Working on Selling the Season

I met to day with the young man who will be designing our artwork used in promotional materials for the next season. We tracked through the 6 shows and shared ideas and he has some nice preliminary ideas for the images required for the brochure, posters and marquee. I got a great feeling about him and he seems really enthusiastic about the work so I feel good! Randy was great in setting it up and walking me through what was required. I do admit, PR is my gray area in theatre. I truly value the help. If all goes well, the brochures will be done in time for You're a Good Man Charlie Brown! and maybe we will even have magnets (Oooooo!). I did find it funny that the show that gave me the most challenge was Whorehouse. Randy said that wasn't surprising, because it was the one I was directing so I had more of a vested interest. Made sense when you think about it. I just hope all the directors are happy with the concepts he develops...

Patience and Understanding...

Walterdale is a true community theatre. That means that aside from our part-time Administrator everyone who works on the shows at Walterdale is a member volunteer. Most of the membership have jobs. Many of them are in other theatre projects as they attempt to start a career. Most of them have family obligations that take up their time. However, sometimes we forget that. When we send an email we want a response right away, not thinking that maybe that person is picking up their kids from school, or at work in Starbucks, or in rehearsal. When we leave a phone message at the theatre on Friday we forget that the Administrator is only in on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays and no one checks the messages until he gets in. We forget that the people we want to reach might be busy painting a set or trying to find a lighting operator. We need things to get done, but we need to have patience and understanding.

Up to my Elbows...

Information on the auditions for Jimmy Dean are available here:

http://walterdaleplayhouse.com/?page_id=57

In the last three weeks I have dived into the work at Walterdale. There is always something to do. I am desperate for a timeline as I am discovering that I am always feeling like I am behind even though I am so new to the position. I have already started thinking about next season, as I think it would be valuable to have it put together earlier. I am glad that I will be directing the final show of this season so that I can use the first half of the season to get my feet on the ground. One thing I am also doing is keeping a calendar to organize the year. I can pass it along to whoever follows in my footsteps. It is nice to know when to do what!

I am also making mistakes and quickly learning how to fix them. This week I have learned to 'check the dates' - twice! Luckily the mistakes I have made are repairable. The learning curve is steep.

Wearing the hat...

This week I have likely spent over 20 hours on Walterdale work. Welcome to the position, I guess. Part of the time has been spent getting things done that will help me work less later on in the season. Part of that time has been spent in phone and email conversations with members currently working on productions (or starting the work) and trying to help them solve their problems.

Next week the newsletter will go out with the Season... but for a sneak peek...

The first show is Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean directed by Wendi Pope. It goes up in October and auditions will be mid June. Stay tuned for more details.

All is Right - We Have All the Rights!

Yesterday the Rights for the last (actually, the first) show came in. Whew! Stay tuned for announcements, likely in the newsletter and the program for the Footlight Festival and hopefully some sort of formal announcement. We need to get on it to gather interest for the auditions for the first show. These will likely be in June and will require lots of strong women of various ages...

Speaking of the Festival... There are a variety of events happening for the festival. It runs the last week of May to the first week of June and there are five One-Acts, 2 Staged Readings (which I am involved in), a late night variety show, a workshop, and some round table discussions. Many of the events are 'pay what you can', so come out!

Four down... 1 to go...

We now have confirmed the rights to 4 of the 5 shows. Ah. I anticipate no problems with the remaining one, but it is the first one of the season so I want those rights asap so that we can launch the season and set auditions.

I spent the morning in at the theatre today. I planned to get a lot more work done than I actually did, but it was good to chat with the Administrator and I did get a number of questions answered about my job and how I want to proceed. There are challenges to running an organization where everyone pretty much has another day job. There has to be a bit of flexibility with expectations while still maintaining the standards of the association. I hope to develop ways to help people do that.

The big job I started today was writing the "Thank you" letters for those individuals who submitted pieces to direct that were not selected. I had many good people (with good plays) submit, but there are only 5 slots in the season and I did want to direct myself. I am hoping that some of them can still participate with Walterdale in some capacity despite not getting to direct this season.

Merrily we roll along...

Confirmed rights for 3 of the 5 shows. Our 6-Pack selection is the February show . We had wanted the October show so as to get a jump on the season, but this will be good for the small cast show we have in cold February. Email communications have started about launching the season. Whew! Still waiting on those last two shows...