Rake's Progress

3-2-1 Contract

2006-09-04T11:41:00.000-04:00

I hired a general manager to work on Oe4K. His name is Rick L. Stevens*. It's his job to handle more of the business-y aspects of the production, which I wouldn't be able to do, given that I have a full-time job that doesn't involve plays.

One of Rick's biggest responsibilities so far has been to deal with contracts. It seems like EVERYONE has a contract of some sort. Mostly, they are Letter(s) of Agreement (LOA). Even I have one (so if I were to quit, could I sue myself for breach of contract)?

Some of the contracts involve very strict guidelines, like the Equity contracts for the actors, and the SSDC (Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers) contract for our director. There are filing deadlines, filing fees, and support materials that we need to submit (like proof of insurance). If we file something wrong, or violate the terms of these agreements, we can face penalties.

Other documents, usually the ones we've drawn up with the accompanists and with some of our business associates, are more fluid and can be negotiated between both parties. The three big things we cover in these documents are fee, rights, and billing.

Rights, as in "Right of First Refusal" is probably the most important thing we can offer someone right now. Given that we don't really have any money, no one's going to make any money from this production. BUT! There are opportunities for us to continue on, to develop the project further, and to be funded by someone who doesn't stress over every extra dollar. This is the dream we all share: a commercial Off-Broadway run. Look at some of the success stories: Altar Boyz, [title of show]. We could have national tours, trunk productions. Merchandising. An OBIE! That's when everyone would make their money and get their glory.

Billing is also interesting. It doesn't mean money, it means how you're referred to in the production. Apparently in Hollywood, titles are offered as incentives (actually, not any different than in the business world). But production information often persists long after a show closes. Titles go on resumes. Important people come to productions and read playbills. It might seem petty, but sometimes it's the little things that matter most.

Rick's done an awesome job managing these contracts and making sure we're all up-to-date and following all the rules. And I do a lot of signing on the dotted line.

*For example, Rick's contract stated that his billing would include his name written as "Rick L. Stevens".

After a long absence...

2006-09-02T12:14:00.000-04:00

Well, no more milking those Absence puns. It's been almost two months since my last post. That's because, let's see, there was the MITF show. Then there were script re-writes for Oe4K, and then all the myriad producing responsibilities. I'm a tired puppy.

Ideally, what I'd like to do, is to add updates of things that happened over the last month. I want to talk more about Absence, about rehearsals, and the production. I'd love to devote several posts to the peacock puppet. This way, there will exist a historical record of all of our projects.

And then Oe4K... we've actually started a separate blog for the show (it's taken on quite a robust life of its own), found here: oedipusforkids.com. I'll probably not spend too much time discussing that, because there are so many voices that want to be heard. Or perhaps I'll focus mostly on the producing/business side of it. I must say, I've certainly learned a lot this summer.

Rake is planning several events this fall (obviously the best season to have a rake!). We're planning a Halloween event and will feature ourselves in the Village Halloween Parade. In early November, we're going to have a public reading or two. Finally, in December, we're hoping to plan a festive holiday production. There will be puppets.

So check back soon for "retro" posts, and for more updates as eventually my world gains equilibrium.

Absence: Final Show

2006-07-29T15:00:00.000-04:00

This was our matinee. Also our last show. I think everyone was a little tired. While it's useful to do the shows (especially if there are only 3) back-to-back, it can be draining. The group was more mellow but in good spirits on our final day.

This show was our smallest house, though after the overflow from the night before, it seemed much tamer. We were able to restore the seating to its more manageable arrangement.

There was one minor snag: Liza's crutches were left onstage before the performance, and not claimed at the top of the show. And how is an amputeed woman supposed to get on stage without her crutches? Fortunately, Michael just casually went and got them. Crisis averted (and I don't think anyone noticed).

In general, this was an incredibly satisfying experience. My team of actors -- Sarah Doudna, Jennifer Saltzstein, and Michael Weems -- did an amazing job. I saw so much growth from them and was so honored what they did with my humble script. Chrissie Reiswig was my insanely gifted costume/prop coordinator. Sound designer Benjamin Le Clear was a rock. Jennifer Huang truly brought the peacock puppet to life. I'm so proud of all of them... their dedication and hard work was an inspiration.

Absence: Performance #2

2006-07-28T19:30:00.000-04:00

I knew we'd have a solid house for this performance. I did not anticipate the turnout we got. The festival sells 40 seats for our "theater" (again, it's really just a big room... hence the name "Studio Series"). Because I'm concerned about sightlines, I don't like to set up all 40 seats. You can't see past the person in front of you, and if they have a really big head or you're short, you're screwed. Plus, it gets so warm: there's an A/C, but it has to crank overtime to keep things cool with the stage lights on. Thus, while I'm always excited to sell more tickets, I was really hoping to get away with about 25 seats.

We had 45 people.

There literally weren't enough chairs. Several people had to sit on the floor. Two people stood in the back by the tech table (I did not make those people pay for their tickets). The audience was practically sitting in the playing area.

It was intense.

But the actors made the best and the most of it. The audience response was enthusiastic, despite any discomfort. And afterwards, there was much celebrating.

Absence: Opening Night Recap

2006-07-27T20:00:00.000-04:00

Schlepped many, many heavy things from my home to Midtown. Fortunately, I waited until rush hour had mostly passed. One thing that is a huge issue for urban theater practitioners is transportation. How do you transport heavy things or bulky things? We take a lot of taxis. And we buy a lot of wheeled suitcases.

We spent a lot of time configuring the seating. The theater is really just a big room, with a few risers at one end. Sightlines were definitely going to be an issue. This is not something that's a problem in a theater with fixed seating (you know, like movie theater chairs). We were able to stack to of them to create three levels of seating. It cut down on the number of tickets we could sell, but overall created a much better experience for the audience.

Because of the heat, we offered ice water to our audience, free of charge. This was, I think, a lovely idea (suggested by one of the actors) and proved to be very popular with our audience. I even made $3 in tips. Hey, laugh if you want, but that paid for the ice that night!

Overall, the show went very well. There were a few missed lines, and one or two glitches with props. But the actors turned in a solid performance; I was very proud of them. We had a great turnout, filling every seat we offered. In all, opening night was a complete success.

Oedipus For Kids: How it Began...

2006-07-12T15:19:00.000-04:00

I've received requests to post this in text form, so here it goes:

Back in early January Kim asks, "Do you want to write a children's musical for the Fringe this year?"

I respond: "The Fringe? The deadline's in, what, a month?"

"That's okay, it's a Children's Musical. It doesn't need to have quality or anything."

Since we both have a love for Grecco-Roman culture, decided to do an adaptation of a Greek Myth. We parted ways and each came up with possible ideas.

But what to adapt? Hercules would come off as strange, and it's been done. Medusa teaches a strange lesson. Most stories about the Greek Gods were too short, or too harsh. The Aeneid, Odyssey and everything Trojan was just too bloody.

Finally, I came back to Kim and responded, "We should adapt Oedipus."

"What?"

"We should adapt Oedipus as our children's musical."

"But... you can't do Oedipus for Kids!"

And so it was born.

In the right direction...

2006-06-15T23:12:00.000-04:00

Tonight we met with our director for Oedipus for Kids! It was a long meeting and even involved the three of us reading the script together (which I always feel weird about doing, since I'm not at all an actor). But we were able to address a lot of the "open questions" that still remained in some earlier versions of the script.

We're planning on doing a fair amount of re-writing to the Oe4K script to get it polished up for the festival. Which is reasonable, since it only took us about 4 weeks to write the whole thing. In fact, this is probably Gil's favorite story to tell (the story of how we came to write this thing in the first place).

Along with the revisions, we're also looking at a summer filled with press reps, general managers, contract signings, advertising, and musical directors.

That also means a summer filled with fundraising. Oy.

Finally found a man...

2006-06-14T19:09:00.000-04:00

And he's going to be great. I'm very pleased. He's reading the script and will come for his first rehearsal on Monday.

Also, the postcards for Absence arrived. I'm actually pretty pleased with them, considering that they were at a bargain price.

Things are slowly coming together. And then tomorrow night, we have our first official meeting with the director for Oe4K.

And he shall be called Oedipus...

2006-06-12T23:56:00.000-04:00

"It's Greek for 'swollen foot.'"

Oedipus for Kids! will have its WORLD PREMIERE performance on
Tuesday, September 12th at 8:00pm at the Sage Theatre
(no, we've never heard of it either).

Other performances (in addition to the WORLD PREMIERE) on:

Thursday, September 14 at 8pm
Saturday, September 16 at 8pm
Sunday, September 17 at 4:30pm
Wednesday, September 20 at 8pm
Sunday, September 24 at 4:30pm

You've been warned.

Workin' 9 to 5

2006-06-11T19:45:00.000-04:00

I'm certainly hoping that the IRS will consider this to be a small business when I file my taxes next year: I've just spent the last 8 hours working on theater stuff.

Had a great rehearsal this afternoon with Sarah (of Absence); it was especially nice because we went and sat in the park in the sunshine and reviewed the script and discussed her character.

Spent the rest of the afternoon working on the postcards... waiting until the last minute is, in fact, not the best way to get things done. Still, I had some lovely (read: sarcasm) experiences creating files in Photoshop and looking forward to the nice, glossy printing job.

Hey, when you have a shoestring budget, you get what you pay for. What I can pay for is real printing, but not a real graphic designer.

And they're off!

2006-06-10T11:54:00.000-04:00

We had our first rehearsal for Absence on Thursday night and it went really well. Granted, we didn't have a man actor, but we had a stand-in who did a great job. Mostly, I was really impressed with how well the two ladies did with the very first read-through.

Maybe I'll give a little background on the production... it's happening at the Midtown International Theater Festival (MITF) in late July. The show is part of their Studio Series, which basically means that I give them a little bit of money and they give me a little bit of space, and we're all very happy. They get a small percentage of my box office gross and I get some marketing assistance, plus a performance space with a rep plot.

It's a really great way to put on a small, simple show... especially one that doesn't need a big set or fancy lighting cues. I like doing shows there because I still get a lot of control over the production (I was allowed to choose my own performance dates). It becomes a really simple way to make theater and have great learning experiences.

Plus, MITF -- being titled the "Midtown Festival" -- is terribly convenient to my midtown office. So it's really easy to take a few minutes out of the work day to run over to the space for whatever reason.

An "Oedipus For Kids" introduction

2006-06-07T21:05:00.000-04:00

Kim's been doing all the writing, so I figured I'd pipe in.

Hi.

Since most of Kim's writing has been Absence-related , which I keep misspelling, I figured I'd do a little bit of explanation of our upcoming NYMF musical, "Oedipus for Kids!"

If Absence is the deep garden hoe of Rake Theatre, then Oe4K is what I'd call the Fisher Price Rake:
You know... doesn't plow as deep, but very colorful.

Oedipus For Kids' premise revolves around three members of the Fuzzy Ducks Theatre Company, whose purpose is to bring the classics to children via theatre. For some reason, after recently acclaimed productions such as Walden: Thoreau Takes a Time-Out and Uncle Tommy's Cabin, the artistic director has decided that this week's classic should be the Greek myth of Oedipus.

As the children's production goes down into a Charybdis-like whirpool of suck, the performers
remain confounded by the question of how the hell you portray such a screwed up myth to elementary-schoolers. Meanwhile, we hope that you too will be confounded by the question of how the hell you portray such a screwed up myth to elementary-schoolers.

In fact, we're hoping you are confounded enough to want to come. For more information, check us out on NYMF.

It's not exactly raining men...

2006-06-07T00:07:00.000-04:00

Still no man actor. My replacement lead panned out too. I guess because I have a specific idea in mind about who this character should be, I'm wary of searching in too many places. I don't want to have to turn people down just because of someone who doesn't have the right "look."

Except that rehearsals start the day after tomorrow. Maybe there's time to rewrite the entire show into a 2 person piece? No, that's truly insane. I'll email a few people tomorrow with possible leads. Worst case, I'll have someone fill in for the role during Thursday's readthru.

But on the happy news front, Oedipus for Kids! has a real director! A real, grown-up director!

Time Management

2006-06-05T22:34:00.000-04:00

Ok, so scheduling = not fun. You know how hard it is to find time to do all of the things you need to do in your own life? Try adding two more people to your calendar, plus a currently-non-existent 3rd person who may or may not have a lot of free time. Well, since I've already started making the rehearsal schedule, the actor's ability to commit to most of the dates on there is going to be a key factor in casting him.

I'm grateful that I don't have to worry about scheduling on an Equity Showcase contract. There are all sorts of rules about how many rehearsals there can be, for how long, etc. These are all very important rules, but just won't apply in this case. Everyone involved in this production works... several people work full-time. So we'd never come close to running the type of rehearsals that would overtax our actors.

Thank god for a short running time too.

Of course, this also means that the man actor I find should not be Equity. Hmm... now seeking non-union man in mid-thirties with no social life. Great.

Actually, I do have one serious comment about the whole Equity/non-Equity casting thing. I often joke about how I hate using Equity actors because I don't want to pay for insurance (note to those involved in current production: yes, I will be getting us insurance. Don't worry). But it's also really nice to give opportunities to people who are actors in addition to a day job, or who are still building up enough stage credits. It doesn't mean they're not talented, and in fact, I've seen some pretty crappy actors who still manage to get the * next to their name in programs. Just that we all have to start somewhere... and that we do it because it's fun and it makes us happy.

Except when deeply immersed in the muck and mire of scheduling.

An Absence Absence

2006-06-04T23:09:00.000-04:00

Finally have the dates for the production at the Midtown International Theater Festival (I'm on the "choose your own adventure" plan), but ended up losing my male actor. Better to find out about it sooner rather than later (and he was a total gentleman about it), but it was not exactly the news I was hoping for. Rehearsals start Thursday night, and I'm missing 1/3 of the production. 1/4 if you count the peacock.

Since I'm still making last minute rewrites to the script, I actually contemplated just writing the character of John out completely. Change from a drama about grown-up relationships to a total family piece. Then realized that the idea was insane. I guess I mentioned that rehearsals start Thursday night?

I think I have a few good leads on a replacement. Wait, it's not a replacement if the person never actually started, is it?

Kick-off Party

2006-06-03T20:00:00.000-04:00

Tonight was our first big gathering as a theater company... a highly successful event. With the two shows coming up, it seemed like a good chance to put everyone who will likely be working together in the same room. We did the whole "mingle" thing for a while, but it seemed like there were very definite groups forming. Forming and not budging. So about halfway through the evening, we called everyone together to talk a little bit about what we had hoped to accomplish as a company and shared some info about the productions. Afterwards, interactions seemed more fluid.

Worst case, if the shows don't turn out to be commercial successes, we will sell chocolate cupcakes and "Butterscotch Nibble" to sustain ourselves.

Inaugural Season, Inaugural Blog

2006-06-01T21:36:00.000-04:00

So Rake Theater is starting up its first season this summer, and we're quite excited about what we have to offer. Two productions on tap: the first at the Midtown International Theater Festival and the second with the New York Musical Theater Festival.

This site is an opportunity for all of the members to share thoughts and post comments, as well as a place to chronicle the day-to-day workings of creating Off-Off Broadway theater.