We’ve already planned the budget, now I’m interviewing people to come on staff next season. Day to day I try to stay out of the way of my shop heads. I have an extraordinary team of shop managers, and they know what they’re doing. I check in with them daily on how they’re maintaining schedules, what information they need to keep moving forward. Our biggest constraint is time, far more than skill or budget. Things have a finite cost—there’s only so much plywood you can put on the stage. But if a designer or a director hasn’t made a decision, and we can’t get started, that’s time we can’t get back. Sometimes there are interdepartmental projects. Something like the street lamp in Appoggiatura, that was a three-department project: scenery, electrics, and props. I was constantly aware of where we were on it, but I was not very involved, because they were doing well, and they didn't need me. With something like the projections in Looking Over the President’s Shoulder, I was much more hands-on. How are the projectors going to be rigged? Scene Shop. How are they going to be controlled? Electrics. How are we going to get power to them? Scene Shop and Electrics. Plus how are we going to provide content? Who’s going to be hanging and focusing them? What’s the projection surface? So at some point you have got four or five departments tied into that conversation. WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT YOUR JOB? I like that it’s never the same two days in a row. That is also one of my least favorite things, some days. You just can’t plan what it’s going to be. But I like that it changes, and it’s varied. One day I’m helping to figure out how we get a gondola on stage, and what does it look like, and how do we build it, and how do we get it
to the stage from the shop? The next day we’re figuring out how to make this railing break apart so it can be put back together every day. The varied skills and the varied mind processes that it takes, it’s fun. WHAT’S UNIQUE ABOUT WORKING AT THE IRT? We have a very significant culture of reflection. There are essentially three different post-mortems on every show. Janet and I meet with every show’s creative team to discuss what worked, what didn't work, what do they wish we had done differently. Are there materials or equipment we don’t have that you would like to use? Did you have trouble communicating with someone? We also have a debrief with all our shop heads; we’re very concerned about what process they went through with their respective designers. I have heard the designer’s perspective, now I need to hear the shop manager’s perspective, and know that the reality is probably somewhere in-between. And then we try to move everyone forward the next time we work together. At the end of the season we have the entire artistic team get together and talk about the art of the plays we did. I do not know of any other theatre in the country that does that much reflection on what they have done. But it’s only by reflecting on what you have done that you learn what you need to improve upon going forward. There’s a great striving for excellence here, across the board. As a not-for-profit theatre, sometimes we grab onto that excellence ring, and then, guess what? Once we really grab hold of it, we’re going to move it up a little bit higher. And we’re going to keep moving it up. Because it’s important to keep striving for something greater than what we’re doing right now. 33