Executive Board Minutes 2/27/22

Check-ins


Siena:

  • Approved God’s Favorite Event

  • Went to God’s Favorite

  • Went to the Tsai workshop


Gavin:

  • Booked rooms as usual

  • Worked on God’s Favorite

  • Got the SM keys back from Zoe


Emma:

  • Worked on God’s Favorite

  • Offered Family Aid tickets - no one responded :(

  • Met w/Liv about Auction payments


Liv:

  • Did God’s Favorite

  • Working on Auction payments

  • Had some “fun” conversations with SAO about the Event Request and the Eventbrite, eventually fixed both


Julia:

  • Lots of God’s Favorite promo

  • Sent the big email at the start of the week

  • Made a graphic for SM workshop and posted it


Katie:

  • Talked through furniture rentals w/Wandering Minds

  • Lights Workshop

  • Talked about sound issues in the theater

  • SM Workshop planning meeting

  • Did the Tsai workshop

  • Did God’s Favorite



The Wolves:


Julia:

  • No rehearsals this week, actors working on memorization - hopefully 1 read through before spring break


Leela:

  • Same as Julia



Bill:

  • Met with APs, designed program and planned graphics


Priya:

  • Finished up department meetings

  • Getting settled on purchase orders


Rayna:

  • Working on memorizations

  • Push to submit costume forms



Anne of Green Gables:


Emma:

  • Almost done blocking Act 2 - 2 positive COVID cases so slightly behind

  • Creative Team meeting today

  • Guin enthusiastically agreed to take on more of an AD role, along with Dance rehearsal next week


Claire:

  • God’s Favorite strike

  • Made a set design

  • Made up a rough purchase order

  • Hair/Makeup submitted forms by the deadline, costumes has been a bit wonky but will get done soon


Carly:

  • COVID cases slowed down blocking, but should be able to wrap it up by spring break

  • Met with Brian to talk about ASM stuff


Natalie:

  • No big developments - went to creative team meeting today

  • Will submit orders

  • Starting to plan photoshoot



God’s Favorite Check-Outs:


Will:

  • Excellent process

  • The goal was to foster some younger talent in Troupe - both in the creative team (Zoe/Sarah) and in the cast

  • A lot of kids coming into Troupe have a school-based mindset, so they had to work on thinking about something and THEN executing it - intention driven, no hard blocking.  Very important in a 4 week process

  • Essential that creative teams get on the same page for such a short timeline - director MUST have their vision in place and know how it’s gonna be run in addition to rules/responsibilities

  • Decentralized work should be improved upon for everyone in the group - giving people the ability and power to make their own decisions within the guidelines is extremely important - tried not to give direct commands.  Short form processes are especially reliant on this - put the newer actors in the earlier shows so they can work on planning something and then executing it

  • Needed to work on showing up on time - a bunch of people didn’t do that consistently

  • Individual sessions for inexperienced actors was very helpful - character development as well as ability and confidence increased - Arpita is a good example, having never stage acted before - eventually really came into her own

  • Off-book methods were pretty efficient - stressed that dropping lines is not as impactful as dropping the energy - make sure to focus on keeping that energy up!  They were able to recover very well when things went wrong with lines in shows

  • Put the lines up on a screen - helped them with keeping that energy up rather than having to look down all the time

  • Allow creative team to bring on other people if they want - takes stress off of everyone

  • Everything is a teachable moment

  • Scheduling was very difficult - very few instances to get the whole cast together

  • Creative team with a strong acting background helped - get an AD in particular who has an acting background, allows the director’s vision to get on the stage better

  • Colin wasn’t able to do it for one night - double casting works!  Try to do it if you can - gets more underclassmen involved - don’t take them out of the process completely, because then they lose interest in the club

  • Know when you HAVE to demand something!  Save it for tech week, you’ll probably need it then

  • Creative team debriefs after rehearsals - better than setting up separate creative team meetings

  • “Nothing illegal, unethical, or immoral” - worked well, never had any problems - no drama or anything like that.  Started as a joke but ended up being helpful

  • Touch base with your actors after act 1, and let them adapt - turned it into a drama on Friday to match the energy in the room

  • Integrating with tech was easy because Chris knows what he’s doing

  • Having the creative team in the rehearsal room is a good idea


Zoe:

  • Working with actors for scheduling was a struggle - all of them were busy, but had to be supportive of that so that they continued to enjoy the process

  • Communicating with tech was very important, make sure everything was running smoothly

  • Getting tech involved earlier in the process helps them stay engaged

  • Really enjoyed doing the show!


Chris:

  • The show happened

  • He is exhausted

  • Process was very quick - not abnormal for TiA, but a lot of people dropped as well which made it harder

  • By the end of it a lot of departments just didn’t have assistants, or had assistants that were injured

  • Had three major assignments due so that did not help

  • That being said, the whole tech team was amazing

  • Lots of Troupe veterans helping out the new Troupe people, a lot of people stepped up

  • Tried to make it a good process, Will and John’s philosophy was very helpful for fostering new Troupe people, and it was a success - lots of new Troupies were excited to work on more shows

  • Got a tip?  Ok cool I guess

  • Very fun process overall, creative team was fantastic all around

  • Good mix of old people and new people

  • Recommendations: Build new flats because they are old, and need some new people who could step up to be TD in the future - promising options thus far

  • Show only worked because the techies were very good - allowed a lot more stuff to be done



Theater sound issues update:

  • Talked to Lex about it - one of the speakers is crunchy, Lex knows how the board works

  • They’re gonna come look at it on Friday

  • Liz Smith is gonna come by so she can relearn lights