“They say art is priceless… Starting today, it has a price!” (crowd-slogan)

A meeting of aspiring shareholders is called in a theater to discuss the guidelines of a paradoxical crowdfunding initiative that will allow donors to secure a percentage of the theatrical work as a reward. Gradually, the auctioneer or chairman of the meeting, who calls himself Scrooge, is revealed to be the lead actor in the very show for which the crowdfunding is being held. But what will such a show be about? Naturally, it will focus on a shareholder meeting, gathered in a theater, in a permanent assembly to determine the fate of a show in which they are shareholders to varying degrees. And so, between incursions of eccentric guests, epiphanies of ghosts from the past, present, and future (all drawn to the absurd and mephistophelic character named Scrooge, who may have always belonged to a different story), between semi-serious interviews with artists, bartenders, pyrotechnicians, and specialists, and amidst constant, exhausting negotiations, the decision is made for the ongoing and provisional staging of a show that will center on the same strange story: the tale of a crowdfunding initiative launched to finance a show about crowdfunding.

But what if there’s no money to produce it? Then a crowdfunding campaign will be launched. In an absurd spiral of meanings and contradictions, the show mirrors a disheveled era where art and commerce, government and grassroots funding, engagement and entertainment, new & old economy, virtuous practices and vicious circles, disinterest and conflict of interest, are at the heart of a strange, carnivalesque struggle that perhaps has at its center the very value that has been removed again and again: the value of art in human life.

The crowdfunding, which is at the heart of the show, will be active until next Christmas on www.derev.com, and will allow donors, by financing the project, to modify its content in future performances: participate too!