In the last 2 days I have received 5 RANDOM job offers.
1. First, before the new year I was looking for venues for the Festival readings and found a little theatre space in Silver Spring I'd never heard of. It wasn't right for the readings, but I sent them my lighting design resume and a link to my website just in case they were ever looking. The artistic director emailed me back and we said we'd meet after the new year. So Thursday she emails me, says she's looked at my website and noticed I am also a "director, choreographer, and set designer" and she would love to get me involved in the fall production of Man of La Mancha that she is producing. I replied very honestly telling her I am a lighting designer and director. My choreography experience is limited to light choreography for a children's theatre I directed, and my set design experience is minimal. My website contains this information, but it does not highlight or pad it at all. Anyway, I told her if she was still interested I'd love to chat.
2. A local lighting designer I've been dying to work with emailed me. He needed someone to cover building cues for a bunch of different companies in a festival for 2 weekends. He had gotten my name from Brian (who I was associate for in November) and Cory (who I've had a meeting with, but have not worked with yet). I did a happy dance when I read this one. Awesome.
3. Another lady who is the artistic director of a musical revue company emailed me looking for a lighting designer for her production that is coming up in March. Cory had sent her my name as well because he's unavailable.
4. Rorschach emailed me asking if I'd like to ME/ALD their production coming up in March. I met Randy (Artistic Director) while I was still at JMU and like him a lot. The LD is Andrew, who I just recently had a 3 hour chat with about lighting design and other theatrey things. He's great.
5. Round House emailed me an hour ago needing another run crew member for a show in March. I follow spot oped for them once and do overhire electrics calls there.
All of these things conflict so I can't do many of them. I don't have details for a lot of them yet either. But getting the emails was so exciting.
I'm not sure what lesson I learned, except that I am a lucky girl AND networking really is as important as people say it is. Meet people and be nice to them. Genuinely. And don't always be looking for something. Meet people because you want to meet them, not because you are digging for a job from them. I think I've said this a billion times, but it keeps proving true.
Additionally, (and this is probably more interesting to read if you're ever interested in being a newbie producer)
I have been on my Forum email CONSTANTLY trying to get actors for the Festival I am producing. We are producing 3 play readings, one of which we producers are directing. So we split up the other two are are the primary contact for one each. The one I am producing has 5 actors. The director shoots me names of people he wants me to contact, I dig for their contact information (or just ask someone I know who is on their resume), and then send them a note asking them to donate their time. Mitch, the director, is apparently a really really awesome person (why do you think I chose to be the primary producer for his reading) and so people have been eager to say yes. We have one role that has been difficult to fill though and I keep checking my email constantly and sending more emails. Mitch also has been asking a lot for my opinion or suggestions in filling the roles. Since I'm new (which I never told him) I don't know that many area actors. I also send his inquiries to Michael (Forum AD) and Hunter (Festival co-producer) and send him their responses. The difficult part of the whole producing thing has been not being familiar enough yet (which venues, with actors, etc), BUT it's been a great way to GET familiar with all of these things. A bit of a Catch22 I guess, and overall really great. It's also my job to request space (which is way easier than it could be since Forum has space) for Mitch's rehearsals.
In addition Hunter (the other producer and director of Fever chart) and I are casting our own reading. We are double casting roles between our two shows so that has been tricky and wanting to hear from our actors has me checking my mail even more.
So producing makes your mailbox crazy.
No comments:
Post a Comment