Gratitude

Occasionally I step outside of my box as stage and production manager to produce a show. The ones I do are usually one night only events, nothing fancy. Last night was one of those events. After stage managing a sold out production of Friends Like These we hosted Cheap & Easy, a night of Stand Up comedy. I have a love/hate relationship with producing one night shows. I love it because it's a one night commitment. It usually means less rehearsal time, not quite as many things to worry about. I hate them because you really only have one shot to get it right.

Cheap & Easy had no rehearsals because they were stand-up comics, so no rehearsal needed. My fear with one nighters is that there will be no audience. And in Los Angeles, those fears are drawn out to the last possible minute. Our show was supposed to start at 11pm, and at 11:10 I think only half of our seats were filled. Not too bad for a first time event, but I really wanted to give our comedians a full house. I wanted this to become a regular monthly event that they would want to come perform at. The best way to do that would be to sell out the house. True to form for Los Angeles, by 11:20 seventy-five percent of our seats were filled and after the show started a few late comers filled in the rest.

One of the reasons we filled each seat last night was because of our company members. It's rare in Los Angeles to find a group of people so supportive of company productions. They are an amazing group of people.

The next few weeks will be busy ones for me and for Theatre Unleashed. Our coffee shop series, Through A Caffeine Haze debuts on Monday and runs through the end of the month. Friends Like These has three performances left, Landscaping The Den of Saints and Tales of An Unsettled City: Exodus open, we have another one night event, The Artists' Nightmare, part of our 24 hour theatre festival and another Cheap & Easy night. So many good things going on in such a short time span!