When we showed up for our weekly production meeting Wednesday night, we were greeted with this lovely sight on the Broadway Center’s marquee. Our play, with the blinky lights and everything!

Originally, this post was going to be all about contrasts- the glamour of the marquee set against the ordinary work of getting a play to opening night- and especially about one process we have in common with many other businesses- namely the meetings. “Meetings are meetings,” I was going to say. “We sit, we discuss, we ask questions and give answers, we take notes and ask more questions until we are all updated and ready to move on. Just like anyone else.” Yawn. But as I sat here thinking about Wednesday’s meeting, I realized we do have our differences. In our meetings, we discuss secret doors and faux brick, poison bottles and how to move a 300 pound wall unit offstage quickly. We produce trick knives, fake blood, and tea the exact color of claret. We pause, put down our pens and plug our ears while a props pistol is fired. And finger extensions- remember those from the January 19th post? They were there Wednesday, in a little box, looking a bit creepy. Yes, we ask questions and take notes and even sometimes yawn, but that might be where the similarities end.

Here we are, clockwise from top: Brett Carr (Artistic Director), Sarah Mosher (costumer), Kurt Walls (set designer), Tracy Berryman (props), Rod Pilloud (director) , and Chris Gildner (stage manager) taking notes on her laptop. In the background is Tracy’s husband Chris, looking for a prop that rolled away, and standing in for me (charge artist) is that ubiquitous travel mug full of chai in the foreground.