Up to The Balcony Room this evening. The client was there talking through logistics with our point of contact. I had my actors booked for the evening and wanted to work them in the room for lines. It’s a scary thing being a producer. I can look after my input but I can’t do anything about anyone else apart from choose well and trust. I think I’ve chosen well though, and I also think I can trust these guys.
Perhaps part of producing is learning to trust MYSELF. When I look back on the event catering restaurants I used to manage, I know damn well that the reason I got good at them is because of the way I read people. My teams would work, everyone would feel they were well placed so long as it was a sincere team (fake waiters used to get put there by the evil overlords, tasked with being obstructive as if it wasn’t hard enough already). If I had a manager who took the teambuilding out of my hands, we’d all suffer, because people would be in the wrong jobs. If I could build the team it would always be smooth. Simple. Were I to go back to that work that would be my only request. Let me build the teams. I don’t think I’ll go back to it… but life is long.
This evening was lovely. We didn’t get the room until late but I got to introduce one of the actors to the booker, and we had the chance eventually to work with the extraordinary backdrop that Sam and his team made possible from The Balcony Room. It is such a beautifully located space, The Globe. And that room on a night like tonight is truly beautiful.
I’m actually quite excited to make a tasteful new piece of Shakespeare entertainment using these two young actors who have found The Factory and who give a shit. I employed them by instinct. I know they’ll rise to it. This evening I gave them a talk about the reality of corporate acting.
“They might be lovely. But don’t build to that. They haven’t bought tickets to see you work. They might think they can talk loudly throughout, they might think it’s totally fine to heckle you in or out of character. They might deliberately ignore you and speak louder to each other because they know you want to be heard and they want to show you they don’t care. None of this will be because of you, they will do what they will do. The only defence you have is to know your lines so fucking well that when they fuck with you you don’t fall into a hole.”
I brought up examples of things people have done in other venues in corporate jobs. I told the story of when we rehearsed audience moves for a musical entertainment for The Prince’s Trust and I played a nice version of an obstructive audience member (“thank you for the acting. I’m on my phone and I’m not moving. Please go and act somewhere else. You’re very good. Well done. Go away.”). and the director told me to stop making it hard for people. I said “it’ll be like that”. “No it won’t,” I was told.
It didn’t feel satisfying when everyone was shellshocked on the night because they were much worse than my warning. I really did try and would have been able to galvanise people had I been given any degree of credence. I was being paid the same as everyone else BECAUSE OF THAT SKILL. They were singing and dancing, I knew the event theatre game. It’s a different world.
But… I’m male and this age I am. It is sometimes hard when you actually know something but you’re inside that demographic that thinks they know everything. There are a lot of fools who look like me and were educated like me and who have loud opinions that have no use at all.
But yeah I think my guys are ready for whatever.
I’ll be on book as William Shakespeare for them and I’m framing it in a way that makes it possible for me to be on book and correct them if it goes wrong: “Help me out here, this is something I’m working on: it’s a love story. I think I’ll call it Juliet and Romeo, do you think it should be a tragedy or a comedy?”
I think these guys will be great and tasteful. I can’t wait. But they really need to learn their lines.
