ON BEING A PRODUCER WITH JEANNINE GASKIN
One of the perks of being an Ensemble member with Seat of the Pants is that you get to pick what you’d like to do for that season. I chose to be a Producer! What’s funny is that I didn’t plan on producing a show outside of this company. I was very fortunate to produce Lauren Lash’s play titled The Stars Made Me Gay A Queer Anthology:Volume 1 for CPT’s Test Flight this month. It has been very educational to observe and learn the differences and similarities in responsibilities a producer has depending on what theatre you are working at. But I guess that is true for any job. Being new at this job, I don’t really feel fully in charge. I feel more like an intern. I haven't had a lot of opportunities to troubleshoot or bring designer questions to Craig. This could be due to the fact that they are just that good or the work for this show is simple. I have been documenting everything so that I can be as prepared as possible for my next producer job.
Being a producer allows you to be the planner of all things. Finding and securing rehearsal space, scheduling and running production meetings with designers, setting load-in times with designers, making sure we don’t go over budget and reallocating funds if necessary. The biggest task that I am working on right now is partnering with City Dogs to promote animal adoption. This current play, AMERIKIN, has a black dog in it and I learned that black dogs have the lowest adoption rate. The next big task I’ll have is next week when we start loading into the space. There are a lot of moving pieces and parts that I’m not sure how they all work, but this isn’t new so it must work.
One downside to being a Producer is that I do not get to take my day job hat off. I don’t get to use the creative side of my brain as a producer like I do as an actor or director. It’s strategic planning, organizational & time management skills. All of these things I excel at during my day job but I do not feel as confident or comfortable yet in these areas because I’m in this training/learning mode. But I tell myself, just keep asking good questions and the rest will work itself out. I look forward to having another 'at bat’ as a Producer next season because I'll be able to own more of the responsibles that happen at the top of the season such as securing rehearsal space, figuring out the budget and just having conversations with people that are used to speaking to Craig.
I have a dream of starting my own theatre one day and I really appreciate these learning opportunities that let me test the water and safely work through problems and it also allows me to see if I want to make that dream come true.
