Writing and work-shopping a play are only the first steps to bringing it to a stage. There’s an entire behind-the-scenes world that has to fall into place before the curtain can go up on opening night.
For Talking with My Dad the behind-the-scenes work started with securing a theater space in which to perform, in finding a director and in finding the start-up funds to get the process moving.
We had done our 2013 show, New Year’s Eve at Grandma’s House, at Evanston’s Piven Theatre, a cozy 71-seat black box stage where I also have taken acting class.
I love the intimacy of the Piven, audience members sit on two sides of the stage, presenting some very up-close and personal time with the cast as it’s performing.
So we were happy when Piven was again available for this year’s show.
In 2013, we hired one of our acting instructors to direct our show. This year, we stepped it up a notch by hiring a professional director referred to us by the theater school at Chicago’s Loyola University. She in turn brought a stage manager to the production, an extremely important role to ensure we get this play in front of our audiences.
At the same time, we turned to an arts crowd-funding site, Indiegogo, for our fund-raising campaign. We were extremely heartened by the success of that campaign, all our patrons will be recognized in our show program as they are on this site.
It’s all coming together now to bring you six performances of Talking with My Dad this Nov. 15-16 and Nov. 22-23. Click here to buy your tickets today and join us at the Piven.
John