Another Gig!

Hi folks,

Sorry that it's been a few days since last I blogged. I think I did pretty well for the first couple of weeks, but it's probably unrealistic of me to expect myself to do this daily. In any case, I'll strive to not let it become like last summer and go a month without posting anything.

So, my news for today! I am happy to report that I have accepted an offer for my next gig! I will be (one of?) the company manager for The Magdalene The Musical! It's an Off-Broadway original musical, a contemporary re-telling of the story of Mary Magdalene and her relationship with Jesus and the other apostles, in a kind of modernized Jesus Christ Superstar/Godspell kind of way. Or so I've gathered from the website. I'll admit that I know very little about it. The job comes to me from Angelo Fraboni, a theater producer and the father of one of my old college buddies, Rico. I let Angelo know that I was in town and looking for work as a CM, and it just so happened that he was looking for someone for his show that's going up in a few weeks. I have agreed to come on board with the project, and while the fine details are still to be worked out, I'm excited that I have more work queued up after 10 x 25 ends!

Company Management is a really interesting job. You sit directly at the intersection of the artists at the theater and the managers/producers at the office, with one foot in both worlds. You do everything for everyone, and it can, at times, be a rather thankless job (or so I've been told - so far everyone I've worked with has been really nice). It's also really fun. The CM is the only person who works in theatrical management who has a reason to actually be in the theater everyday. You deal with the craziness of customer service at the front-of-house, and deal with the craziness of taking care of actors backstage, and everything in between.

It's kind of funny, because even people who work in the theater don't really know what exactly it is that a company manger does. They know roughly what the company manager does for them specifically, but that's normally only the tip of the iceberg. It's really fun, actually. It's the theatrical jack-of-all-trades position, and you get to learn a lot and interact with EVERYONE. I'm really only scratching the surface with my own CM experience, since I'm just covering curtains and not doing all of the 1001 and things that a CM does everyday, but I'm at least getting exposure to what the job entails. I'm starting to learn how much I don't know, which is a start, I suppose.

I really think that company management is a great stepping stone for me. It's a fun job, but not something that I want to still be doing in 10 years. I actually have this dream of creating my own entertainment empire. Theatrical production, film production, TV production, whatever. I really like the idea of making a lot of money producing entertaining product with artistic value. I really reject the idea that the only things that can make money are the plays/musicals/movies/TV shows that appeal only to our base desires and have no creative integrity. That doesn't mean that you can't have explosions and sex and fast cars and magic and dumb jokes, but there are thousands of creative artists out there who could do it in a thoughtful way without assuming that the audience is a bunch of mindless morons who must be spoon-fed their entertainment in nice little, easy-to-swallow bites. Now don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer in giving the audience what they want. I believe that we make art for the people who consume it, not only for ourselves. But that doesn't mean that we can't give them the highest quality, best thought out version of what they want!

I believe in telling good stories. I think that's what people want, at the end of the day. They want something that will take their mind off of their own troubles, something that will shed light on things they don't know, or things they thought they knew. They want to learn something, they want to laugh, they want to cry, they want to be shocked, and amazed, and taken somewhere they've never been. I think that our society is plagued by the people being in charge of our entertainment and culture forgetting that what they should be doing is telling the stories of humanity. I honestly believe that people will respond better to good stories than they will/do to formulaic garbage. This is also not to say that everything out there today is formulaic garbage, and that people aren't committed to good stories. They are. And it's hard. But that's the good fight that I want to be a part of.

Keep calm and carry on, my friends.