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Starving Actors' vice president Hunter Larrison, left, and treasurer Calen Calero stand in front of a picture of the school's namesake. Photo: William Whited, NewsNetNebraska
In September, 2008, Christian Stokes, Hunter Larrison and Calen Calero, all students at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film, dodged their school's red tape and formed the new group.
"We needed signatures to do events, and this slowed us down from doing what we wanted," said Calero, 21, group treasurer and a junior performing arts major. "You had to go through the network to do things like contact Campus Police for security or work with food services for food regulations. We thought it would run a lot smoother if we could cut the middle man out."
Starving Actors has helped finance projects such as "Rabbit Hole," a play produced by student Trent Stork.
Despite being fueled by ambition and a driving sense of independence, the group struggled greatly in the beginning to organize and raise money. They said the hardest parts of organizing an event was finding which UNL staffers they needed to call, and who to contact to get the word out. While organizing each event can be challenging, the payout for helping performing arts students in need is greater, said Larrison, 20, group vice president and a junior performing arts major.
"Most students, whether they're doing director projects or thesis films, have a $120 max production budget, Larrison said. "If we can give them $300 to work with, it makes the final product better. A few hundred dollars can mean the difference between a film that looks like it's shot in someone's basement, versus something you can put on a professional reel."
According to Calero, increasing budgets allows a student to have a larger audio crew, more light operators and makeup artists.
Still, the UNL organization works each day to expand its membership and complete more events. Money-raising ideas over the past year have included creating a theater calendar and installing vending machines around campus.
Halloween this year marked a monstrous haunted house success in fundraising. In the spring, Starving Actors plans to produce a stand-up comedy competition. In the meantime, members like Stokes, 22, the group's president and a senior performing arts student, Calero and Larrison will search for contestants, advertisers and competition judges.
"We'd like to collaborate with the music school, maybe auction artwork," Larrison said. "We lead by example. If our self-motivation and mobilization spawns more people with good ideas for fundraisers, we'll give them a job."
"All these students who we'll help can say, ‘I got my degree from the Johnny Carson School of Theater and Film,'" Calero said. "It makes the school look good."
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