Welcome to Beating of Wings’ 2027 Season Fundraising Campaign:

Feed the Birds

Though we first flapped ourselves into existence back in 2019, we’re now rebranding and expanding, and our first full season is ready to take flight!

We're building a new kind of regional theater company in Southern California…and right now, we're still in the egg. We’re incubating, cooking, forming into something magical that can emerge and take flight. And that’s where you come in:

We're raising $25,000 to help launch our upcoming season of ambitious, unconventional theater.

Every donor to this campaign becomes part of our story as a member of the Founding Flock. In addition to the exciting donor rewards we’re offering, when you feed our campaign, you feed your soul: knowing that not only have you supported new innovative art, you’ve become part of Beating of Wings’ lore and legacy forever. Join us on our new journey to create innovative, transformative, community-centered live theater.

And yes, we know every theater claims to be new and interesting and innovative and special…even when they aren’t. But we promise, we put our money where our mouth is. You can help us prove it if you put your money where our mouth is, too.

Donate: Join the story. Nourish the arts. Satiate starving artists.

Feed the Birds.

Keep reading to find out more about us and our big plans (though you don't have to if you don't want to, you can just donate right now and then leave!). But the deeper this goes the more unhinged it gets...

HELP US EAT AND LEAVE NO CRUMBS

In 2024, after a group of teens organically stumbled upon our public performance of Our Feet Off the Ground, they gave us the single best review we have ever received. Quote:

“Y’ALL ATE.” -the park youths of Fullerton

We want to eat again. We’re hungry to keep creating art, and we think our community is hungry for what we have to offer too. We’ve proven we can connect with the youths, and now we want to connect with an even larger and more diverse demographic. With our 2027 Season, we’re cooking up whimsical and immersive live experiences designed to cultivate shared ritual, collective communal mythmaking, and a really really good time.

Your donation helps us pay artists, secure spaces, build sets and costumes, create props, insure our productions, and make the kind of theatrical experiences that don't happen without a whole flock of people behind them. And as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, every donation you make to Beating of Wings is tax deductible.

But most importantly, it doesn’t just help us make theater…it helps us make good theater.

It helps us eat…and leave no crumbs.

INSERT: video

THE SEASON

(aka, what you're actually funding)

Beating of Wings is proud to announce its Semi-Inaugural 2027 Season:
THE LEGENDS WE LIVE IN

This season, Beating of Wings explores the stories we create to understand ourselves and the world around us. From ancient myths to modern monsters, these are stories that blur the boundaries between memory and invention, fact and folklore, reality and wonder. Pericles asks what happens when the stories we inherit become the only way we can understand what we have lost; The Secret History of the Mahulley Monster asks why we invent stories to give shape to what we cannot explain. Together, these two plays invite us to consider the legends we carry, the ones we create, and the ways those stories become part of who we are, while exploring the core philosophy behind Beating of Wings: that stories matter, and the way we share them matters even more.

THE SPRING EPIC (Spring 2027):

In this radically reimagined adaptation of Pericles (and when we say radical, we mean RADICAL…this isn’t your grandma’s Shakespeare play!), Shakespeare’s sprawling romance becomes a theatrical folk tale about loss, belonging, and the stories we create to make sense of what we cannot recover. A troupe of traveling performers arrives in Mytilene, where their leader Marina is asked to coax a mysterious shipwreck survivor from his silence. She turns to the only language she knows: a story.

Blending verse and contemporary language with live music, folk storytelling, improv, theatrical spectacle, and circus-inspired aesthetics, this adaptation asks what stories can give us when reality has left us with gaps, grief, and unanswered questions. In an age defined by instability, displacement and repeated collective upheaval, Pericles offers a celebration of the radical possibility that, even after everything familiar has been lost, we can still make meaning and create a sense of home together, inviting audiences to experience wonder not as escapism, but as a necessary response to a fractured world.

THE FALL BALLAD (Fall 2027):

When Dr. Kam Vandermeer visits the Midland Paranormal Convention to present her research on the mysterious Mahulley Monster, C-List paranormal TV personality Peter McGillis seems determined to poke holes in her story. But as they delve deeper into Kam’s evidence, their bickering only unearths something stranger than either one of them can explain.

Blending theater, analog horror, dark comedy and mystery, The Secret History of the Mahulley Monster (or, the Cryptid Play) by local LA playwright Chelsea Sutton, explores what happens when the stories we tell about the unknown begin to tell us something about ourselves, and what those myths reveal about our fears, our humanity, our communities, and our need to make meaning out of what we cannot understand.

CAMPAIGN MILESTONES

We know $25,000 seems like a big number (though for a two-show season, it's pretty low!), so we've broken this journey up into a few key milestones so we can celebrate our wings along the way, and to prove to you that truly, EVERY AMOUNT COUNTS and gets us closer to our goal. YOUR TEN DOLLARS MATTERS!

We’re still in the incubation phase, but with each milestone reached, we’re one step closer to producing our season…

one step closer to taking flight:

$1,000: THE FIRST CRACK. We’ve made our first tiny step forward, and you’ve paid for our stage manager!

$2,500: BEAK SNEAK PEEK. We can progress a little further toward our goal of reaching the sky, and you’ve paid for our designers!

$5,000: THE EMERGENCE. We’re still just a little baby bird, but we’re free of our egg and ready to keep growing, and you’ve paid for our creative team and venue deposit!

$10,000 STRETCHING THE WINGS. We’re halfway there! We’re testing out our feathers, and though we can’t soar into the sky quite yet, you’ve paid for our musicians, insurance, and set!

$15,000: FLIGHT PRACTICE. We’re growing stronger and feeling a little bit braver, so we can start to practice our wing flaps in preparation for our great flight - and you’ve paid for our rehearsal space and actor stipends!

$17,500: FULLY GROWN. We’re mostly fed and fully grown…we just need one final push away from leaving the nest and flying into our 2027 season. You’ve paid for our marketing...now let’s pay for the rest!

$20,000: OUR FIRST FLIGHT. Our wings are stretching…we’re so close to leaving the nest!

$25,000: TIME TO SOAR, BABY! Thanks to you, WE MADE IT! The birds are fed, the starving artists satiated, the arts nourished, and now we’re ready to leave the nest and officially launch our first season into the sky.

At each milestone, the bird grows…and so does the company.

JOIN THE FOUNDING FLOCK

There are lots of ways to feed the bird and support our season- every donor joins our Founding Flock. How far up the evolutionary ladder do you want to fly?

DONOR TIERS AND REWARDS*:

*PLEASE NOTE: all physical rewards will be mailed after the campaign conclusion in January. If your donation rewards include show tickets, a member of our team will reach out in January to arrange redemption.

EGG: $10-$24 Eggward : r/twilight You get:

Your chosen face photoshopped onto an egg (delivered digitally)
To submit a food for our Associate Artistic Director Jonathan to eat on our Social Media Series “Taste Test Tuesday”

HATCHLING: $25-$49

You get:

To submit a food for our Associate Artistic Director Jonathan to eat on our Social Media Series “Taste Test Tuesday”
Thank-you in the program
Exclusive Founding Flock Beating of Wings sticker set

NESTLING: $50-$99

You get:

Everything included in the lower tiers, plus
Submit a Theater Hot Take for the Beating of Wings crew to publicly debate on social media

FLEDGLING: $100-$249

You get:

Everything included in the lower tiers, plus
One free standard ticket to the Fall Ballad

AVIAN: $250-$499

You get:

Everything included in the lower tiers (excluding Fall Ballad ticket), plus
One free standard ticket to the Spring Epic
An invitation to our Donors-Only Pericles sitzprobe Sit-In Rehearsal
Exclusive Beating of Wings Founding Flock magnet

FLOCK LEADER: $500-$999

You're not just feeding the bird anymore - you're leading the whole damn flock.

You get:

Everything included in the lower tiers (excluding Spring Epic Standard Ticket), plus
One VIP ticket to the Spring Epic
Exclusive Beating of Wings Founding Flock pin
Access to “The Forbidden Archives”- receive a curated digital collection of behind-the-scenes material: abandoned concepts, ridiculous early ideas, outtakes, rejected titles, production mishaps, or other artifacts from Beating of Wings' creative process.

THE WIND BENEATH OUR WINGS: $1,000-$4,999

You are now officially our hero, and everything we would like to be.

You get:

Everything included in the lower tiers, plus
One VIP ticket to BOTH the Spring Epic and the Fall Ballad
Exclusive Beating of Wings Founding Flock tote bag
The BOW Leadership Team has to sing “The Wind Beneath my Wings” publicly on social media (legally binding)*

*customizable experience: choose between an earnest harp rendition by Valerie Larsen, a well-sung-but-absurdly-silly Broadway-Diva style version by Katie DeShan, or a one-line-at-a-time acapella version sung by the whole BOW team in the style of Gal Gadot's celebrity "Imagine" video

THE SKY ITSELF: $5,000-$9,999

You’ve moved way beyond supporting just one bird and moved into the realm of supporting the very existence of the concept of a bird.

You get:

Everything included in the lower tiers, plus
2 VIP+ tickets to all Beating of Wings events for the year
The Opportunity to Submit a “Community Commission”- send us a prompt or idea for a 30 second - 2 minute performance that we execute and post on our social media
Your name hidden somewhere on the set of BOTH shows
And if you really want us to also sing you "The Wind Beneath My Wings" we'll do it

THE ULTIMATE SILLY GOOSE: $10,000+

You have donated $10,000 or more to a newish theater company.

We need to respect that level of commitment.

The reward is currently classified.

But it will be insane.

Let's just say: you will become part of Beating of Wings lore.

Generations to come will know your name.

The exclusive Beating of Wings Founding Flock sticker set

The exclusive Beating of Wings Founding Flock enamel pin and magnet (as the magnet declares, donating to us will make you an Official Good Person)

OR, IF YOU PREFER SOMETHING MORE CONCRETE, SPONSOR ONE OF THESE NECESSITIES!

Maybe even have your name proudly displayed upon these items?

For $500 you can SPONSOR OUR PERICLES CHAIRS! (Support audience butts)

For $1000 you can SPONSOR OUR PERICLES PORTA-POTTIES! (Also supporting audience butts)

For $1000 you can SPONSOR OUR PERICLES SET (You can offer one creative note)

For $2000 you can SPONSOR OUR AERIAL RIG!

Be proud, pay for potties.

WHERE YOUR MONEY ACTUALLY GOES

Making ambitious theater takes an entire gaggle of gracious and giving geese.

Our first season has a projected budget of approximately $40,000-$45,000.

We expect ticket sales to cover roughly one-third of that cost, but tickets alone can't support the kind of work we want to make or the artists we want to compensate.

That's where you come in.

We're raising this $25,000 to help fill the gap between what ticket revenue can cover and what it actually costs to create a professional season of ambitious, unconventional theater.
Your donation helps us put money directly toward the people, spaces, materials, and infrastructure that make the work possible.

But of course...if we raise even more than $25,000, that will help us ensure we can meet all our financial requirements for this season without relying on ticket sales!

THE BREAKDOWN

ARTISTS & CREATORS- About half of our season budget

Actors, musicians, stage managers, designers, choreographers, movement collaborators, and other artists are the heart of the work. Your support helps us provide meaningful compensation to the people who make Beating of Wings possible.

SPACES & PRODUCTIONS- About half of our season budget

Rehearsal and performance spaces, set construction, costumes, props, lighting, sound, rigging, insurance, marketing, and all the other unglamorous-but-essential pieces that turn an idea into an actual production.

AND...THE FUN STUFF

Your support also helps us do the things that make Beating of Wings Beating of Wings: from ambitious physical storytelling and aerial work to immersive design and the strange little details that turn a performance into an experience.

We're not trying to make the cheapest possible version of these shows. We're trying to make them well.

What does $25,000 actually mean?

It means we can make meaningful progress toward a $40,000 season without asking ticket buyers to shoulder the entire cost.

It means artists can be compensated.

It means we can afford the spaces and materials we need.

It means we can take creative risks.

It means we can build productions that are bigger, stranger, more immersive, and more ambitious than what we could make on ticket revenue alone.

And importantly, your donation isn't paying for an organization sitting around doing paperwork.

It's helping put artists in rehearsal rooms, productions in spaces, and audiences inside experiences.

TL;DR:

Our budget is built to be flexible. We're actively pursuing additional earned and contributed income, in-kind support, and cost-saving opportunities as we build our first season. The $25,000 we're raising here represents a significant piece of that funding puzzle, not the entire cost of the season.

We're building a sustainable theater company, not just funding one show, and every dollar helps us get there.

Ticket sales help keep us going, but donations help us take flight.

OUR MISSION AND VALUES
(aka, who we are and why you should support us)

MISSION:

Beating of Wings creates transformative theatrical experiences that expand the possibilities of live performance by reimagining where it happens, how it's created, and who it belongs to. Through immersive and community-centered storytelling, rigorous ensemble-driven collaboration, and interdisciplinary artistry, we create evocative participatory work that challenges convention, while inviting imagination, meaningful connection, and critical reflection.

VALUES:

At Beating of Wings, we believe theater can be a transformative experience: a place where imagination, story, and community come together to create something that could not exist anywhere else. We are interested in what happens when we approach live performance not simply as a form, but as an opportunity to build worlds, challenge conventions, and create meaningful experiences for both artists and audiences.

Our work is grounded in the following values:

1.) Imagination Without Limits- We embrace ambitious and inventive work that incorporates theatricality, experimentation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and unconventional approaches to live storytelling.

2.) Reimagining Stories to Reimagine the World- We are drawn to stories that have the capacity to change the way we see ourselves and the world around us.

3.) Collaboration and Creative Risk Taking- We believe the strongest work emerges when artists bring their full imaginations to the room. We value generous, rigorous, ensemble-driven collaboration, and believe sustainable artistry requires room for artists to be human.

4.) Community Over Convention- We believe theater belongs to more people than the traditional structures of the theater industry have often allowed. We seek to build meaningful relationships with the communities where we work and to make ambitious, imaginative performance accessible beyond traditional theater spaces and structures.

5.) Intentional Inclusion- We believe that there’s no such thing as a “universal story” and that theater should be as accessible as possible to a wide range of artists and audiences. By prioritizing and adopting inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) practices across casting, production, and programming, we seek to better represent the vast spectrum of diverse experiences in our Greater LA community.

6.) Always Aesthetic AF- We believe the world of a theatrical production is as important as the story it tells. We have a deep commitment to aesthetics, design, and the creation of fully realized theatrical environments that engage the audience's senses and imagination.

For a deeper dive into all of our values, visit our website:

WHY YOU CAN TRUST US

Beating of Wings has been making theater since 2019

What started as an independent theater collective has grown through years of producing performances, developing new work, building community, and learning what it takes to make ambitious theater happen.

Along the way, our artists have worked professionally across Southern California and beyond, with experience spanning every aspect of the theatre world, including directing, acting, producing, design, stage management, arts administration, and education. Artistic Director Anna Miles holds an MFA from Brown University/Trinity Repertory Company’s Programs in Acting and Directing and has directed award-winning productions, worked as an assistant director at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and spent years creating theater professionally across Southern California. Our producing team includes experienced theater artists, producers, designers, technicians, and arts administrators who have worked across a wide range of productions and organizations.

Now, we're taking the next step: building Beating of Wings into a sustainable regional theater company.

We've already put in the years of unglamorous work behind the scenes, too. Beating of Wings is an established 501(c)(3) nonprofit with an experienced producing team, organizational infrastructure, and a history of fundraising and putting resources directly toward making theater.

We're not asking you to bet on whether we can make theater. We're asking you to help us make more of it, and make it bigger, stranger, and more ambitious.

We've been doing the work since 2019.

Now we're ready to see how far we can fly.

Will you help us get there?

Will you feed the birds?

The arts needs you. It needs the nourishment only you can give.

Show us you care, and you'll be glad if you do.

Please...we're so very hungry.

Feed the Birds: Get Our First Season Off the Ground!

Beating of Wings is growing - and we need your help to take flight. Help nourish innovative art and become a founding donor for our first season! In exchange, we promise to *eat*...and leave no crumbs.

Beating of Wings is growing - and we need your help to take flight. Help nourish innovative art and become a founding donor for our first season! In exchange, we promise to eat...and leave no crumbs.