Chicago Reader: Before any performer twirls a tassel, drops into a split, or picks up a mike, there’s a producer writing emails, organizing spreadsheets, calling venues, crunching numbers, creating posters, tracking ticket sales, wrangling tech information, hiring talent—you get the idea. I haven’t been producing that long, but from just the handful of shows I’ve put on, I can tell you it’s a heavy task.
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Before this article, I had a basic understanding of the jobs a producer of a show takes on. However, I was unaware that so many producers have a large amount of say on the creative aspects of a show. While I understood that producers could say yes or no to certain decisions, I didn’t know that for some shows, the entire production is based on the producer’s creative vision. I really enjoyed reading about how some producers, such as Annx and Honey Bee Rose, created a multitude of different shows just because they hadn’t seen what they wanted to in other drag shows. Additionally, I liked hearing about the technical side of a producer's job. This article talks about the three most important aspects of a show: the performers, the venue, and the audience, and I think it's super interesting that the audience is such a big factor in a show, considering they are not actually part of the process until tickets are sold.
I think the most interesting part of this article is when Shimmy LaRoux talks about building her shows with a balanced triangle from software development. I have a background in game development, so I already know that framework, but my version is more free-form. We are a two person team, an illustrator and me, the coder. The illustrator also does the story writing, and I am mostly the one refining and putting everything together. Since it is a two person interest project, we have no budget and no schedule. In our team, none of us can leave. If the illustrator leaves we have no one to do the art, and if I leave we have no project manager and no coder. So my game project is all people and no resources, while LaRoux's is a mix. I think our system can be efficient and inefficient at the same time. Now that I am in school, we effectively have no coder, so the project is on pause. But when both of us have time, we can finish a demo version in a week, working around 12 hours a day.
Producers really are the backbone of a show. They handle so many logistical tasks so that everyone else is able to do their job to the best of their ability. There is so much paperwork and planning that goes with producing a show. I really admire producers at the local level because they are so resourceful and scrappy. They find such creative ways to make a performance happen. On the other hand, producers in commercial theater and giant companies scare me a little. They hold essentially all the power over a show, and if they don't like what is happening, they can stop it with a wave of their hand. They deal with the staffing and the budget, and unfortunately, they can make creative decisions that appeal to them, but not the rest of the company. Producers are wonderful and much-needed for all forms of entertainment, but they are also the reason I have reservations about working for commercial theaters and giant companies.
This piece of reading resonates deeply since I have contemplated moving forward with production as a career. As opposed to previous readings which focused on analysis and reporting, this one felt very much like a job advertisement. Renken starts off her essay with her bullet points: emails, spreadsheets, venue calls, budget creation, poster design, ticket management, casting calls. While many think this glamorous aspect of theatre production tends to overshadow its actual nitty gritty nature, I found her frankness refreshing and true. What I would use from Moxie Simone's approach would have to be her balance between her performer, venue, and audience. This creates the easy-to-use formula for assessing whether any particular decision made benefits the overall performance or one singular component of it. The aspect of theatre finance which concerns me is her idea of maintaining her own vault so she could pay salaries before even seeing sales revenue.
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