TAKING ON A NEW ROLE - BY SAM LANDGRAF

Seat of the Pants has started working on our next and last production for the 2025/2026 season, THE BOOK CLUB PLAY by Karen Zacarias. With this show I am taking on a new role as producer. I have always been interested in technical theatre and - in college - I fell into the role of “the stage manager” and have stayed in that role for years. Recently, I have been asked “When are you going to direct a show?” and I was never sure if that was something that I wanted to do. Directing always felt a little overwhelming and involved a little too much pressure and decision making. I enjoy being a number two in line and having another person to default to. Feeling like I needed a little break from the SM life of saying “sorry I can’t, I have rehearsal” but still wanting to be involved in the theatre and utilize all of my design training from 11 years ago, I was asked if producing is something that I would want to do this season. I am pretty sure that all of my knowledge up to this point of producing comes from THE PRODUCERS, and that’s not the kind of theatre that we want to do, so with guidance and reassurance from my fellow ensemble members, I said “why not?”

At the start of the season there was some paperwork and some people-chasing to get all the details and contracts set and then, nothing. Since I was producing the last mainstage show of the season, I had a lot of waiting time. I’d bug Craig and previous Seat of the Pants’ producers, thinking that I was behind on something, but they assured me that I was good and just had to wait a little more. Then our amazing production of ELEPHANT’S GRAVEYARD opened, and it was time for me to start back up. Since we don’t have our own building, step one was to find somewhere to rehearse the show for our one-a-week rehearsals. Luckily, we have built some great relationships with some different locations around town, and this was a relatively easy thing to accomplish. Now that we have our space and have started these rehearsals, the next items on my list are finding a location for our five-a-week rehearsals, setting up meetings, having meetings, and reminding people of deadlines. After that we will be starting our five-a-week rehearsals and I’ll be doing the setting meetings, having meetings, and reminding people of deadlines dance until it is time to plan load-in and tech week for the show.  After the show opens, I’ll have to start working on coordinating strike and making sure everyone has their receipts turned in.

I think the load-in and strike are the parts that make me the most nervous because so much could go wrong. For example, for ELEPHANT’S GRAVEYARD there was a snowstorm that shut down one of our biggest light load-in and build days and Michael, the lighting designer, and Jeannine, the producer, had to do a lot of quick thinking and hard work to catch up. Hopefully there won’t be any snowstorms in May, but it is Ohio after all.  I think the key is strong communication between all the members of the production team and myself and always being a few steps ahead of where we are in the process. I believe we are off to a good start, and I can’t wait to learn more about producing with every step that we take.