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Any theatre creatives in the house?
Any stage actors, agents, designers, directors, managers, playwrights, producers, stage managers, etc. in the house?
What are you working on right now? How's it going?
Sincerely,
A fellow theatre person
I'm a director and designer in Chicago! Super cool to see people chiming in on this platform.
Wonderful! Chicago is such a vibrant and interesting theatre city. What's a project you're looking forward to?
I'm a working stagehand in NYC. I've been looking for theater communities on the "new" reddit alternatives and I haven't found one yet. I'm sure there are others of us out here, but I haven't run into one yet.
Nice! Happy to have started the conversation over here. How's the work going for you? Are you on an equity shows mostly?
Work is going well. After a busy first quarter, the second has been slower but pretty steady all things considered. I'm not hustling too hard, letting it come to me.
And yes, most of the work I do has some kind of equity involved because I mostly work on Broadway. I'm IATSE though.
I imagined you might be! Glad to meet ya, friend. Hope things stay calm for you.
I wouldn’t call myself a theatre person, but I have been working on a screenplay based on an old flash game series I loved as a wee lad. I’m around halfway through the first episode, and it’s really fun to depart from the classic prose and dialogue I usually write when working on a novel or a short story
Nice! Can I ask which game? I'm an old-ish internet user who grew up in the era of flash! Is this going to be a mini-series kinda thing?
It’s based on Mateusz Skutnik’s Submachine. Miniseries is exactly what I’m going for, maybe four or five hour-long episodes
That sounds fantastic! Is this your first screenplay? To me, scripts are full of the best parts of novels. 😊
Meet 'N Fuck: The Movie!
Theater geek from way back but went into IT instead. Much much drama, touring repertory company, light and soundboard work but ultimately headed in a different direction.
Though these days I use my theater background for my tabletop game that I run. lol Guess it comes in handy since we run an RP heavy system with minimal crunch that's designed for us theater types.
So, I know very little about RPG games other than it seems a good amount of theatre people play them! What's "minimal crunch" mean?
RP is role play so all the in character acting and stuff theater types love.
Crunch is all the mechanics; rolling dice, measuring distances, consulting charts, doing math.
That sounds like my kind of game! What are you playing? Theatre really does give you all kinds of life-skills, haha!
It’s a system called Fate Core that is completely theme/genre agnostic. It’ll work for whatever story you have to tell and is much closer to a collaborative story telling exercise than most systems.
Now myself, personally, I tell stories in a cyberpunk/precursor artifact/sci-fi post global collapse and rise of corporate mega cities world that has been active for multiple campaigns.
Since I’m a long time political activist and commentator I like to weave my critiques into my storytelling (I can’t help myself) and one of my triumphs (if I may say so) is creating a world that is a horrid dystopia with blatant abuses and yet you’d still choose it over ours today. lol
But the politics are merely background noise atm. My latest crew of players are low level, on the street types who don’t get into political intrigue and corporate machinations much. They’re scraping by to survive, dealing with street gangs and paying rent.
In the past though I’ve had people spin up characters that were absolutely deeply involved in the higher levels of society.
Fate is a fascinating system as it’s narrative dependent and fundamentally characters are next to impossible to just kill given certain mechanics that exist. Functionally a player usually has to agree to die (of course I can horribly maim them though lol).
The system is available for whatever you want to (or not) pay via pdf on their website and the page I linked has everything you need. For the main core book just select pdf in the drop-down box and choose to pay $0. For all sorts of secondary documentation, expansions and whatnot just scroll down and there’s links to it all for free.
If you use it though please consider buying the book or something. A lot of love went into building the system.
Fascinating, thank you for sharing! I have to imagine that the game is giving your current crew a nice outlet to decompress after hard days of living. How did you get your current crew? How are they faring at playing?
I'm interested in watching the Wil Wheaton game play video when I have a few moments. Maybe I'll find a crew of my own to get in on the next time one starts in my area.
Fate GMs are a rarer breed but if you find one (or become one) it's so great. The system is soooo forgiving when it comes to not being precise, not worrying about if it's 5 feet of movement or you have the crafting materials or counting XP or whatever else.
My current crew is comprised of members of my online community (I stream); we play via Discord. Some of them are faring better than others. The current crew is a 6 person group and they, for the most part, have either plenty of theater experience or tabletop experience sans one. Which is just fine, as I told them, if the table can't handle one newbie than that's on us. As a table though none had used Fate before for a system. I, myself, don't use any other systems any more. It's my chosen system. A couple of them still have D&D games they play. Two of them are complete converts though.
They've started to come together after 18 sessions ;) lol Imagine a cast, it takes a while for them to get their flow and come together as a cast truly. Around the 6th session the "face" of the crew (a female con artist) and I had a scene where it "clicked". She was in it properly and was sweaty and nervous after we were done. Session 11 I made a few of them cry, so that was a highwater mark as well for how invested and "in it" they were and the next session, session 12, I made one of them have an existential crisis of sorts lol.
Using my writing and theater skills allows for me to better understand how to "paint" a world for them using the shared language of modern media (TV/movies/books). I often use camera direction language to evoke imagery for them, describing the motions of the camera around the city and using that shorthand lets me really craft an evocative world for them. Then understanding the behind the scenes of what makes a character tick lets me truly flesh them out and engage in a scene with them, getting whatever plot work that needs doing done and at the same time a bit of Stanislavski let's me truly occupy the headspace of the character (I like to build entire life backstories and make them as real as I can for myself) which let's me improvise as their characters make choices and react within this world as players can be unpredictable so I have to be able to not only improvise and react as a GM (Game Master), often times I must be doing it in a variety of characters.
It's such a wonderful thing for a theater nerd. lol
In my younger days, I was an actor in community theatre: I did 18 plays over a span of about 25 years. (There were some years where I'd do a few plays, and some periods where I couldn't get on stage for a couple of years.) But that all stopped about 10 years ago, and is unlikely to start again.
I played a variety of roles, from dramatic to comic.
One of them was 'The Importance of Being Earnest', wherein I played Algernon Moncrieff. That's one of the reasons I have "Algernon" in my username.
The most hectic was a production of Julius Caesar, which had a lot of cast members doubling up and even tripling up on roles. I was one of two actors who had four roles - including two roles in the same scene (one of them was just an extra). That kept me running about all night!
One year, the stars aligned, and I wrote, produced, and directed my own play. That was exciting!
Hey, you and I are very similar! I've done a lot of shows in the past 15 years in the community and non-equity realm. What's made you stop?
Every time I see your username around the the site, I wonder if you're an Oscar Wilde fan! I've been reading along while I waited for my invite. Glad to 'meet' you here in this theatre thread.
That Julius Caesar production sounds like a blast. I really appreciate productions that give actors the maximum stage time by doubling (or more!) the roles. I see it less in community productions that tend to want to give everyone their 'five minutes of fame.'
The play you had a 'triple crown' for, what was that about? Did you produce it with an established company or completely on your own?
Yep. It's a great environment!
What sort of work have you done? What roles did you enjoy the most?
One of my favourite plays was 'Noises Off'. I got to play the director role in that. That's an amazing play.
I enjoyed the Algernon role but, quite honestly, that came along a bit early in my career and I don't think I was quite good enough for it just at that time. Still, it was a lot of fun!
Do you know how to read people's user bios? Click on their username, to go to their user profile page, and read the sidebar on the right. You'll find what you need to know. (Yes, I am a fan of Wilde.)
It was more about reducing a cast of thousands to something manageable. 'Julius Caesar' has a lot of roles, and many of them are supposed to be doubled up. Our director just went a bit further, in the interests of having a smaller cast, because it was a small theatre.
It was an anti-romcom about a man who was looking so hard for his Mr Right that he didn't notice when "Mr Wright" turned up right under his very nose. He just kept looking. Mr Wright was ready and willing, but our protagonist was oblivious to the fact that he'd got what he always said he wanted.
The core messages of the play were: people often tell themselves stories that aren't true, and; people don't magically turn into whole new personalities at the flick of a switch. (I had 'Pretty Woman' in my mind the whole time, as the epitome of romantic stories I was writing against. Those two characters would not have ended up together in real life.)
Self-produced. One of the stars that aligned for me was that I came into some money I didn't need for anything else, so I spent it on producing the play. It cost me about $5,000, and I made about $3,500 back in ticket sales. I consider the $1,500 I lost to be money well spent. I wouldn't have got as much enjoyment from spending that money on something like a holiday. I bought one of the best experiences of my life with that money.
I quit theatre (hello, fellow British-spelling person!) some years ago because I didn't have the discipline or confidence to keep up the process of auditioning and rejection, but it was my whole life from age 14 until about 23.
I was lucky enough to live in a city with a spectacular children's theatre growing up, and made connections there that sent me to the arts high school, and then immediately on to a local community college for their musical theatre program. From there, I did a handful of small professional shows (a theatre festival, mostly, but a couple of touring gigs as well).
All along the way, I was extremely lucky to have have been supported and given more opportunities than I really ever earned. I had mostly lead roles and even had a little buzz around my name in the local theatre circle. I learned a lot during that time about life and people, art and beauty. I've learned a lot more about those things reflecting on that time since then, and I think I may get back to theatre one day, but it's not for me right now.
'ello, gov'ner! There's a whole school of thought that seems to be rather pervasive: "theatre" is the art and "theater" is the location. Maybe you fall into that group, too?
Acting is certainly, in some sense, the art of being tenacious. It's difficult for even the most secure person to face rejection after rejection and also keep their audition material fresh and 'first time' after the hundrereth thirty second presentation.
Your journey sounds like one that many actors have - right place, right time, right people and the joy that comes from it all aligning well. It sounds like it was a wonderful period in your life. I hope you return someday. What stops you at this point?
I'm in Canada and (unless the convention has changed recently) we use the -re spelling for both the art and the location, actually. It's interesting to hear that a combination of the two is used sometimes, that's a new one to me!
As for what's stopping me from taking theatre back up, I suppose it's the same things that always held me back. I only had the opportunity to be in theatre because I had the support of a number of relatively influential people in my local theatre scene who gave me more chances than I ever earned. By and large, I skated by on pure talent rather than skill or dedication. As a male singer (a pretty good one, I suppose, not to toot my own horn), I got a pass on more than one occasion where others might not have, and I got to show off my talent to a larger pool of more involved theatre folks who only saw my performances and not my lacklustre professional skills.
I've always had pretty bad social anxiety and it's especially bad in audition/interview kind of scenarios, that coupled with depression and a lot of social stumbling during my theatre years led me the the conclusion that my only way forward in life was to walk away from performing. I've spent the past decade or so letting my life get smaller and smaller because honestly that's all I can handle. I'm working on that, but ultimately it boils down to the fact that while I loved performing and the life that came with it, I would be doing both myself and the rest of the cast and crew a disservice by taking the place of (or at least trying to) someone with more passion, drive, and love for the art that wouldn't be held back by internal struggles. Acting involves a lot of give and take and right now I don't really have any give, only a lot of work and rebuilding to do that would only involve taking from others if I can't find a way to generate what I need for myself, if that makes sense.
I did a lot of theater tech in high school (mostly lighting, but I covered pretty much the whole spectrum), and I've kept up with it here or there since then. There's a single event at my old school that I still go volunteer at every year to lead the build, and I'll keep doing it until they stop letting me in the building. My siblings and I collectively covered pretty much every part of the stage, but my sister was the only one who took it long-term - and she just recently got her Equity card as a stage manager.
It's fantastic that you're still able to support the program as an alum! I'm sure the staff is grateful for the support for that event. Haha, jokes on you, they'll never ask you to stop volunteering - school theater programs will always be looking for people! Congratulations to your sister, I'm sure it was a journey to get to this point.
At this point, the tech program staff has completely changed over, and particularly in the first post-COVID running of the event, they genuinely had no idea how the entire build was supposed to come together, so it was a good thing someone still had my contact info.
Oh my goodness, you really saved the day in that instance! I'm certain the staff was relieved to see you coming into the house. Volunteers like you are hard to come by and I truly hope they recognize what a gift you are.
When I was 16 (a senior in high school) I entered this playwrighting contest. The theme was the political landscape of the time (2016). I wrote an allegorical tale of two people stuck in a room and disagreeing on what to do and how to get out. It was chosen to be put on. Much to my surprise. It was a fun experience and so far the only time I saw my writing come to life. I also acted a little bit on stage. Nothing major.
I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m a theater creative. I’ve always been more a film buff. Any subsequent attempts of me writing plays has not gone well. I have a really hard time trying to come up with something that can take place on stage. I just don’t think like that. But I have gotten into theater much more since my experience back then. I’ve listened to a lot of Broadway soundtracks and have watched a few productions that have been recorded.
Writing a play is something I wanna do again, and hopefully it gets put on somewhere.
Have you ever thought about aiming your writing skills at something more screenwriting-focused? It sounds like kismet, what with the film buff background and you being unable to come up with ideas that could be feasibly placed on stage.
Though, don't sell a stage's capabilities short. A LOT is possible to create in the stage realm.
I’ve been writing screenplays since I was 14. Never produced any of them, but that’s a whole other ballgame.
I’m not saying one can’t do much on a stage. Just that my imagination has trouble figuring out how a stage even works. I haven’t watched enough plays in my life (especially irl) for me to just naturally be able to figure out how to create a scene on stage. It’s not even like I write fantasy or anything, in fact I write a lot of talky stuff. It’s just the logistics of it all that I have trouble with.
Martin McDonagh and Kenneth Lonnergan started off as playwrights, so for a while I thought that would be my in. But now I’ve kind of given up on the idea of doing anything with that.
Yep, producing a screenplay is an incredibly tricky ball of wax. I more and more think that the best route is to sell the script to a production company who will do it justice and allow you to have some kind of creative 'say' in the development. That's hard to find, though.
To me, Martin McDonagh is synonymous with theatre! Funny that you think of him as a screenwriter, first! I know that The Pillowman was a scene study script in my undergraduate work and The Cripple of Inishmaan was a riveting production I had the joy of seeing on Broadway about ten years ago.
If you get the dialogue done first, you can sort out the logistics.
Consider really starting to see shows! Community theatres across the world would love to have another audience member, especially one who is watching with an eye towards creating a script of their own.
McDonagh and Lonnergan are interesting because they weren’t originally interested in plays. McDonagh said that he had thought theater was the worst form of art before he started writing Radio dramas and plays himself. McDonagh was a lot more interested in movies.
Lonnergan wanted to just be a writer but thought prose writing was too hard so he started writing plays.
I have long been dreaming of writing a musical.
The only thing stopping me is my utter lack of musical talent.
Something something you should all watch Schmigadoon.
What you need, my friend, is a composer.to partner with! Do you have a specific storyline idea?
No, that’s ok. Writing the music is part of the dream.
Then, it's time to take up an instrument, dear friend!
Oh man, some of my best memories of high school was theater tech work. I also worked at a local arena doing lights. I kinda miss it!
If your community theater groups are anything like mine, they'd love some lighting designer to help them with their productions! It's well worth reaching out to see if they could use your help!
So, not me, but I want to give a shout out to someone dear to me who took an interest in costume and set design and pivoted to create a successful reupholstery and decorating business. Here workshop with all the hammers was so impressive to me as a kid. Theater creates resourceful people.
It certainly does! I love that you feel connected to theatre through your mentor who went on to make it successful business of another kind. How did you meet and what did she do to help to become who you are?
She is a relative. She was very good to teenaged me when I was on the outs with the parents. She inspired me with how energetic, generous, charitable, social, resourceful and hard working she is. She never stopped learning, using audiobooks, pbs, the bbc and other sources to learn while working. Our strengths are very different and I will never be physically handy the way she is, but she is an inspiration. When I got a dog, she volunteered to turn two layers of foam and some denim fabric into a custom dog bed. We didn't ask, she just did it.
I'm an actor! Am (hopefully) getting into screen as well, but most of my experience has been on stage.
Not in anything at the moment, because I'm moving to London in a couple of weeks! Will be joining Spotlight and Equity there, then agent/audition searching.
(I imagine the number of Aussies moving to the UK who are also actors on this forum is probably none, lol, but just in case - one of the ways to join UK Equity is to have a membership with another union under the same banner. And MEAA in Australia counts, and there's literally no barrier outside of like $10 a month or so - so join MEAA before making the move, and then use your membership to join UK Equity.)
Interesting! Is that true or AEA in the US, too?
No, but I am an avid patron of the smallest productions the Seattle area has to offer... at least I was until Covid hit. This reminds me I need to start dragging my SO back out to shows.
I am not, but I’ve always wanted to get involved with theater. I wanted to try out for school plays when I was in high school, and I even picked theater as one of my elective classes, but my parents wouldn’t allow me to actually audition for any plays. I wasn’t allowed to be around any school kids outside of school because my parents thought they were all “bad influences” on me.
So I guess I’m replying to see if anyone has any tips for trying to get involved with community theater now as an adult. I’m so afraid to try to audition without any experience. I mean I don’t even know for sure if I’d enjoy being in a play, I just think that I would. I’ve looked for acting classes but 99% of them are only for children. I’ve thought about trying improv classes just to scratch that performance itch. I’m not looking to make any money with it or get recognized or anything like that. I just think it would be fun.