Lysistrata (Anne Yatco) and Lampito (Cassadie Petersen) in The Naked Army
7/1/11 “It Isn’t Enough if It is Just Okay” – Broadway producer Ted Rawlins
A lot has happened and is still happening since my last update. This is a good thing. I’ll touch on everything, starting with Directors Lab West.
So this year I served as the Production Coordinator for Directors Lab West, a job I had been working through weekly meetings for months before the actual Lab happened. It was a lot of work but well worth it as I got the privilege of experiencing the Lab for another year (the standard policy is once you’ve done the lab, you’ve done it and don’t get to do it again). Like last year, I left with a bucket full of inspiration and a list of immediate goals/steps I can take to advance my career. It’s always tough to describe exactly how/why this experience is so important to people who haven’t done it before, but please know that it is. Something about 45 directors in a room together for 8 days, seeing shows and listening to guest speakers from all walks of the theatre world just lends itself to inspiration…you might imagine such an event to be chaos with so many people who are all leaders by trade, but surprisingly everyone’s quite keen to let someone else steer the ship while they just ride the wave.
While at Directors Lab West, I was asked by the folks at LA Stage Alliance to write articles recapping each day. Rather than submitting one a day, I would submit my article every other day, covering both days. If you’d like to read what I had to say or are interested in attending the Lab in the future, these give you some pretty good insight.
Before Directors Lab West happened, the Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble‘s production of The Naked Army (an adaptation of Aristophanes’s Lysistrata) opened and is now coming to a close tomorrow night. It’s been a great project to work on and I was happy to have been able to add so much physical comedy and combat elements as the show’s Associate Director. Pictures have been posted in an album on my Photos page.
Speaking of the Photos page, check it out. I’ve figured out how to separate the albums into different categories (though the layout still isn’t perfect), and that sparked the thought to boost the number of photos I display for each show I do. I didn’t go overboard, but I’ve added around 6-7 photos per show, with each show now in it’s own individual album. Browse through those for a better sense of my past work!
Now the current project: Behind Closed Doors: A 2nd Class Cabaret opens a week from today! This musical has been a great project to be working on and I am lucky enough to be playing a great role, one of the most complicated roles I’ve played to date. There is a lot of work to be done in this last week, but with any luck the rest of the cast and I can pull off 8 fantastic performances from just the 7 weeks of rehearsal we had and bring this brand new musical to life! Click here for tickets.
I’ve got a few projects up in the air for the near-future. I won’t announce anything until it’s definite but if they happen it will be quite exciting. For those future projects and the one I’m currently at work on, I will strive for excellence, following the words Ted Rawlins spoke this year at Directors Lab, “It isn’t enough if it is just okay”.