Raconteur Theatre Company

This was one of the many thoughts running through my head the first time I read Justin Toomey’s Aster, Holger Gunn after being cast as Aster. Little did I know I was headed for a turbulent process involving a change in actors leaving us less time than originally planned for rehearsals. By the time we got around to rehearsing that kiss, it had become bigger than necessary and as someone who hadn’t been on-stage recently I was nervous.

I should have known better. I should have realized that this was a very natural and realistic emotion given the scene at hand. What I did know what that I needed to just get it over with. And what I came to realize is that both that kiss and the last kiss are such pivotal moments in the story that they were truly enjoyable.

Things I Learned During After the Afterglow:
* Sam Blythe (Duck from Aster, Holger Gunn) is the biggest goofball ever.
* Kafe Kerouac has delicious coffee.
* If you park illegally on North Campus they will tow your car astonishingly quickly!
* RTC is perhaps the nicest group of people ever (who else would bring you a birthday cake to tech week?)
* I am very hard on myself.
* It is unenjoyable to wait in the rain for intermission when there is no backstage available!
* There was a strange man across the alley. Every night he showered while the cast of Aster, Holger Gunn ran lines, he either never noticed us or didn’t care that we could see him.
* A smile on-stage can change the entire show.
* Operation and Apples to Apples are the best games in known existence.
* Sometimes a mid-performance line flub can be a confidence booster.
* Huzzah is not as annoying of a word as I originally thought.
-Molly

Beginning something new is a challenge- that’s no secret.  A lot of work has to go into planning and setting those plans into motion.  Add to that the passions of a diverse group of theatre artists, and you are bound to run into some small snags- or some potentially unraveling threads.

Raconteur Theatre Company recently ran into such a snag and in the spirit of radical transparency, I am sharing that snag here.

We (the founders) were clearly not on the same page.  Some of the group want to start strong in a way that means taking financial risk, while some want take the process slow, start small and build gradually spending little to no money.  This difference in philosophy has manifested itself in our choice of performance spaces.  Some of the group wanted to spend money to secure an actual theatre space while others wanted to go as cheaply as possible (which meant most actual theatre spaces were out of the question).  I was on the minority side of “spend money” because to me it is important for us to project the image we want to be known for right away.   And frankly, my name is going on this.  My name means a lot to me.

After two meetings and a week of anguish, we finally came to a compromise that I think all were happy with.  The thing is, was this one compromise enough to truly get us all on the same page?  I’m not  sure, but we will continue plugging away and tackling issues as they come.

Working it out,

Jill