Raconteur Theatre Company

Just a quick shout to those of you who are reading this who weren’t currently aware - but we’re getting ready to cast our next show.

We’re putting up Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts, translation done by Lanford Wilson, directed by none other than our own Tricia Jones.

(She directed the Roulette half of After the Afterglow, ya know.)

Now, if you’re reading this blog, I know you want to be a part of this production. So, you’re probably saying “Tell me the details.”

Gladly!

Auditions are Sunday, August 3 from 3-5 and Monday, August 4 from 7-9 at the Main Library’s auditorium. (96 S. Grant Avenue)
The show dates are from October 2-18, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 p.m., with Sunday matinees at 2:00 p.m. the first two weeks of the run.

You want to know more? Of course you do! And fortunately, you can find out more at our website.

Now, we want to see all of you there with bells on. (Bells optional).
-Aaron

I have a hard time talking about our last show without talking about the Board who brought everyone together. I came into this experience not really knowing what to expect. I only knew half the group of the founding members when we first got together. It was a strange place to be, this past November, when the eight of us met at Cup O’ Joe’s to discuss what was to become Raconteur Theatre – just as another theatre company many of us were a part of was closing its doors. I was incredibly sad to lose Bison and yet incredibly hopeful with what this new company would bring, not only to me but to the rest of the Board and Columbus Theatre. We wanted a company that would last – we didn’t want to go through the incredible sadness that comes with seeing yet another Columbus Theatre have to fold for any of the number of reasons that many Columbus Theatres do. And yet goodbyes are inevitable regardless. Whether they are the closing of a theatre or the closing of a show, the goodbyes give a little tug at your heartstrings. And yet at the same time, that is the nature of the business.

But our debut show was about hello’s. Our company was incredibly lucky to have 8 very different artists, whose talents run the gamut of the sphere of talents it takes to make a production possible - directors, actors, writers, techies, stage managers and businessmen. We spent several months working up to our first show and it was an incredible feeling seeing everyone’s hard work brought together. We were blessed with a fantastic cast and crew who came on board knowing that things were going to be a little bumpy on our first show, and they embraced it.

In terms of my own personal experience on the production, I would say stage managing this show was probably more demanding than most shows I’ve worked on in the past. The Flex Series was set up as 2 one-act plays that offered flexibility to the audience who could see one or both of the one-acts. The plays worked together as a whole and yet also demanded the attention as if they were independent beings. I was always trying to find a balance between the two shows, figuring what I should approach independently and what I should look at as a whole. I had worked with one-acts before, but not in the same way that these two came together. Both shows had very similar themes and yet were very different technically – Roulette had 7 scene changes where Aster had none. Roulette was about an hour and fifteen minutes while Aster was almost half that. Roulette had a film feel to it while Aster was very black box theatre. The theme united them and yet these two pieces came together in the end to offer two very different theatre experiences. Another challenge was working in a non-theatre space. Kafe Kerouac is an awesome coffee shop on High Street near OSU campus with a side room stage where poetry readings often take place on Wednesday nights. It’s not typically a theatre space and yet with the guidance of our Set Designer and Tech crew, we managed to convert that room into a theatre space and make it work. It took a little bit of time and patience, but the final transformation was a pretty cool to see. It goes to show that you don’t need an actual theatre space to do theatre.

Despite these challenges it was probably one of the coolest shows I have ever put on. We didn’t have the comforts of home that established companies have and yet we made it work. I learned so much about what it takes to make theatre possible, how to accept the challenges that arise and how do the best we can with what we have to work with. And even after our afterglow ends, there’s still another show on the other side waiting for us to embrace it. And I look forward to it.

-Suellen

It’s amazing to see something emerge from what was previously nothing. I still remember my amazement during our first rehearsal for Roulette. We were in Jill & Andrew’s living room (generously made available to us for the duration of the rehearsal process) but instead of “just talking” about starting a theatre company, we were audaciously being a theatre company. Actors stood with scripts in hand, our stage manager sat ready to take notes and I was giving direction. We were all diving in with complete faith that our efforts in this improvised rehearsal space would evolve into a finished piece of theatre that would be worthy of an audience, legitimate enough to charge for tickets and meaningful enough to truly speak to people.

It’s true that nothing comes from nothing. In this case, Raconteur Theatre and its debut production came from the sustained outpouring of heart, soul and really hard work. I was exhausted by directing, co-producing, marketing, selling ads, writing to donors, telephoning theatre critics and doing a million other things required to start a theatre company. But it was worth it. I was SO PROUD of After the Afterglow. I felt like we lived up to our vision of producing the best show possible. My feelings were confirmed by the countless positive comments I received from friends, family and strangers who came to see the show.

It has been about a month since we closed our first show, After the Afterglow, and after all the reflection we have done as a company on our processes and what we can improve for next time, it’s finally time for me to reflect on it in a personal way.

It was awesome.

Opening night was the most thrilling theatrical experience I’ve ever had. Yes, it’s always exciting to open a new show and to perform in a play that I feel attached to. But selling out Raconteur’s first performance ever was more than I could have imagined. I think I wore myself out smiling from the accomplishment. That was a day I had envisioned for over ten years, and on May 29th, my stubborn dreams and goals got me there.

It was gratifying to see people walk out of the theatre having not only enjoyed themselves but also having shared in the emotions of those on stage and the collective audience. Even just today two typically non-theatre going people who attended the show commented on how they were drawn in to the emotion and taken on the roller coaster that the characters were on. For me, there is nothing quite as satisfying as knowing that theatre has made an impact on someone.

And this is what I need to remember when I’m drowning and drudging through administrative work for Ghosts. Already I have moments when I need to remind myself of how it felt to see people come to a theatre company that I was integral in building and to see the reviews of our first production reward our hard work. It’s worth it to see people enjoy theatre. Here’s to our future as a theatre!

Excited for what’s next,
Jill

Here we are at Raconteur, no longer basking in the afterglow of After the Afterglow, looking forward to our production of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts. And now that we’re looking forward, we’ve decided that it’s time to look back on our last production. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be putting up various reflections on people’s experiences with After the Afterglow, starting here with mine:

I was stunned by the entire experience. Starting a theatre company was both more exciting and difficult, and yet at the same time easier and more natural feeling, than I ever expected it to be. There was a lot of work that went into our front end, much of it stuff I never would have considered being a part of starting a company, but man did it pay off. We played to close to sold out crowds every night, and the responses we got from the audiences was better than I dared to hope.

The list of people to thank is longer than I could ever compile, since it includes not only Bread and Circus theatre and Madlab for giving us items to help put the show together, or Tricia’s church for giving us chairs to sit people in, or the different members of the board - all of whom did way more than anyone could ask them to do for the show, or the actors who performed brilliantly and never once complained about strange rehearsal schedules and locations. But it also includes every person who came to see the show, and every person who told their friend to come check us out.

It’s hard to remember the excitement that came with opening night now that we find ourselves starting fresh with Ghosts. But I know that come October I’ll look back at where we’re at now and say “Oh yeah, this is why we do it.”