From the Inside; How Live Production & Theatre get Problems Wrong
One change in thinking that live production and performing arts need to incorporate to survive
Thank you for checking out my blog/articles on Medium. I aim to express and explore my personal thought processes and strategies when it comes to working in live production.
See, my background is a unique one. I didn’t go to school for theatre or the arts; instead my path here, to being a production manager, designer, and producer, took many twists and turns, with failures leading to relaunching my entire career path. I remember driving a cargo van as a regional operations manager, thinking:
“I just want to pet my dog, and be a part of making things that people will remember and share.”
So, a few months later there I was, day one, a man with three degrees who had been an operations and accounting manager, with a c-wrench, at 28, in a theater doing the newbie type of work that one should expect at a light hang (you’re going to be pushing a genie lift very, very often until people get to know you). I took on an internship at Ford’s Theater, followed by a fellowship at Woolly Mammoth Theater, all while working overhire anywhere and everywhere I could, reading every theater design textbook I could find, and going to any workshop I could afford. I also got very lucky as the Washington Improv Theater allowed me to jump into the deep end of designing productions before even fully understanding the complexities of the systems I was working with.
But you don’t go to school for as long as I did without coming away with a few skills (more than just amazing excel input abilities). I aim to share those here.
Here is the thing, in my experience in theater or live production, particularly at the local and regional level, they tend to engage in their work with their go-to behavior being a cookie cutter and a “this is how we have always done it” approach to their operations and procedures. This results in waste, inefficiency, and a lack of critical thinking. There is a reason some argue of the “Cost Disease” being rampant in the arts.
There are so many reasons as to why these issues exist (the class offerings for theater majors or at arts schools , lack of mentorship, hiring practices, and so many others) but we won’t get into that today.
I want to use those skills I acquired prior to working in theater, while working on a skill I’m ok at (writing is not my go to) and lend my voice to a discussion on making the arts more efficient, while bringing a critical eye to the industry. I think this is especially important in these times where, after Covid, the arts, film, small business and many other industries will need to find their next evolution for survival.
So here is my first observation within theater that I think too often is not recognized — all problems or issues found in production, businesses, and even in our personal lives actually encompass only two types of scenarios.
Puzzles or Mysteries.
This idea is not new, Malcolm Gladwell, Greg Treverton, and many others have previously written about it. With a puzzle you obviously have all of the pieces, all you need to do is figure out the logical order and then everything falls into place to solve. Sure, it might take some trial and error, but there is a logical and statistical way to achieve the goal at its very core.
These types of problems we encounter actually focus on finding out what data sets or puzzle pieces will give you the information required to solve your issue. Examples of these puzzle type of questions might be: Can I afford to hire another technician for the light hang? If I switched manufacturers, how would that affect my scenic budget and bottom line? How much money do I need to save to go on my road trip vacation? How much of that will be used on gas?
These problems, puzzle type problems, theater makers excel at solving. A master electrician finds a new path for circuiting lights due to constraints of how much cable they have. General Managers negotiate pay and guarantees in a seasonal vs show-by-show contract due to budget. And so on…
But what theater makers and staff tend to be terrible at is identifying and solving Mysteries.
These are problems that have a number of different variables that can only be solved through aspects of critical thinking, innovation, change, and development. To solve these problems, or mysteries, you’ll have to come up with something completely new, do something completely different, change, or develop in a new and different way. Mysteries are usually people-driven not data-driven.
Though we may use clues found in data, the same way a detective may use clues to start him in the right direction, it will be people, the human component, and what makes each person different that are at the heart of our problem-solving quest. Here we find the issues of culture, happiness, feeling valued, collaboration and more.
I was once speaking to an assistant lighting designer who graduated from a prestigious technical arts school who was assisting a Broadway level designer on a show we were both working on. I asked him if he thought he was missing any particular skill that he was not taught with his degree. His response surprised me. It went something like this:
“Honestly, soft skills. I know all the technical knowledge possible but I never learned how to talk to people.”
This response of “soft skills” is not and has not been an isolated incident when I ask other technicians, artisans, and designers the same question within the arts.
Theater administrators need to look at mystery style issues as equal, or greater in value, as puzzles. They need to review the mid-level managers in their organization and make sure they have the mystery solving abilities as well as a puzzle solving brain. We know a happy, motivated, valued workforce also impacts the bottom line in a positive way. Yet too often we forget that in order to achieve that output, solving that mystery, will require more than just looking at the numbers or reviewing budgets and assuming that a pay raise will equal staff happiness. There is more to it than that which can be quantified.
Finally, with all the work some theaters are putting into Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Access, I sincerely hope they are noting that each of those ideals must be achieved as a people/ mystery issue that will require soft skills to achieve, and not just a numbers game to make it seem like they solved a puzzle to their constituents.
And that is how we will begin on Medium.
What questions, issues, or even problems are you, your company, your film crew, or your theater facing?
Are they Puzzles or Mysteries?
Written by: Raymond Simeon, MBA & MHRM,
