Raconteur Theatre Company

In our short existence as a company, we have come upon and overcome many obstacles already.  Why should today be any different?

We are nearing the opening of our production of Ibsen’s Ghosts and at the same time we are preparing to start the production process for our next show (Mom and Pop by local playwright Sarah Tobin).  This is our first experience with overlapping production calendars, and it presents some new…er…learning opportunities.  Although we are continuing to slowly grow our company by bringing in more new and terrific people (we have really great people on board for Ghosts!), there is still a lot for the core founding company members to handle.  So, at a time when we are all maxed out with preparations for this production, we need to be focusing a lot of energy on the next one right now!  For example, we have auditions for Mom and Pop on the Sunday and Monday of tech week for Ghosts, and the Monday immediately following the tear-down of Ghosts will be the first rehearsal of Mom and Pop.  It’s truly non-stop.  On top of that, we are all, of course, working full time outside of the theatre.

This is my cue to get overwhelmed.

So, I tell myself to breathe.  I tell myself that all this work is worth it.  I tell myself that the passion I have for theatre has its outlet here– in a place I can call my own, and in a place I can be surrounded by other hard-working theatre lovers.

We can do this.

Jill

I recently had the honor of being nominated by the Critics Circle as the Best Actress in Columbus. While I didn’t win, it was, as they say, an honor just to be nominated. It seems that my award ceremony invitation was, unfortunately, lost in the mail. However, I prepared this acceptance speech, and figuring that a good acceptance speech should never go to waste—despite losing—that I would share it here.

“Oh! Wow! I can’t believe I’m standing here right now. This is even more fantastic than I ever imagined. I want to thank everyone who has believed in me from day one for encouraging me to continue on as well as the people who didn’t believe in me, because it was those people who fueled my desire to prove them wrong. Thanks to my family and friends, and especially my husband who always pushes me to realize my dreams. I love you, Andrew. Finally, I wouldn’t be here without the wonderful direction of Tricia Jones and my inspiriting co-actor, JT Walker. Thank you all!”

And my time is up.

That was awesome. Thanks for going on that little journey with me. Seriously, finding out I was nominated was very exciting. One of my favorite things about this nomination is that it was for a role in Raconteur’s debut show. I think that makes it doubly awesome.

And since I didn’t know about this until the winners had already been picked, I didn’t have all that wondering to do; I could just enjoy the fact that I was considered among all the actresses in all the shows that took place over the last theatre season.

Still grinning,

Jill