The spreadsheet is open and you already know which line has to go.
Maybe it is a stage. Maybe it is a day. Maybe it is the programming strand that never quite paid for itself but that three people on your team would walk through fire for. The math is not ambiguous. You have run it four times hoping it would come out differently. The industry has a clean…
Read MoreYou are eleven weeks out and you are three people short. The site coordinator who ran your load-in the last four seasons took a job with benefits in March. Your best stage manager is booked through November on a tour that pays better than you can. And the production assistant you spent all of last season training just texted to say she is not coming back, and she was lovely about it, which somehow makes it…
Read MoreOne fall afternoon, in a meeting that should have been routine, I watched a newer director go quiet. I knew the look. They had an idea. A good one, probably. The kind that turns a flat revving engine into something that purrs and pours. And across the table sat people who had been around the production bends. People who had tackled a host of challenges before this director ever walked into the building. Those stripes are…
Read MoreIt's August. If you are a spring producer, the show has been struck for months and you know exactly what this stretch of the calendar feels like, even if nobody has ever handed you a word for it. I call it load-out syndrome. Still lit, nothing running. The power is on, the lights are up, and there is no show. You are technically working. You are answering things. But the engine that ran you from January through the gates is idling, and some part of you has not fully…
Read MoreAt the end of June, I knew I needed to disappear. Not forever. Just long enough to hear myself think again. But I couldn't go yet. And if you produce anything for a living, you already know why…
Read MoreIt is the second week of January. The planner is new. The pen still works. You write down the year you want -- rest more, train someone to share the load, finally take the trip -- and for about nine days, you believe yourself. Then the first artist hold lands. The first budget reopens. The advance starts breathing down your neck. And by the time you…
Read MoreYou asked a team member for an update. A routine check-in. Status on a few moving parts you needed to track. The call ended with them telling you they felt grateful. Relieved, even. Like they'd finally gotten something off their chest. Sit with that for a moment. Because that moment -- the one where…
Read MoreIt is closing night. The headliner is twenty minutes from walking out. The field that started this morning as a thousand separate people has become one body leaning toward the stage, and you can feel the air change before a single note plays. You have felt that shift before. The moment a…
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