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A. Jason Jones: Keeping a 100-Year-Old Theatre Alive During COVID-19 Lockdown · Theatre Life with Ben Kercheval

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: And he told me very candidly one day, You're not gonna you're not gonna be a professional uh actor.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: You're not gonna do it.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, What the heck, man?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: You're my teacher.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: You're what are you doing?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm saying if I wandered into one of those stories where they like have to knock you down so you can come up from the ad.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, no, he said, Jason, he said, there's other things in your life that you want, and you're not gonna sell out.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Theater Life, a podcast for Theater People by Theater People.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Ben Kirchhoffal, and my guest today is a well-known director in Lockhart, Texas, at the historic gaslight Baker Theater.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: His directorial credits include Hamlet, Arsenic and Old Lace, Frankenstein, Something Rotten, and He Get Your Gun and God Spell.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: He also serves as president on the theater's board of directors, and most recently graced the stage during the theater's recent run of The Giver.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Please welcome to the Theater Life podcast, Jason Jones.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Jason.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, man.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great intro.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Look at that.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm feeling all good.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we'd like to pump you up a little bit first.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like it's not that kind of podcast.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Before you go for the knees.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Before I kneecap you.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Start asking you all kinds of personal questions and things from your past and nothing like that.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm an open book except for where I'm not getting.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I tell you what, we'll start with this.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: You had a great descriptor about yourself.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was going back through through your bios, and this really stood out to me because it it really does encompass you, and it's something that when you and I get together and we start talking shop, it it really comes out.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're a self-proclaimed theater brat, so I want to start from the beginning on what your foray was into theater and what molded you into that brat that you are today.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, let's see.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: My theater story starts way back.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was five or six years old.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: My parents uh were uh trying to find different things for me to do to see what I was going to be interested in.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh my dad had been a big theater guy.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh my mom wanted me to play football.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um I did for a while, yeah.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um I did for a while.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh sometime until junior high school, and I tore up one of my ankles and uh it just didn't feel like it was worth it to me anymore.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um but we can talk more about that if you want to later.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's still part of my life.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Football life, I think, is a different podcast.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: It is a different podcast.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but so we um pretty quickly I started going to kids' camp at uh Zach, which is uh very close to what you guys are we're all pretty used to now, where the camp has a theme and you go in and you do whatever show, and so we did a um murder mystery musical.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um and um boy, I still remember some of that too, because I was a uh I was the detective, but I was disguised as a vagrant for most of the show.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm laying on park benches and hanging out in places, and and I was a real rumpled up uh like Columbo type.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um and of course at, you know, seven or whatever.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: So had the big overcoat and the hat.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm anyway.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um so we did some of that, and um, as soon as I was old enough, I don't remember what the cutoff age was, uh there used to be an audition company uh for kids at uh Zachary Scott called um for under 19, the fun company, and it went um from uh middle to older elementary school kids um all the way up through high school if they you know if they could get them.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: And there were generally two or three people uh from the staff at Zach that were there that were in charge.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't remember the lady's name the first year that I was part of the fun company.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: I do remember that we had rehearsals at the top of an old firehouse in Austin.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um but then the lady that took over was a lady named uh the old Austin Theater people will know.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh her name was Alice Wilson, and uh she she lives here in Lockhart now, actually.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: She helped me with some stuff a couple years ago.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: But she was in charge of the uh children's programming, uh children's education for a while uh at Zach and eventually became the uh um producing artistic director back before the big change.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: So there was a lot that happened there with her.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, so I was at Zach for a while, uh several years, and um, and then we moved uh to South Texas and um fortuitously or serendipitously, whatever, however that runs for you, um, when I went to a new high school, which was a really small high school in um outside of Victoria, Texas, um, but there was a lot of oil money there.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: They were heavily invested in their music department, and they decided they wanted to bring in a theater guy.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: They brought in a musical theater teacher um from Michigan, his name was Mike Fisher, when I was a freshman, and so I had a really quality theater coach who was building a program uh from the very beginning that I came in there, and so I got to be hyper involved in theater in um in high school, and then did some community theater work in Victoria at that time, and um uh did a couple years of theater in college, and then my life went a different direction uh for a long time.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, for your high school theater teacher, I because for me I had Joanna Whitmore and Charles Hobby up at Round Rock High School, and when I think back on the people who molded just my life, not just my passion for for performing and my passion for theater, but just molded who I was uh at that age, those are the two names that stand out.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when you have great teachers, and it doesn't obviously just have to be theater, but when you have great teachers, they really have that lasting mark on your life.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Was your high did you have that same type of relationship with your high school theater teacher or Alex?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Or who who were the people who really kind of made Jason Jones the person that he ended up being?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so let me tell you two stories.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: I was in junior high school, we were doing a show, and I've always been kind of a fat guy, right?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I've always been a big guy, and I was a kind of a fat kid, okay, in seventh grade.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: And um we had we wrote the script that we were doing for Christmas, and um it was really fun because it was kind of a I had a little vehicle in it because I had to come out for different things and say Christmas Is a poem by Jason Jones.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: And there would be part of a poem, and then people would come out and act it up, act it, act it up as right, act it out.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: But it was uh it was pretty funny.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: But at some point, I they had written in a kind of and it was funny, a self-deprecating, I'm a big guy joke, right?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: And little seventh grade Jason did not have the same amount of ego that uh I carry now, so uh I was it was it was it hurt my feelings, right?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I was super sad, and uh, I was just all like, I can't believe and Alice is like, oh, but she was a theater ed person, she was this is what she did, and so she sat down with me and she said, She said, There's nothing wrong with you, and if you don't like it, we'll take it out.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: But I want you to consider that, you know, on some level, all of who you are is important, right?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it's important sometimes because it's funny, it's important sometimes because it's sad.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: And she gave me this this story that made me feel not only really good about it, right, about doing it, but also made me understand uh the level of vulnerability that I was gonna have to have to be able to work theater, period.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and so I got the vulnerability part very, very early.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a big Uda uh Hagen fan in terms of my own acting uh choices, and she talks a lot about your character being important.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: And we know that it's almost impossible to do what we do in theater without empathy, okay?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and if we so if we're talking about emotional things that are really solid and mature within us, empathy and vulnerability have to be way up near the top.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so I, you know, Alice is one of the first people that got that into me.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what Mike did for me was even maybe more important because he knew me so well in high school, and we would go back and forth, and I wouldn't get cast in something, and I'd be angry, you know.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, in fact, one time I famously, to me famously, my senior year, he had not cast me in a lead and for a show that I thought I should have the lead in, and he said, I need you to show some leadership.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Well, you might should have thought of that before you cast the show, right?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: I was oh angry, but he was right, he was right.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: I had to learn from him and then the first part of college that being a lead is not always what you need to do, and that you play the roles that you can play as a supporting actor to the best of your ability to make the whole show work.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that sometimes as a director, you can't cast your most talented people in the roles that that they want because sometimes, and you you and I both know this sometimes those lesser roles are much harder, much heavier lifts than the leads.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the lead gets the glory and has to memorize all the lines, but some of the lead characters are not as interesting.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: They're not as much fun.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: They're not, and so so I I picked that up from Mike, but more importantly than that was I was getting ready to go to college and and he knew I was gonna study theater, and I I had some offers on the table what we're gonna do, which direction was I was gonna go.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: And he told me very candidly one day, you're not gonna, you're not gonna be a professional uh actor.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: You're not gonna do it.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, what the heck, man?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: You're my teacher.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: You're what are you doing?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, have I wandered into one of those stories where they like have to knock you down so you can come up from the ad.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, no, he said, Jason, he said, there's other things in your life that you want, and you're not gonna sell out like you need to.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just insulted.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: I was just like, whatever.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: Three, four years later, I figured it out, though.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: He was right.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: There were things, experiences I wanted that had nothing to do with being on stage, and um that I wasn't willing to say, and I still love theater.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: I love storytelling in almost all of its forms.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I only say almost because I'm sure there's some out there I haven't seen.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but um um, but there was a point at which I understood he and I understood what he was saying.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like I had relationships that I wanted to keep, experiences that I wanted to have, including, you know, marriage, children, whatever.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I was not somebody who was gonna uh want to give some of that stuff up um or risk it, you know, in that area.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: If it was just me and there was no desire for those things, it'd be different.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: But I chose pretty early on, right?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um the fortunate part is I've been able to stay super involved in theater.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't carry around any grudging, oh, I wish that I had tried to do this, or I wish I had tried to do that.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it's largely because this guy told me, here's what you can do.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I started pursuing it in college for a couple of years, and then I quit cold turkey, and I I left the game for like almost 20 years.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I look back on that path now, and I'm really glad that I did.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad that I took so much time away from it because coming back to it not only is there an appreciation for it, but I I I think by doing it at a community level, it's just the the pretense isn't there.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like the stakes aren't so unbelievably high.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is it's it not everything in my life, my whole persona, my whole reason for being, it's it's not riding on that.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that I can go and and work on as a craft and enjoy, but it takes a lot of self-discovery for that.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And there's not a timeline for that.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: It took the better part of two decades for me to get there.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Some people discover that much earlier, some people discover it much later.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: My thing was I get to college and the talent pool gets bigger, and I just think at also 18, 19 years old, I'm just I I don't know that I was very castable in a lot of things, and I don't know if that was a me thing or just the the types of shows that that my school was putting on, and it just wasn't the right fit.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I look at myself now at almost 40 years old, going, Oh, you know, the there's a lot more awareness of this is kind of where I fit, and I and I'm with that.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that's a really healthy place to be.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, I recognize now, especially I'm gonna turn 60 in December, and um the truth is there are less and less roles, and it's worse if you're a woman, of course, but there are less and less roles that I can look at and go, that's a thing I can do.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Now we're getting to the place where I, if I do, I'm like, my bucket list roles now are all guys that are older that I couldn't play before.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: So now, all right, maybe I get a chance to do this or that.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'll leave directing out of that for a second because that has changed my mindset some.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: But the um but the guys that I get coming through all think that they're, you know, especially the ones in their early 20s, they all think that they're leading men.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: They all think that they're they're the lovers.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I don't know what you do with that.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's you gotta grow out of it.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: At some point, you just gotta grow out of it.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: I I had a thing happen in high school that probably helped me a lot.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my junior year we were doing one act and we were doing a cutting of the crucible, um, and uh our theater teacher combined a bunch of the judges, the the really mean judges, into one guy, and I played that role.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so what I wanted to play was John Proctor, okay?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: But again, everybody everybody wants to play Proctor, yeah.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, yeah, you know, um and but the young man that came in and and played John Proctor was a friend of mine, uh, but he was definitely he was definitely more leading man material, okay?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: He was traditional good looks, he had blonde hair and a square chin and you know blue eyes, and and he was it was easier to cast him as the whatever that lead um in the show.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um but more to the point, right?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um I had to play an old man.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: I had to do the physicality, I had to do whatever vocal work I was gonna do.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: I had a chew scenery like crazy, you know.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: But most mostly what I remember is, and you've heard me say this.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh these characters, these characters in the back, these background characters that you think you don't want or whatever, are the most important characters in the show.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I I know it seems ridiculous all the time, but but but if you can learn that early, you know, and you can learn that I can play these other roles and I can put texture here and I can still get my moment, right?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um but if I can learn that early, then I'm not gonna be disappointed all the time when I don't get the parts, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: There there is a there's a false correlation with size of the part equating to your talent.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: There are things that I don't want to say the audience doesn't always know or see.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe that might be the case in some parts, but I think subconsciously it's still there as they take it in.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's part of painting the broader picture and creating the world that everyone agrees to live in for two to three hours.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's not you know, John Proctor and and Abigail, and then everyone else is is kind of to the side.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a play.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's a that's a two-person show.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's yeah, so yeah, I'm the I'm a big believer in that.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that also comes from the no small parts, only small actors.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: We we've talked a lot already about the influences in in your early life, but when you sort of fast forward that to your career, you worked with Unity Performing Arts Project for more than a decade.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is is working with with kids in in that space, was that just fully inspired by the the mentors that you had growing up?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh goodness.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: How did I end up at Unity?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: I spent years working with teenagers, okay?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: I was a uh a youth minister in in churches for a long time in the middle there.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and I had already I was already working, had kept working with kids the whole time.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: So it was not a surprise, but um I got in at Unity because somebody, a friend of mine, was doing some work over there as a dance instructor, and uh told the lady you should talk to Jason.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: He's not done theater for a while, but he knows a lot about it.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: You should bring him in and see if he's interested.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I went and did a camp and had a really good time.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then, yeah, uh from there on it was just um remembering how much uh you can teach.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, I had kids too.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: So when I first started working at Unity, I had kids in the dance program, and in fact, uh it started as a barter deal where I would work to lower dance tuition because anybody that's paid dance tuition in a studio needs, you know, do anything you can.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, it was a fun time.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm teaching musical theater camp at Unity and working with those kids there, having been through lots of good teachers who had told me lots of good things and really built in my life, and so that is an inspiration.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: At the same time, uh, you'll love this.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: At the same time that I'm teaching musical theater there, I'm coaching Pop Warner football.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so it's busy, busy time of life, right?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but also, again, just pouring into the kids, right?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: You want to give them as much as you can, and since character is such a huge part of both things, even though we don't talk about it that way, probably as much as we need to, but it's a it's a huge part of both things, so that when I'm sitting with my theater kids and I'm saying, listen, it's not about you, it's about making everybody else look good, right?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: You want this to work, you want it to be a great show.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta make sure that little Jinny over there looks good, that you make her look good, that you don't embarrass her, that you give her what she needs on stage, right?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm telling the same thing to my boys on the field, you're not playing for yourself, yeah, right?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's the same, and it's the same, same concept.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I love that.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Beckett and I uh have been talking, my son, sorry, my son Beckett and I have been talking a lot about this um this particular unity of thought and character and how much it matters, right?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, on multiple levels, whether it's theater or it's sports or it's in your job, which is uh why we've got a new kid in charge of the theater education at the uh gaslight, his name is Ryan Melby.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: And uh Ryan came in and is and has said to the uh to the people there, what's important to us is not just teaching kids theater.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: Not that the kids are gonna all become professionals, but that they're gonna be better people, right?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, and at some point, if community theater works, that's what it works for.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's the point.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: But uh Unity, it was the same thing.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was uh it was taking the lessons I had been given, um, putting it in these kids.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it was fun too, Ben, because that would get people, it was not an audition group, okay?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd get people that were signed up, um, some of which you know, um, who were not necessarily actors, um, who didn't necessarily have all of the skill set to be an actor.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: When she was in sixth grade, uh Emma Udsinger, who is our uh dramaturg, right, for uh Arsenic, uh, her parents brought her in and uh signed her up and then came and told me, Look, we're not looking for she's for all this performance stuff.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: She's just so terribly shy.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: And can you do whatever we can?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: We just need her to come out of her shell a little bit or whatever.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: And she stuck.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: She stayed there uh with us for seven years, right?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and developed a love for theater um and storytelling that is outside and beyond her ability to do the stuff on stage, you know?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so being able to pour into people like that and have them and it's fun when they go and they actually become whatever, when they're successful as actors.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's also fun when they're just successful as people, that the confidence they learned uh is a big deal.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: I had a young man, he did not stay in theater after uh after about his uh sophomore year in high school, but we were doing monologues in uh one spring.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: We'd already done our production for the year, so the last unit was let's do some monologue work and you can do the stuff yourself.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: And he had this monologue, and he was a pretty anxious young man, and he got up to do his monologue that day, and the parents were all there, and we had everything set up.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: He comes out to the front and he completely blanked.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: He couldn't remember any of the words.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: And he just looked at me and he said, I don't remember, I can I need to sit down.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, and I was now I'm really worried he's gonna flip out, so I'm like, It's okay.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: Go on and sit down, we'll move to the next one.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we did, and I went on past him and I kept going, and we got towards the end, and he came to me and he said, Can I try again?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Of course you can.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: And he got up and he did a great job, and it was funny, and everyone laughed.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: But what killed me about it was the courage necessary to get back up after you've just really made, in your own eyes, a fool of yourself because everything went completely out of your head, and you had to stand there, and with a monologue like performance, there's no one to hang on to.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: The complete and utter vulnerability of I'm on my own and I've completely screwed this up.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: And to get back up and do it, right?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: To want to and to be able to have the courage to do that, and that's you know, that's why we work with kids, man.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's not, I'd love it if they'd all become, you know, Matthew McConaughey, but uh they do not.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: Most of them become workers at the state or workers wherever, and um, but to find that courage uh to see that something that's built in, um, man, that's pretty amazing.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to working with kids, is the secret sauce tapping into the emotional intelligence, the high emotional intelligence that I think they already possess?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because the I think kids get underestimated for the high EQ that they have they already have inside of them.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: So is pulling that out of the well the the secret to unlocking just their inner greatness and not just in that particular performance, but whatever it is that they're gonna do in their life.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think in in in yes, so especially you have to remember when you're looking at them that they're just little humans.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yes, that emotional intelligence that's already there that's still forming, right?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: Even though it's pretty black and white early on, right?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: But that's still forming, but you have to treat it, right, and respect it as the feelings and thoughts of another person.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: So you're tapping into them the same way you would tap in anybody else, you just have to be aware the communication's different.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's two other things, too, that are pretty important though.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: One is you can't forget what it was like to be a kid, and that's a big part of acting in general.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Great actors will all tell you it's just being a kid up there, right?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's why they call it a play.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're playing.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: So you gotta remember that all the time.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: And the third thing is you don't work with kids unless you can love them.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because no matter how good I am at my job at this point, you don't remember your third grade teacher because of the amazing things about math that she taught you.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: You remember your third grade teacher because she cared enough about you to spend time teaching you stuff.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: And and so the the compassion, um, empathic, uh, the connection that has to be there at that point, very real, right?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: So, so yes, I'm tapping into their emotional intelligence, but I'm also making sure that my emotions, my care for this person as a person are involved.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because kids will smell BS from a mile off.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: They know if you're fake, they know if you're fake.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I think the most important thing is that you care about those kids and their futures.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: If you do that, the rest of it will come, right?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen what happens when you have a director who who can do that, and I've seen the opposite.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've I have seen it when a director does not know how to be around kids, doesn't see themselves in them, and doesn't treat them in a way that they deserve to be treated, and it's it's stark.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And in the latter instances, I that's when as a cast you have to pick up some of that slack and and and bridge that gap and give them the confidence that they need to go out and perform.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know from our last show that I'm you know, if there's a way for me to put a kid in the cast, I'll put a kid in the cast.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: If there's a if there's not a role for them, we'll find one, you know?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: And um uh for one thing, it's just it's just realistic, it's immersive.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: What was your first show at Gaslight?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I know this.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: My first show at the Gaslight Theater?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was uh I was teaching at a Unity Performing Arts, and one of my students there was named uh Mercy.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um her mom was uh Francine.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know Francine?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think you may have Francine.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a little bit.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: A little bit, okay.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: So Francine's her mom, and and she came to me one summer, uh 2012 actually, and I hadn't been on stage in decades.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: And she came and said, Listen, we're doing a show, we need more men.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: Can you come?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I was every time I went and saw community theater at this point, I either had one of two reactions, I was either like, oh my gosh, these things are I I can't watch, right?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: Or or it was oh, I want to do this so badly, and sometimes a combination, because they'd be like, Oh, I can't watch this, I could do this better, which is terrible, but there we are.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's an intrusive thought, but I feel like anybody listening to this has probably had it at some point.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: You'd been there, right?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: So uh so I said, Okay, sure, what's the show?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, Our town.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, okay, so side note here one of the things that I found out I was really good at uh coming out of high school and going to college was roles that required narration.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was like, oh, our town.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, there's a part in that for me.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'd love to play the stage manager.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's a big narrative.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: He acts as the chorus, you know the show.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, yeah, I'll come audition.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that was the first show I did there, and it was a big deal.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: It was uh the first show they had done uh for four weeks, four weekends, it was um a huge cast.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Our Town has a big cast anyway, and it was a huge cast.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so I went from not having done anything in years to memorizing these huge swaths of uh uh lines at the beginning of each act where the uh where the stage manager has to set the scene and tell you what's happening.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and of course he gets to interact with the dead.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of fun stuff in that role, right?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: What was the gap for you for being on stage?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: How long?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um so note that I was working with kids the whole time anyway, so I was still doing it.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but in terms of going, auditioning, being in a you know, being being in a show.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: I guess the last time I had auditioned, the last time I'd been in a show was in 1998, and this was 2012.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: So it was about a 14-year gap.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then your your role with GBT grew a lot.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you came on as president of the board at an amazing time.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not amazing in the moment, but amazing when we look back on it.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: You get announced as president of the board in January, I think it's January 2020.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Three months later, COVID starts shutting everything down.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're gonna get into how it affected the season here, but but first, I want you to take me through those first few weeks.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: We call it those flatten the curve weeks when you're thinking, okay, this it's just gonna maybe be a temporary thing.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: How you're trying to keep everything above water, brand new on the job.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, first I had good people, right?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: So uh we called a meeting um of all of the necessary department head people, um, not everybody, because you know, you remember everybody was in such different places, and even the small group of people that I brought together to say we have to make a plan for this.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then we sat down and we talked about okay, what does this look like?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, of course, the first little bit was uh mitigation.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: How can we still how can we move forward when this is going on?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: We talked about sanitation, uh, how are we gonna clean everything up?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: We talked about um spacing, you know, all the things that everybody was already talking about right at the beginning.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: Let's keep everything calm.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: And um, of course, then there was the shutdown and there was no reopen.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and that and that changed.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: But at first, I don't I I wouldn't say anyone was panicked.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that live theater people that really love live theater is mistakes or crises are moments of greatness on stage.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: So if somebody completely screws something up or something catches fire, the stories you remember are hey, so-and-so did that and never broke character, they fixed this problem.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: We, you know, we poured out the fake, we poured out the fire with the fake whiskey.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because it wasn't really as much as you want to avoid the the flubs, they end up being this not just endearing part, but like a moment of strength that I in some in some way it almost made the whole thing better.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's no back button.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: The only way out is through.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Only way, yeah, exactly.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that energy took over the room to begin with because we didn't know how long it was gonna be.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: Now, when it started to look like it was gonna be an indefinite and it was a drag, and then I won't go into all the different things, but the two-week shutdown, which was so East Coast, West Coast based at the time, and I remember this that that in central Texas, well in the central United States, we weren't in as bad a shape at the beginning because it was moving in from the sides, right?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: From the east and west.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: So we shut down for two weeks, but it was like a holiday, nobody was sick, right?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so, but then as we came out of that and they're trying to put things back together, then people started getting sick in in the central part of the United States.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and of course, she had we had the people who were like, Well, we have to shut everything down and we can't do anything, and we got to do with it.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: And we had people who were like, Well, we need to talk about when we're gonna be reopening and what we want to do.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was ugly, it was ugly for a little while, and then there was absolutely no income, right?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there was zero income.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: So we sat down.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: Fortunately, when I first came on board at the thing, one of the first things I did was I sat down and said, Um, said to my board, I was like, guys, there are different kinds of capital, okay?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: And and for a community theater, we've got different, we've got actual normal capital, we've got our our human resource capital, we've got our volunteers and whatever.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we have artistic reputational capital, okay?
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we've got to be able to move all those things forward.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: So when COVID hit and we couldn't do anything, it was now how do we how do we make this work?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because we can't put on shows.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: We've got to protect people, right?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what does that look like?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so um the initial response, of course, was like everybody else, let's shut down for a few weeks and see where we are.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: We got back together, there was no way we're gonna be able to reopen.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, uh, I think there was uh I think we weren't allowed to.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think we were one of the organizations um that could not reopen.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they started opening like essential stuff first, like grocery stores and whatever, so we couldn't reopen.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: So then it just became how are we gonna plan to get through this, right?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: What are we gonna do?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: Mostly it was how do we maintain who we are, not let anyone forget about us, increase what we can increase, which at this point was gonna be reputational right capital so that we can come back.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so we did those things.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: We um first of all, we had a uh a light, we had a ghost light that we had set up, and we left the ghost light up, and and we started taking pictures of it and putting them up where we're gonna keep the light on, we're gonna keep the lamp lit.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's the you know, it's the uh gaslight baker theater, and so we started talking about we're gonna keep the light lit.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: Help us with this.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: Then we put some stuff uh online.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we put some stuff up on YouTube just to remind people we were there.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: I got permission from um the author of uh Hank the Cowdog um to read Hank the Cowdog novels on our YouTube uh thing, to do them with voices and stuff and with other people uh just for kicks.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um so we did that.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we did one like online production that we invited people to that they could come and it was a read and it was a Zoom production.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there were a lot of there were a lot of those during that time.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's let's just all hop on Zoom and read a script and yeah.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: I did a uh right when we were first reopening and we could let people come in and sit far apart or whatever, we did a um a night of romance or something, but there were these two little one acts.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: I directed one, I was in the other, and I did it with a couple of uh people that uh were kind of in my pod, were in the few people that I was seeing.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: So we already knew each other, we already knew you know uh we if we were gonna catch it, I was gonna get it from them, they were gonna get it from me.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: That was what it was gonna be.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: So we went ahead and performed together, three-person shows, one acts, um, and we put that out there.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: We even filmed one of them and went through the licensing to put it up on um uh on the Broadway streaming thing service for a little while.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: So we were making little tiny little bits of money.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: We did a big fundraiser uh towards the end of COVID um that Christmas or whatever, um, because we could have people in, but we did it as a radio show.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: The casts were completely apart from each other.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: We were masked until we had to take the down to talk on the microphone.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: We were changing out the microphone covers constantly uh and cleaning everything.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: It was nuts.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: There was some cool stuff, like you know, we had to we made some changes to our like our sinks, we put new hot water heaters in everything.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: We got a bunch of uh alcohol from Tito's uh not to drink.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_02: They took a bunch of their excess alcohol and made hand sanitizers.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's perfect.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh so Tito's was uh you know uh supported us that way.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, the um uh the small business association, uh there was a loan uh that was that the government put out that we went ahead and acted on.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um probably you know definitely saved us because we would have been, I think the number was like$30,000 or$40,000 in the hole at the end of the whole COVID experience had we not done that, and it made us solvent enough that we could come back.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then we came back.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: And the first show back was Godspell, and the theater has been more financially successful um since 2021.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's gone up just exponentially if you look at the numbers, um, financially, artistically, it's just and it is because the energy coming back, it was almost like people knew what they didn't have, right?
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so so they were coming to see live theater, even if they never had before, because there were people there, and it's there's so much, it's so much more interactive, and you're getting to see people that you know, and suddenly that was a big deal again.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then we were just so happy to just be here.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, it was it was a good time, but yeah, it was panic inducing, uh stressful for a little while, and uh yeah, I can't understand that.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm I'm sure there's a it's not linear, but post-COVID, and I think I was talking about this the other day with a friend of mine, with the rise of AI, particularly with generative AI, that the the cravings for humanity are starting to ascend a little bit.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: That the need to see or experience something that is human.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go so far as to call it like a the theatrical renaissance, but there's just I think there's something about being in that space together that over the last you know, we'll call it five years, has just there's there's like a like a breath of fresh air, like a second wind of appeal for it.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: Even with the kids, like the Gin Z kids and and and down that you're starting to see, starting to to do more things together again.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: They're starting to be a more collective viewpoint because they need it, because suddenly they're realizing, oh, there's something missing, and maybe you don't notice it when you're 15, but when you're 20, you start to notice it.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: Something's not right, something's out of place.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's happening across the board, and I think theater is a good answer to that on so many levels.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: Listen, man, you go to a community theater, you can volunteer to do anything and still be part of the deal.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't want to perform great, we need help with on stage stuff.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not plugging that, but you know, it is, you know, if you you want to meet people at concessions or help us with box or scan tickets, you know, um you can do it if you're a builder or you want to help clean stuff up, or you just like to organize stuff.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: We got a bunch of interesting stuff to organize, and there'll be people there the whole time that you're interacting with.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I it's a beautiful thing.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's a beautiful thing.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I think stories have a lot more impact when they're coming from familiar faces, you know?
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, how many ever thousands of years ago, if we sat together at the around the fire, it's the same old storyteller.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: I know that guy, right?
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and the stories that I'm hearing from my parents when I'm a kid, it's the same, but there's a there's a more human, that's a great way to put it.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: There's a more human interaction, it's more connected.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: So well, one of the things that you and I've talked about before, and it's a cool medium because it really does sort of bring it back to its origins, is you told me that you'd love to just start up a travel and troop of players and go around and just start performing.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder what in your mind's eye, what does that look like to you if you were to start doing that in the year of our Lord 2026?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like what kind what kind of actors are you looking for?
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of shows are you trying to do?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you trying to do it?
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me what what that vision is for you.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: Man, can you imagine if you had a let's say you had a truck, right?
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: So you it it would require more than but say you had a truck and it's part storage, but it's also part the side comes down and it's the stage, right?
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: And you could go anywhere, you could end up in any place if you're not if you're not worried about money.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: Which you could which in theater you're always worried about money.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: Always worried about money.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: But you'd have to have actors who were um who were really versatile, who were not as concerned that the tech is all in place, who were um there's a very Albert Brooke uh empty stage kind of viewpoint here where you're like, I need my actors who recognize that if I walk across stage and there's an audience, that's theater, right?
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: That I it's it's not what you have been told that it was.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um that it's this it's this very earthy medium.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: So you'd have to have these actors, and they'd have to be able to get along really well.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh because you'd be talking about um it's a little like summer stock only moving, right?
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so you'd have to be able to do that.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um boy, life.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Together would get really interesting.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: Now the thing is, can you make money?
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost like you'd have to go to you'd have to go to places that don't have theater, and this is where the real appeal is, right?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm driving across, uh, I'm gonna drive to such and so town.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: Now the modern stuff I can call ahead and be like, hey, we're gonna be at this time.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a field we can be in?
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a place we can use or rent or whatever that we can do shows in?
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um we'll tell everybody it'd be like Shakespeare in the park.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: Bring your blankets, you know, um, come in, unfold the thing, throw out flyers in town.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: People would come to the show, maybe a bunch of them come, maybe they don't.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully, word travels ahead of you, right?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: That hey, this is the so-and-so's traveling players.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think uh I think there's probably a place for for the uh whole old uh stock character, right?
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: Here's our ingenue, this is what the parts that she plays.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: Here's our our leading man, here's the parts that he plays, here's our old wise guy and our old right that we're doing all the different parts for.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and yeah, I think I don't know, I don't know if it's uh a pipe dream or not, but boy, it seems like it'd be fun, right?
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a neat thought exercise.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: It might be a pipe dream, but I I think it's a neat case study on could you make it happen?
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it would also, if you had a a group of players, it it would be an interesting process to put them together because you know their chemistry together, how they work together is certainly a part of it, but also can you get really like a group of character actors who can just they can do A one time and B another time, and they can just they have that kind of range and buy-in where they can do all of that.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and I think if if you treat it like Summer Stock, where you're like, these are gonna be the shows that we do, yeah.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: Learn all these shows, right?
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna go do them and we're gonna take this one on the road, then we're gonna take this one on the road.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: There's a way to do that.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_02: But I uh but uh more to the point, even if it's an improv troupe, like if you're doing comedia, right, and you've got your stock characters, that's what you do.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: Can you can you own it?
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: The space doesn't matter that much at that point.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it is it's the commitment to the character.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's the you know, can we make the space?
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: Can we create the space and then act in the space?
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've done guerrilla theater kind of at a street level a few times, and um where we had our scenarios together that we were gonna do, and we go out, and you got some people whose job is to uh stick up a sign that says theater in progress, and you rope off part of the sidewalk and you go, right?
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: You just go.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_02: Excuse me for just a minute, theater in progress, boom.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_02: Or you and you always start in media res.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: We used to start in media res all the time, so it sounded like something was actually happening.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like two people get in a fight, and you're like, what is happening?
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then really quickly we're court owning it off, and we've got theater in progress.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: So the people come up and they're watching and they're like, What is and these short five, six-minute scenes, like in the middle of a festival or whatever.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: And it's very, you know, I get that it's very Renaissance festival, and but but um man, it's fun stuff.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's like it's like Flash Mobs or Improv Everywhere is the name of the organization on YouTube.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: But they used to do like uh they go in a grocery store and do a musical number about fruit and not tell people they're gonna do it, and the music comes in and you don't know who's in and who's out.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's a lovely form of theater where you're just um you're taking it to people, and you almost have to.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: We're so screened.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the thing about TV is very it's not gonna do something unexpected.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_02: I go to a movie and see a film, and even if it's a great film, I know it's gonna start here and end here.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna see those people after.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: I could go on and on about that.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I won't, but there you go.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: Love it.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: So transitioning that into going taking it back to GBT, when you are dealing with uh a collective group and you're having to come up with a season, what's the formula for that?
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know there's sometimes there's just the legal rights issue, but also just what's the formula in terms of here are the types of shows we want to do, here's what we think would play for the audience, here are the pitches that we're getting from directors.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: When you're coming up with six, seven, eight shows for a year, when do you when do you place some?
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean what what's that process like?
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it changes over time depending on what's going on with the artistic director, and and our bylaws have not been super clear about the process, okay?
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: So we've been kind of working through that.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the fun part is, um, or maybe it's not fun.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's fun.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: The Gaslight Baker Theater is almost a pure community theater in many, many ways.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: We're not at a place where we've been able to pick up a lot of grants, okay?
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_02: Lockhart doesn't have um the money, financial resources to give us a bunch of money.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so the only people that we're actually beholden to, right, is our are our mission statement and our patrons.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that's it.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's the only people that we have to necessarily answer to.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_02: So that means that we're able to look at a season and say, okay, what is the purpose and mission of our theater and how does that affect our season?
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: And how that affects our season is we want to make sure that we cover as many different kinds of shows so we can have as many different kinds of people as we can.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: And when we have arguments about the season, it's going to be about are there enough kid roles?
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_02: Are there enough women roles?
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: Is there enough diversity in the season?
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so that's part of the process.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_02: We want to make sure that we're educating the community about theater.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's not just about entertainment.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you've got to do Arsenal Lace or Hamlet or the importance of being earnest or Death of a Salesman, right?
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because we're coming to a time when some of these stories are being lost.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_02: They're not teaching them in high school like they used to.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_02: I read Our Town, we talked about that in high school.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_02: But there are kids now that have never heard of Our Town.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: They know nothing about it, uh, or haven't read Death of a Salesman or any Arthur Miller.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and so at what point do I have to, uh as a as a community theater, you want to educate.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_02: So part of that education is picking shows that are gonna be educational.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then, and we're just talking about the season now, and the other end of that is, and I was I was taught this my first time I took a class on this in college, right?
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: The other end of the thing is I have to watch the bottom line.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: Because if I can't keep the doors open, I can't do theater.
• 51:17
  unknown: Okay.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd love for it to sound a lot more romantic, and and and you know, it doesn't take long to figure out we don't get to do the shows that I want to do, right?
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_02: We don't do the shows that the the AD has shows that he wants, very seldom do you get all shows that you like or all shows that you want to do or all shows that you have a passion about.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, even as a director, uh sometimes I get a show I didn't pitch, right?
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't pitch this show, I'm willing to do it, right?
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: And some theaters operate where they don't have directors until after they have shows, and then they pick from their directing group, you know, how they're gonna do it.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and so it's it's not super romantic because all of these things have to fit together.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_02: Now I love it when your season tells a story.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: I love it when your season says, you know, this year we're about no walls, or this year we're about strong women, or this year we're about I love that.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think it makes for an interesting season, but it's not necessary, okay?
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's not necessary, but these other things are.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_02: The balance has got to be there, you know, and uh and it's part of what we do.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: So how many people can I get?
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_02: If I'm gonna be a community theater, I want to be as accessible as possible to as many actors and volunteers and directors as I can be.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_02: That helps me pick shows, right?
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: I want to be able to bring these kids along.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: That helps me pick shows.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_02: I want to reach across the ugly theater elite color line that helps me pick shows.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_02: And listen, let me tell you something.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: Actors think a certain way, theater people think a certain way.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: So when we start talking about trying to make theater accessible, sometimes we're talking about having to pull people along, kicking and screaming, because we've divided, we're so divided as a society, right?
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_02: How do I get the people who aren't coming to come to the theater?
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_02: Am I gonna have to do shows that I artistically think are terrible or that you know, and but the point is, man, theater, good story is such an agent for change.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: So the more people I can get in, that they're gonna have this experience and it's gonna speak to them beyond even the understanding level is deeper than that, right?
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I think all that has to come into that process, and uh which is why it's hard.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and done correctly, it should be hard.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_02: There should be discussion, there should be trouble, there should be a conversation that says, I want to do this.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we can't do that.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody's gonna come to that show.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what if we do this, but we also do this?
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, now we can make it work.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: Some people it's not even a consideration.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's how many butts I can run through here, how many people I can get to come to the shows or whatever.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we're not under any of those obligations that would make us have to make the bottom line the only line.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: Or to even prioritize it above the rest of our mission.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_02: Now, can it last?
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: Probably not at our current growth rate, right?
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: But that's a whole different argument.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, we have long-range strategic meetings to plan for what's next because of that.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: What happens in 10 years?
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: And we've got our season announcement in September, in which time you'll be able to see what's coming up in 20, uh in 2027.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're looking forward to it.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: When on that note.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks to my guest, Jason Jones.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can find him on Instagram.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's at his name.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's spelled a little different.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: J-A-S-Y-N-J-O-N-Z.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can also follow all of our socials on Instagram, on Facebook, on X and Blue Sky, and on TikTok at Theater Life Pod.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed this episode, smash the like button, all the good things.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to follow Theater Life on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube so that the next conversation finds you and find everything at theaterlifepodcast.com.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: New episodes drop every two weeks.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, I'm Ben Kirchhoffel.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: See you next time.