Making Mistakes

8-minute read
A little bit after finding out that A Family Game had made it to the semi-finalist round of SheNYC/LA Summer Theater Festivals I began searching for a director. No a lot bit. I was looking ariund the web to find a playwright who had made it and blogged about the process. I wasn’t that lucky. But I did find that two of the three persons I found had a director going in. Because the play contains several spoken word pieces, a director with experience in this is important. Not only would they be able to lead more effectively and feel the movement of the words, they would also be better able to bring in potential cast.

So, I began searching.

There were so many mistakes. I mean, I did not see them until the end. And I tell you. They were so simple. But thankfully, they were not debilitating. I doubt you will put out a call for a director and post a link to an inaccessible excerpt or forget to include the cast list. For the second, I honestly wondered about this when preparing this excerpt for theter submission. But they also requested the character list separately. I didn’t find any information about it on the web and so thought the omission was the norm and made sense. And of course in for those maybe that is the way. But then I forgot about this missing info and published it. Writing this I’m realising that I haven’t corrected this on New Play Exchange. Yet another error. But it is perfectly fine. My new mantra is – make the mistake.

For a really long time, the first 20+ years of my life, perfection was key. I watched as others won with subpar and rightly so. I still think perfection is the goal. But the fear of not attaining perfection, holding back from sharing because perfection isn’t near is not as helpful as making the mistake, sharing, learning from it and continuing to create and share more as you grow and grow closer to perfection. So…there are many more mistakes coming.

After finding out that A Family had not made it to the finalist round I thought, “Okay, cancel everything.” And I did then I had to retrace my steps, ask directors if they wish to continue developing our relationship. I don’t intend to stop writing, or submitting but also what SheNYC/LA Summer Theater Festivals did was put self-producing a play within reach. Between February and April, I have been looking for actors, cast and crew needs, cast and crew salaries, casting/rehearsal spaces, prop rental businesses, how plays are promoted – their sites and socials if any, the playbills and bits of reviews, looking at artist visa requirements and other bits. I am a lot further ahead than when I started and I feel very capable of producing a play with some help. But first, I need funds and a director. My rough calculation says $85,000USD. 😂 You and I know I don’t have that kind of money. I am presently attending a grant writing workshop for creative entities. On the directing front…hmmm…a director.

I had potential directors from the call I sent out. Shoutout to Backstage which has a very human touch and made the process easy. So, what next?

Interviewing for a stage director.

How do you do that? What questions do you ask? Of course, I know I want to know how they felt about the story, if they felt the emotion, got the point, felt the movement, etc. But what about the director bit, the technical that I have no idea about?

If you have the data, watch their work. Better yet if you’re in the same geographical space, go watch it/them. I couldn’t so I’m moving on a lot of faith and the power of resumes and reels. And then, get some questions. Here are the sources for the questions I compiled:

1. Director Interview Preparation from My Interview Practice
2. Film Director Interview Questions from Betterteam (yes, some apply to stage directing)
3. More Film Director Interview Questions from CareerMatch
4. Stage Manager Interview Questions fro. Betterteam (you might need these again later)
5. Interview w Stage Manager, Paul D. Michnewicz from DC Metro Theatre Arts (Yes, an actual interview. No, not a job interview. But it is insightful for newbs like me.).
6. Employing a Stage Manager from Stage Management Association

These helped me to understand what I should be looking for and I hope they are helpful to those searching for stage directors as well. Many questions were for stage managers and a few for film directors. I was unable to find more specifically for stage directors. But these did the job well. For those of you not about to jump into producing and hiring for a play, some of the questions were things like: how do you stay on budget/time; how do you community with individuals vs groups; how do you deal with a troublesome cast/crew; and so forth. There were very practical questions. But I am rejecting the urge to beat myself up for not thinking of them on my own. I have got other things to do…

like doing the actual interview which I didn’t have enough time to prepare for because life is coming at me fast these days.

My first interview as an “job”(?) interviewer was terrible! It’s been a full day then some and it is still bugging me:

How could I….

• not have checked that Google Meet allows me to record
• not have checked that Google Meet allows me to record
• not have grouped my questions
• …be this unprepared when
  • bits like this are my norm
  • I would never
  • have never
• arrived to another interview as unprepared

I could feel myself being horrible. And I couldn’t word it then. But I can now, seven days later. (Yes, I was so emotional I had to out this post down. Because remember(!) I am still am perfectionist. And it takes time to crawl down from failure.) What kind of “producer” am I? If I cannot conduct a single interview smoothly, how will I effectively produce a play? And remember, I am also not there in person? How am I going to do this? I am freaking out? But thankfully, this is not my first event. I have put on at least four events and before each…multiple times throughout the preparations I freak out. Sometimes, I just sit and cry because EVERYTHING IS GOING WRONG. But in all those situations someone always gave some word of encouragement none of which I can remember but the sentiments were always the same – Keep going!

So, despite feeling awful I planned the second interview….the show will go on.

Until Friday, be strong, stay blessed and do something that scares you. 😉