As of July 3rd, the MADCAP (Mill Avenue District Community Art Project) Theaters have closed up shop for the summer. The reason? They need to upgrade their air-conditioning system. This venue has done an amazing job for Mill Ave in introducing a lot of new and upcoming artists to the street and I’d like to see it stay. You can help out. Here’s some information about the campaign and what you can do as a resident of Tempe (or anywhere else) to be part of this: MADCAP Theaters is a nonprofit organization located in downtown Tempe, AZ and opened in 2009. MADCAP was created to give smaller up and coming artists an opportunity to showcase their talents at a fraction of the cost of larger production spaces. However, being located in a hot, desert, climate, we have run into an obstacle. The 16 year old building has over 50,000 square feet, 6 auditoriums, two lobbies and two service floors that require air conditioning. Currently the A/C units are not functioning properly which means we cannot create a comfortable environment for our artists and patrons. This is our 3rd summer duct taping our air-conditioning units together, and with so much potential, we must reach out for community help or MADCAP will need to close indefinitely. In order for MADCAP to operate, we need working A/C, and ask for your help to reach our financial goal. I’ve been participating on and off in MADCAP since it appeared in 2009. I’m not a huge player, but I’ev enjoyed what they’ve been doing for Mill. However, with them having trouble with the A/C—and I can attest that’s a huge problem with my cab sometimes—this means that we won’t have them until we can get that fixed up again. They need to raise about $40,000 for replacement parts for their lobby A/C units (about $15,000) each and the large auditorium unit (about $10,000). There are multiple tiers of donations in the “stay cool” campaign that you can take part in—see the web page for details. Some of them amuse me greatly, such as having your name on the THANK YOU posters at the venue. So far, only $500 has be raised and there’s 62 days remaining. Link, via IndieGogo; link to madcaptheaters.com.