Producer Blog
Starting a new theatre company is hard. It isn’t a simple formula where you take one-part actors with two parts designers, add sugar and stir and everything comes out right. We are constantly working trail and error - testing things out, seeing what works and what doesn’t and how to improve. Ghosts has been a continuation of our first show – striving forward to grow together as a company and individually as artists. We have had many struggles throughout this process that have given me so much more respect for the process of producing plays. I firmly believe that we learn more from our mistakes than our triumphs and that every obstacle we have encountered has been for the betterment of the company as a whole.
One of the first obstacles I ran into as Producer/Production Coordinator was in the communication of performance dates. After After the Afterglow closed, we had very little time to get things together before auditions for Ghosts. Although I did everything to make sure all our bases were covered, something did slip through the cracks. The week after auditions we got a call from MadLab, where we are renting space for the show, to say that our website had different performance dates than our contract with them. When I first heard this, I went into panic mode. How could the most obvious thing on the planet have been missed? Four of us met to discuss the production calendar. The Board of Directors had been talking about Ghosts for months with an October 2nd opening and yet here we were facing a dilemma. Should we ask MadLab to change the contract or ask everyone involved to push the production back a week? In the end, after many phone calls and emails, we decided to honor the MadLab contract and push the production back to an October 9th opening. In the end, it was the best choice for the production. It was hard for me to not beat myself into the ground, deal with it and move on. I had simply assumed the date we had talked about for months would obviously be the same date as the one in the contract and didn’t need verification. The good thing was that it was discovered pretty early on in the process and was able to be rectified quickly and with very little inconvenience.
We have also had an incredible amount of turnover for a show. Losing various artists due to a varying length of reasons and then having to scramble to find someone else to come in and help us out. It’s always hard to keep the show moving forward when these situations occur, but I have to applaud the entire production for moving forward without fail. As is always the case, the show must go on, and it does.
The show process has not been without speed bumps, but I am incredibly proud of the amount of hard work and dedication everyone on the cast and the production team has shown in striving towards our ultimate goal, which is to do good theatre. As we prepare for our Load-In and 1st Tech tomorrow, I am excited to see all the elements finally come together. Ghosts is an incredible story and I can’t wait to share it with Columbus.
Suellen Kasiara
Producer, Ghosts
Tags: Columbus, Columbus OH, Ghosts, Ibsen, Madlab, Raconteur, raconteur theatre company, theater, theatre