to the original idea of a lark, yet also being an ironic throwback to popular culture. It is fun, whimsical. light-hearted and everything we wanted to be, especially when tied to our logo.
With our branding complete, and our non-profit formed and official accepted by the government of BC, we had our means to achieve our creative goals. Now the hard part: Produce a show…