Academy Theatre — Follow-Up Sequence

Target: Academy Theatre — nonprofit professional theatre — 599 N Central Ave, Hapeville GA 30354

Contact: no named contact published — address the theatre/team

Channel(s): Email info@academytheatre.org (primary); Instagram DM @academytheatrega (alternate, one touch max); X @academytheatre; YT @AcademyTheatre; phone (404) 474-8332

Source first-touch: registry/leads/drafts/academy-theatre-outreach.md (I7, built 2026-09-20)

Source row: targets.md I7 (Web-sourced candidates 2026-09-20)

Generated: 2026-09-20 (night-shift)

Assumes: no reply to the first touch (one free short piece, they pick the story, no strings on the first one, they own the footage)

Register: donor-funded legacy nonprofit professional theatre — donor-facing storytelling, resident-company and program content, volunteer and audience voices, year-end giving — not a commercial sell

Cadence

|-------|--------|---------|------------------|

| 2 | D+12 | Email | Free one-page "one performance, sixty seconds" donor-update guide (Appendix A), angled at a resident company |

| 3 | D+20 | Email | The Hapeville public/private partnership angle, plus an honest proof point (Detroit Action, held soft) |

| 4 | D+28 | Email | The building-as-character angle — 599 N Central Ave as the lead |

| 5 | D+36 | Email (or IG DM) | Q4 year-end giving / donor thank-you turn, door-open close |

Flags — read before sending

1. No named contact. There is no named staff or board member in the I7 row or the first-touch draft. Address the org generally — "Hi —" / "Academy Theatre team" — and never invent a person. If Brandyn looks up a real staff, board, or artistic-director name before sending, he can swap the greeting to a first name; otherwise keep it general.

2. No invented email or handle. info@academytheatre.org is the only published email. The other public channels are IG @academytheatrega, X @academytheatre, YT @AcademyTheatre, phone (404) 474-8332. Do not invent a staff address or a new social handle. The FB field is blank in the row — do not reference Facebook. Email is primary; Instagram DM @academytheatrega is a labeled alternate for at most one touch (Touch 5). Pick one channel per touch — never double- or triple-send.

3. Facts confined to the first-touch draft and the I7 row. Georgia's longest-running professional theatre, founded 1956, first integrated professional theatre in the South, public/private partnership with the City of Hapeville, resident companies, 599 N Central Ave — all from the row. Do not invent staff/board/artistic-director names, seasons, productions, ticket prices, attendance, donor counts, funds raised, grants, awards, event or opening dates, or quotes. "The first Black and white actors sharing a stage" is not used anywhere — integration is held at the theatre's own wording, "first integrated professional theatre in the South," without asserting who or when.

4. Do not re-offer the free piece as the lead of every touch. The first touch already made the offer ("one free short piece, they pick the story, they own the footage"). Each touch below leads with a different value; the offer only returns once, as the closing line of Touch 5.

5. Do not imply Academy Theatre is a client anywhere. It is a cold prospect. The only real work referenced is Detroit Action, held soft in Touch 3 ("mission-driven media work I've done, Detroit Action included") — a fact, not a results claim and not a client relationship.

6. The seasonal hook is Q4 year-end giving (the biggest donor window of the year). Touch 5 frames it without naming a campaign or a date.

7. Stop the moment they reply. This is a conversation, not a drip. Any response restarts as a real thread and the remaining touches get dropped.

Touch 1 — The founding/integration legacy story (D+5)

Subject: what "first integrated" meant in the room

Hi —

A website can write "founded 1956, first integrated professional theatre in the South." It can't show what that meant in the room — who shared that stage, what it took to put them there, on N Central Ave, when nobody else in the region was doing it.

That's the story most donor pages skip, and it's one a theatre founded in 1956 has that no one else can claim. If there's an elder who remembers, a founding company member, a board member who was there, that's where I'd point a camera first.

~85 words. Leads with the gap between stating the integration legacy and showing it, not a re-offer of the free shoot. "You pick it" carries forward from the first touch. No names, no dates, no invented event. The register is donor-facing storytelling — the civil-rights-adjacent legacy is the fundraising language, not a sales hook.

Touch 2 — Free asset + the resident-companies angle (D+12)

Subject: a one-page guide for whoever runs a resident company

Hi —

I put together a one-page guide for turning a single rehearsal or performance into a 60-second donor update, shot on a phone. It's written so you could hand it to whoever runs a resident company — no crew needed to start.

It's below, no strings. The resident company in the room, before opening night, is the part most donor letters skip, and it's usually the part that moves them. If the "one story a month" rhythm reads like something that'd feed your year-end ask, that's the part I'd want to build with you.

— Brandyn
Ghost Coast Video · ghostcoast.video

~100 words. Delivers Appendix A. The "hand it to whoever runs a resident company" framing is aimed at a development/comms person who has to make the case internally, not at a direct video buyer. The resident company in the room is the distinct lead value this touch.

Touch 3 — The Hapeville public/private partnership (D+20)

Subject: the Hapeville partnership is a story, not a line item

Hi —

"Public/private partnership with the City of Hapeville" reads like a line in an annual report. What it actually is: a city keeping a theatre alive for seventy years, and a theatre earning that. The city and the building, the people on both sides — that's a story a donor page can't hold.

What I know from the mission-driven media work I've done, Detroit Action included, is that this doesn't wait on a production budget. The partnership is already happening. It's a matter of pointing a camera at it.

— Brandyn
Ghost Coast Video · ghostcoast.video

~95 words. The partnership angle, distinct from the legacy (Touch 1) and the resident companies (Touch 2). Detroit Action stays at "mission-driven media work I've done, Detroit Action included" — a fact, not a results claim and not a client relationship. Does not imply Academy Theatre is a client anywhere.

Touch 4 — The building-as-character angle (D+28)

Subject: the building is a character

Hi —

599 N Central Ave has been a theatre since 1956. A donor page can describe the building; it can't let someone feel what it's like to sit in a room that's been producing work for seventy years.

That's the piece most orgs miss. They film the production and forget the room — the stage floor, the wings, the door on N Central Ave, the seats that have been there through the entire run of the place. A cut that treats the building as the lead does something a season brochure never will.

If the building has a story worth telling, that's one I'd want on camera.

~100 words. The building-as-character angle, distinct from the legacy, resident-company, and partnership angles. "The stage floor, the wings, the door on N Central Ave" is imagery about a real, still-running venue, not a fabricated event or person. The "seventy years" figure is arithmetic on the published 1956 founding, not a new fact.

Touch 5 — Year-end giving, door-open close (D+36)

Subject: one face beats the year-end letter

Hi —

Q4 is the biggest donor window of the year, and the hard part of a year-end ask is making seventy years of theatre land as something a donor can feel. A 60-second thank-you — a resident company mid-scene, a full house in the dark, a volunteer in the lobby after the lights come up — does more for the second gift than the letter alone.

I've sent a few notes over the last month and won't keep them coming if the timing's off. The offer stands as it was: one free piece, your pick, you own the footage. If Academy Theatre ever wants its rooms and its people on camera, I'm around.

— Brandyn
Ghost Coast Video · ghostcoast.video

~110 words. Combines the Q4 year-end giving turn with the door-open close. No ask, no recap, no guilt. The "second gift" line is the donor-retention register, not a hard sell. This is the only touch that restates the free piece, and it does so as a standing offer, not a lead.

Alternate channel (Instagram DM @academytheatrega): same message, condensed to the year-end/thank-you idea and the door-open line, signed "— Brandyn / ghostcoast.video". Use this only if email is getting nowhere; it is the one IG-DM touch allowed.

Appendix A — "One performance, sixty seconds" donor-update mini-guide

The deliverable for Touch 2. Self-contained; paste into an email or drop into a PDF/Google Doc. Written for a legacy theatre's development or comms staff, phone in hand.

One performance, sixty seconds — turning a night on the Academy stage into a donor update on a phone

What it is. A short recipe for taking one real night at the theatre — a resident-company rehearsal, a performance, a load-in — and turning it into a 60-second update a donor can feel. Shot on a phone, no crew.

Why it works. A donor gives to a place, not a season listing. The website can state "founded 1956, first integrated professional theatre in the South." It can't show a resident company in the room, the stage before a run-through, or the audience in the dark. One honest minute does what the whole page can't.

The shot list (shoot in whatever order the night actually happens).

The house before doors. Empty seats, the stage dark, the quiet on N Central Ave before anyone arrives.
A resident company in rehearsal. Blocking a scene, reading a line back, the director mid-note.
The stage during a run-through. Working lights, a half-built set, the moment before it's finished.
The building from the street. 599 N Central Ave, the door, the sign that says the place is still open.
The audience in the dark. Faces turned toward the stage, not posing.
The lobby after the lights come up. Programs, a conversation at the box office, the quiet at the end of the night.

The one question. Ask one person — a donor, a member, a resident-company actor, a volunteer, whoever's willing — one question and let them answer in their own words: "What has this stage meant to you?" Don't coach the answer. That single answer is the whole story.

The cut. One place, one moment, one voice. Sixty seconds. The phone footage carries the room; the one answer carries the meaning. End on the person, not the logo.

What a donor gets. A feeling instead of a description. A reason to give again. A piece they can share, which does the asking for the theatre.

What Academy Theatre gets. Donor retention — the second gift is the hard one, and it's earned with a face. Footage for the year-end letter and the next grant application. A library that builds itself one night at a time, at no cost to start.

The rule of thumb. A donor remembers the room on N Central Ave, not the list of what happened in it.

Notes for Brandyn

Appendix A is ready to deploy as a one-page PDF or Google Doc for Touch 2. The resident-company shot list and the "what has this stage meant to you" question are what make it Academy-specific rather than a generic nonprofit checklist, and it is distinct from the Strand "one performance, sixty seconds" guide (which anchors on the silent-film organ and the Strand Academy) and the ArtsXchange "one studio visit" guide.
Strongest touch if only one gets sent: Touch 1 (the founding/integration legacy story). Touch 5 (year-end) is the close second because it's tied to the Q4 giving calendar, which is exactly when a donor-funded legacy arts nonprofit needs story assets.
The greeting stays general until Brandyn looks up a real staff or board name. Every touch is written as "Hi —" for that reason.
Downstream asks stay held until a real conversation, per the first-touch draft: paid recurring series, production documentation, a full year-end campaign video. None of these appear as asks in this sequence.
Detroit Action stays soft. It's referenced in Touch 3 only as "mission-driven media work I've done, Detroit Action included." It's a real prior relationship, but do not upgrade it to a results claim or a case study here. Academy Theatre is never implied to be a client.
No fabricated clients, metrics, staff names, productions, or dates anywhere. Only Academy Theatre's own published facts are named: the 1956 founding, the first-integrated-professional-theatre-in-the-South claim, the public/private partnership with the City of Hapeville, the resident companies, and the N Central Ave address.