Wow, I have really fallen off the wagon. I was involved pretty much exclusively with our upcoming production of The Good Person of Setzuan that I barely had enough time to update our schedule for the next day before it was time to pass out. Why so crazy you ask? Our Director for the show, Peter Kleinert was in town for a week-long design and casting intensive. Me being the Production Manager, this meant a lot of work. Peter is an international Director hailing from Berlin and is one of the heads of the Ernst Busch School of Performing Arts in Germany, so it is an incredible honor to have him working with us at CMU. We had been collaborating for the past few months through email and on Skype to create basic design concepts that would fit Peter's vision, but this visit was partially about finalizing these concepts into something that could be budgeted and hopefully approved by the end of the school year. Additionally, Peter used his time here to meet with all the actors and make some decisions about casting (although he plans to keep it a secret until first rehearsal, sorry guys). We also met with our Dramaturgy department to discuss the translation we are using, which is the one done by Wendy Arons and Tony Kushner. Wendy happens to be a faculty member in our school and is still close friends with Tony, so it was enlightening to hear them talk about the translation and the decisions they made when creating it.
Although we were all clearly invested in making the most of Peter's time to ensure our milestones could be met in time, my larger goal for his visit was to establish a trusting relationship with myself and the team. We began the week with the Scenic Designer, the Assistant Director, and myself picking him up from the airport and pointing out some key features of Pittsburgh on our drive to his hotel. After dropping him off, the three of us decided to go out for a beer to celebrate. About 15 minutes after we sat down, we see Peter walking down the street, he sees us, and comes in and joins us. We spent about two hours at the bar talking about our lives, where we came from, and our concept for the production. Within these two hours my team learned more about the show we were working on than in the previous three months of communication. It was clear at the end of that evening he trusted our team to take good care of the show until his arrival in August to start rehearsals. I deemed our frequent informal bar chats the remainder of the week "Production Meetings" and truly believe they were some of the most productive and relaxing production meetings I've ever been in. If only they could all be like that.
Some Lessons Learned This Week
- There are two IKEAs in Berlin
- The German pronunciation of opera sounds a lot like a former talk show host
- A church converted into a brewery is "very American"
- When all else fails, it's "as you like"
- You look like an idiot in front of Europeans if you don't know the population of your city
- The purpose of a revolve is to make a very distinct sound and spin
- There is always time for a dunkel, no matter how many days you haven't slept
and my favorite
- It is the government's DUTY to preserve the art of theatre in times of economic crisis.
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