The Story So Far: or how I spent the last 15 years in professional theatre

Today is my last day at Troika. It is also my last day of work for a while.

Most of you know by now, but for those who don’t: I love to write. I rarely have the time to put that focused lens on my own work, but that era is ending. Today, I’m writing about my career. It’s long, but I hope you’ll read it.

I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin 15 years ago this week. As a student lighting designer and electrician, I received the tremendous honor of getting picked up by the followspots—called lovingly for me on com--as I crossed the stage at Bass concert hall to receive my BFA. I still get the chills every time I stand on deck and look out into the house during focus. How vibrant and alive everything feels, but just out of view. It’s too bright to see clearly, but you get used to it.

My parents are Longhorns too. Both of my grandfathers were engineers. We have a few famous opera singers on the Italian side. We’re all blue-eyed. We’re all really fucking stubborn. My sister is a literal force of nature. How my parents ended up with not one, but two children in entertainment…I’d say I’m sorry but we’re too busy making a play in the basement which you will be forced to watch shortly. Get excited. There will probably be costume changes and at least one song.

Clearly, ambition has never been an issue for me. In the same way some folks can’t do passive aggressive (also me), I can’t NOT be ambitious. It’s my only setting. And it freaks people out. I wish it wouldn’t. It does. I completed a 5 year degree program in 4 years alongside an intensive concentration in what was then called “Robotics” but would now be called Moving Light Programming. I formally student-taught in both middle school and high school for the majority of my senior year, and passed the Texas state exams for teacher certification in Theatre. Oh, and I was an officer in my sorority (Alpha Delta Pi, Delta Chapter—Pi Love girls!) all four years.

At the suggestion of one of my best friends, Katy, I applied for an intern spot at Steppenwolf in Chicago. Katy was the lighting apprentice there for the current season and had fallen in love with the city and the community of electricians and theatre creators that she’d met. I moved back to Chicago in late 2003 and started an internship in the Arts Exchange department (what is now Steppenwolf for Young Audiences) working with both Hallie Gordon and the unmatchable powerhouse that is Kimberly Senior. We made a “learning wage” which rounded out to about $75/week so I supplemented my income working in storefronts as an overhire electrician.

My time in that office was both an education and a gift. And when I left, I followed Kimberly as her SM or PM for the next two years. We made plays outside giant blue busses, hither and yon for Northlight To-Go, and in the familiar black box at Strawdog—where I joined the production core of the ensemble in 2004.

In 2006, I crossed paths with a gentleman who was essentially the TD at Blue Man Group Chicago. He was the scenic designer on the totally wild production of Tooth of Crime we mounted at Strawdog. He mentioned they were hiring sub electricians and that he thought I’d get along well with the team. Less than a week later, I had an interview with Tabitha and Dawn. I started in April and spent the following year learning how BMG operates and pressing GO on the lighting console at the appropriate moments.

BMG’s sub work, and owning an SUV, allowed me to continue working as a storefront PM. In early 2005 I also started as the Production Manager at American Theatre Company headed at the time by the dynamic duo of Damon Kiely and Anthony Roberts. ATC had an ensemble, like Strawdog, only here I wasn’t inside the circle. That experience taught me the importance of understanding and interpreting institutional politics.  Often, that struggle pushed us to do better, more daring work. We mounted some crazy shows in that space, and took our gorgeous covered-wagon, stripped down Oklahoma out for a second run at Theatre on the Lake.

Meanwhile, Blue Man Group had expanded, even in my short time with the company it was clear that they were growing. When they posted for a newly created full time Production Manager for the Chicago show, I applied truly as an exercise. I hoped to get a first round interview if my materials were strong enough. I got the job. At 26 years old. Oh. Holy. Jesus.

My desk in the management office went where a super awesome couch used to go. I think that’s the best way I can sum up how things started when I took on the PM role. Here was an organization that had been functioning for the last 10 years (at that time) without some PM trying to micromanage their worlds or change things up. No matter. The corporate-level changes were inbound and someone had to take production along for the ride.

We transitioned the crew from show rate pay to hourly pay, we transitioned the entire building from paper timesheets to computer-based time and attendance, we transitioned from hourly to salaried roles for full time employees. We rolled out community wellness plans. And then the recession hit. We have arrived in December of 2008. My position would not exist in January of 2009.

I took losing that job really, really hard. Even though I prepped for the worst, I’d even taken the GRE and applied to graduate school just in case. But I wasn’t ready. I didn’t think I was on the list. I was devastated. But, I kept working. I briefly took a gig as the Production Manager for the Opera Department at Northwestern but after one production cycle, it was clear that the fit wasn’t right. I did, however, get to drive Sheldon Harnick (look him up) to the airport and it was one of the best days of my life—we chatted the whole time.

In February of 2009 I got two phone calls that set the next phase in motion. One was from Jennie Ryan at Blue Man Productions looking for a few PMs to put on retainer to oversee the goings on in corporate gig land while she worked on the show being built aboard the Norwegian Cruise Lines ship the Epic. Jennie taught me how to advance a gig and write a rider. She taught me how to make crew offers and how to staff local labor calls. I happily gigged for BMG for the next two years in this capacity.

The second call was from Marc Stubblefield at Court Theatre (a wonderful LORT house in residence at the University of Chicago) offering me the APM/CM job that had been held by my dear friend Jen—who was on the way to California for her own new adventure. I accepted and worked alongside some of my now closest friends for three and a half years. Marc was an incredible boss and a brilliant PM. His easy nature and clear eyed management cultivated trusting relationships with all of our design teams. Working with Marc also taught me how to be a person who has interests in things that aren’t work. Court is the reason I got into cheese! I loved that space and that work, and I knew when the time was right to make my next move.

In the fall of 2012, I left Court and returned to Blue Man full time—in another newly created role. This time as the Production Manager for Strategic Appearances. The business was expanding once more, and this time there was an effort to generate further awareness of BMG in the Brazilian market in hopes of opening a sit-down show in either Rio or Sao Paulo.

And, we also had all of the press and marketing associated with the Las Vegas show’s transition from the Venetian to the Monte Carlo. We landed skydivers on the strip, we almost died laughing shooting Sports Center for ESPN. At the end, we debuted almost 90 minutes of new collaborative content in a partnership with the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, with nearly 100 special guests including the LA PD Bagpipe Corps. It was phenomenal!

Then BMP dissolved my entire department three weeks before my wedding. 

Welcome to October, 2013.

The day after I got the news, I tossed a post up on Facebook informing folks of the change and recommending no one suggests I “focus on the wedding” for their own personal safety. Later that afternoon, a former BMG colleague popped up asking if I’d be interested in talking about PMing for his company where they ran national tours. I told him I couldn’t decide until after the wedding because my brain had basically turned to sand, but we still wrangled together a video interview (where Ken ate a salad and read a magazine the whole time—a detail I have come to be very fond of) and the boys at NETworks made me an offer to come aboard as an Associate Production Manager for their touring musicals.

If you’ve been reading closely so far, you’ll notice that of the many things I have done, one of the things I had *not* done was tour as a member of a road crew. I’ve done multi-city gigs before, and slept on a bus. But nothing like a tour. So, I committed myself to the notion that my first year at NETworks really needed to be its own version of graduate school. I needed to get in there and learn. But also do. Because this is NOT a school. This is work.

I flew from our family wedding reception in Austin directly to tech for Phantom of the Opera in Providence. I stayed with NETworks for three and a half years. I was promoted to full PM in the first nine months. I built, opened, and ran Dirty Dancing, Beauty and the Beast International, Sound of Music, and Into The Woods. 

Jason Juenker and Seth Wenig taught me how to make tours. There are no two ways about it. They dragged me back onto my feet through the process and pushed me off cliffs and taught me how to fight. They also taught me that we cannot be anyone other than who we are.

There were elements of my relationship with the team at NETworks that were not functional, and that upon honest reflection were not likely to change. When I was approached with an opportunity to create my own space and culture, I did not hesitate. I lept.

Now that we are into the stickier parts, let me clarify one point. I made a choice. I hurt people who did not deserve the blow they received. There are several who have not spoken to me since my last day there, and I grieve that loss more deeply than most people know. But I made that choice. Ownership and agency are important. I own this choice. I left to work for a direct competitor and to take on my own department. 

When I arrived at Troika, we had a huge job on our hands. As Senior Production Manager, my team and I needed to come up with a plan to simultaneously tech five first national tours, three of which were built entirely from scratch. We opened Kinky Boots Non-Eq, Love Never Dies, On Your Feet, School of Rock, and The Color Purple between Sept 1 and Oct 7 of 2017.  We expanded the staffing pool by over 300%. We worked our faces off. I literally worked my ass off, losing 20lbs over the course of the summer and fall.

At Troika, I have had the opportunity to try and lead my department by example. I hope that through this experience, my teams will see that your example doesn’t have to be perfect in order to be good. I make mistakes all the god damn time. I stumble. I get overwhelmed. But, my principles never falter. If I can’t always be fair, then I hope I can be just. If I can’t always give you the answer you want, I hope you’ll appreciate the dialogue. And, if I can’t give 600% to a job that demands it, I hope you’ll understand why I have to step down.

My “Ladyboss” hashtag gets some flack for being pretentious and self-congratulatory. First, amazing, second, it’s neither. To be a #ladyboss doesn’t mean being the best. It means showing up and doing the work. #Ladyboss is about bringing attention to being a woman in a man’s space. My Ladyboss purpose protects me. I’m showing up for the young people who didn’t know this was an option for them. I’m showing that leadership is as diverse as the people who take on these roles. Roll your eyes if you must, but at least you read it. There’s that ol’ ambition again.

Speaking of ambition—simultaneously for the last 14 years I have also been on the faculty at the Children’s Theatre of Western Springs where I have designed scenery and lights for at least one show a year, and where I advised the High School Repertory program from 2004 to 2008. I am deeply proud that I have been able to continue to work with these amazing kiddos despite the twists and turns in my calendar.

This Ladyboss is also married to an incredible man who has lost too many people in too short a time. These moments demand my attention, and of the many vows we made nearly five years ago—one was to be a steadfast advocate.  

Today is my last day at Troika. It is also my last day at work for a while. It has been seven years since I worked on a show in Chicago. The path to today has been so incredibly varied and unpredictable that I won’t even dare speculate as to what will be next. Right now, the horizon is too bright to see clearly, but I’ll get used to it.