TRAVELING WITH SEAT OF THE PANTS: AYRON LORD

Although we are a little over a week out from opening Our Country’s Good, I feel as though I personally have spoken enough on my excitement for this show and how elated I am for everyone to see our work of art. Instead, today I would love to talk about the challenges, unique experiences, and why I like working with an itinerant theater company like Seat of the Pants.

I love the shows we do at Seat of the Pants. At many theater companies the focus is on entertaining their audiences. To which you might think, “Well, duh!” But at Seat of the Pants, I feel the focus is always more on telling a story. The tagline on their website after all is “STORIES THAT MOVE”. I don’t mean to say that other theaters are wrong or that Seat of the Pant’s methods and ideals are better. After all, where most theaters choose to do shows because it will appeal to a wide demographic, it is only due to the dedicated and loyal fanbase SotP has built up over many years of hard work that we are able to break away from the popular titles and present you those different, alternative worlds. I love working for both worlds of theater, but our stories here allow me to flex my creativity and abilities in such unique and challenging ways, and it is a nice change of pace from a flashy musical.

The fact that SotP is a roaming theater group without any specific home presents both an array of challenges and lends strongly to the idea of expanded creativity. There are a few other venues I have worked at several times before, and while there are always unique elements to each show I do, often I find myself repeating a lot of the lighting plot elements and designs because that is just what I have found to work well for me in that space. Sometimes, producing a show in the same space many times in a row tends to leave you stuck in a rut because you know what has worked in the past and it is easy to adapt that same concept because you know it will work again. With a mobile company like SotP I do not have that option. I believe I am correct in saying that I have not once repeated a venue when working with SotP. That means every show I have worked on I have had to essentially relearn lighting and what works well for that specific show and that specific space. And while that is creatively stimulating, it can also easily lead to a feeling of stress and panic as the unfamiliar so often does. 

This idea of relearning a space is also very important for a hosting theater as well. Many times, when we have worked in a theater space where they don’t often have external groups preform, I find that they have fallen into the same trap of highly repetitive lighting designs. When I go into those spaces, often, I have found myself changing and re-imaging the lighting and basic plot in the space in a completely different way - and all it took was someone without the preexisting knowledge of the space.

These are just a couple reasons as to why I love and have continued to work with SotP over the last several years. And why, given the opportunity, I hope I will be able to work with then for many more years to come. The deep and meaningful stories we tell, coupled with the unique and challenging aspects of a roaming company provide a rich and fulling experience only possible by a company like Seat of the Pants. Thank you all for you continued dedication and support to this company, as well as the magic of theater in general. I hope to see you very soon at our upcoming production of Our Country’s Good and at all our future productions yet to be imagined.