ITINERANT ("MAKE SPACE, TAKE SPACE") BY SAM LANDGRAF, ENSEMBLE MEMBER

Itinerant?

One of the most unique things about Seat of the Pants is the fact that we are an itinerant company and do not have a traditional theater space. The cool thing about this is that when we are able, we work in site-specific spaces. Grand Concourse is set in a soup kitchen, and we have been lucky enough to find a church that has a kitchen that would allow us to use it to put on a play. Now that may seem like an easy task to accomplish on the surface, but when you dive into everything that is needed for a production that just “comes” with a traditional space your list of needs and questions becomes quite long. 

First you must think about the play: will this space aid or hinder the telling of the story? Does the story support being in a non-traditional space? For Grand Concourse I think we found and chose an amazing space to fully immerse our audience into the story. As an audience member you will literally be in the kitchen with actors smelling the food that they are chopping up. This will truly be some “fly on the wall” type theatre. 

Once you have a space that will allow you to tell the story, you have to think about how the audience will fit into the space… literally. Is the space able to be set up in a more traditional  proscenium style theatre or do you have to think more out of the box? How many seats can you fit? In this case, we have filled every space that we can with a seat and once we are sold out -we can not add any more seats to the space, making it super important to get your tickets in advance. It’s a bit of a risk on our part, but something that I think will really pay off when it comes to the experience. 

Next you have to think about the tech of the show. How and where will the tech be? Where is the stage manager going to be able to see the show from so they can call cues but aren't taking up prime seating for the audience? How do we run cables safely? Where do we store costumes? Where are we able to put props? Where are the dressing rooms going to be? How can the actors access the dressing rooms during the show? 

After that, you have to broaden your view of the space and think about a lobby area. Is there an area that people can wait before the house is open? Are there restrooms that are accessible? Where can we put things like a ticket table or snacks? How do we keep people out of the space until it is time to find their seats? And even further, is there parking? How do people get to the space from wherever they are parked? Can people easily find the space?

Overall, there are a lot of questions that need to be asked and answered. Sometimes you have to have the answers right when you decide on the space, and sometimes the answers can come closer to the actual show. Either way, Seat of the Pants always finds a way to put on an amazing show in some really unique spaces. I think that Grand Concourse is pretty high on the list of the coolest and most immersive spaces that we have put on a show! Hopefully you'll  be able to come and see how we answered some of the above questions!