A Haiku For My Droid

i love my android
otherwise life is chaos
google calendar

A year ago I didn't see why the heck I would ever need a smart phone. Let's review the facts:

Occupation: Actress/waitress. No immediate need to return work emails. And plus, I didn't really want them "following me around."
Marital Status: Single. No schedules to match up. No bank accounts to sync. No soccer practice to get to.
Schedule: Perfectly accessible on my wall calendar in my bedroom. Places I needed to be: work, rehearsal, the occasional CoLab meeting.
Other devices: I own a computer and an ipod. I can check my email, go on Facebook, listen to music - all on regular basis! Why would I need a smart phone?

Check, check, check. Everything was taken care of. Why would I need a fancy phone? Six months ago, things started to change. As a company, we started to schedule weekly meetings. (Add one thing to the Google calendar.) I began working a second job. (Read: THANK YOU GOOGLE CALENDAR) And we started pre-production on NOT ONE but TWO shows. (Seriously, Google calendar OVERLOAD.) And I started to miss emails. If I was on a double, I'd head to work around 11 a.m. and sometimes not get home until after midnight. After a twelve hour day, the last thing I wanted to do was make decisions and write out opinions. And so emails weren't responded to in a timely manner. And the company wasn't running at the rate or in the manner we wanted it to.

So in April, I bought a Droid. And it literally changed the way we operated as a small business. Our entire organization runs off of GoogleDocs and Aps. I could access both my personal email and my CoLab email from my phone. Both my calendar and the company Google calendars synced to my phone. I could access all of our Docs. Which meant I could read and edit agendas, drafts of scripts, resumes, etc. I could respond to auditionees for play. and edit details for Dearly Beloved production. And suddenly, there was no question about it. I needed my Droid to run my small business. play. Discovery and Dearly Beloved really would not have gone up without it. The world moves faster every day and today, I think Ferris might say, "If you're not connected you might miss it." I'm not saying I want to be married to my phone. I love it and some days really all I want to do is beat that one pesky level of Angry Birds that I can't get through. And some days I turn off the sound because I really don't need my email following me around for the day. But there are days and times when having a Droid makes my existence as an actress, a producer, a director, and a small business owner possible. And for that, I'm glad I own it. So, thank you, Droid. Thanks for allowing me to leave my computer at home when I travel. Thanks for letting me check the weather when I want to. And thanks for letting me improve CoLab productivity. And now if you'll excuse me, those stupid pigs don't know whats coming.

The Business of Working With Friends - And Other Tales

In Spring 2009, my friend Kenny approached me about starting a theatre company. In August 2009, we asked Kenny's former co-star to join us. In the last two years, that co-star, Mary-Liz, gained the title of "friend" and we all officially (read: legally! eep!) became "business partners." And there it was - Kenny and I were in business through friendship and Mary-Liz and I were friends through business. And for the most part, that works well. From time to time we have our squabbles - like any relationship built-to-last, we don't agree on everything. But at our roots, we share the same goals, ideals, and a set of vocabulary we use to communicate with each other. The language creates a set of boundaries and a set of rules for our world. A world where we sometimes say, "I'm taking off my friend hat for the remainder of this staff meeting and I need you to listen to me as my business partner." And that works for us. But, as we expand our horizons and bring more people into the fold, I've started to wonder how we communicate our rules and boundaries to newcomers.

It's easiest when we start by bringing someone in on a professional level because we can neatly say, "Here are our expectations, if you don't think you can meet these, let's renegotiate." Fine. Done. It either works out or it doesn't. But then you start to work with people on a more regular basis and they enter the "friend sphere." So a new set of rules are created - a set where you can ask both more and less of a person because they've "crossed over." But this can still lead to awkward situations because ultimately we have to do what's best for The CoLab as a unit. (In a way, this is simpler because these people knew you first as professionals and hopefully have come to understand that it's not a personal matter, but a professional one... but I digress.)

And then you have the friends who start to work with you within your business title. For me, this is really where things get murky. No matter how hard you try to uphold them, the boundaries and rules get jumbled and confused. Why? Why? WHY?! This is a question I've asking myself for the last six months, one that's particularly started to bother me as we invite people to come out for casting. I like to think that everyone we invite is a professional as well and they understand that an invitation is only invitation and not a guarantee of anything. But if that's true, why do I still get that funny (emotionally gray) twinge in my stomach when I send out a rejection email to an invited auditioner? We try to say - "We invited you because we've enjoyed working with you before and we want to work with you again. I'm sorry it won't work out this time around but please keep us in mind for the future." And it's true - but it still feels odd somehow.

And if you thought that was bad, things get even more confusing as we begin to creep into other fields: directors, techies, playwrights, volunteers, etc. When you're casting a play, the words on the page help you decide what the right move is. The final decision (the final boundary or ruling) boils down to: is this person the right actor for the part? When we move out of the audition room into areas of production, the rules are created as we go and with so many balls in the air, it's often hard to set a standard for everyone to follow ALL OF THE TIME. Now don't get me wrong, I've been around this business long enough to know that it is, in fact, A BUSINESS. I'm not saying that I'm scared of making decisions based on friendships. (Because I'm not.) But it's no wonder that companies go under with this sort of push-and-pull pressure that's on them. And at 24, there's all sorts of other pressures on me besides my new title of Massachusetts Small Business Owner. Basically, what I'm saying (and you might have guessed it) my brain in on overdrive 24/7.

I don't know that there's a clear cut answer to my questions or if I'm really looking for one. The past year has been a crazy-steep learning curve and I anticipate the next year to be an even steeper one. I've learned so much but the deeper we delve into this world, the more I realize that problems I've never considered before will pop up left and right for the next several years. And that's okay, but it gets me thinking because I got into the business due to my passion, my sense of discovery, and the bonds I forged making theatre. I want to make theatre in this professional Boston scene and I want this for a career. Clearly I don't do it for the money or the fame (ha!). I do it for me. Because I love it. And part of that love is the friendships that cross through this professional life. And no matter how I emerge from this experience, as a Boston fringe company slowly staggering to its feet, I want to keep as many professional and personal relationships in tact as possible. This is an exciting time for me, but there's also a lot of heavy thought going on. So, internet friends, I unburden a little of that thought onto you for the time being. Phew. (And sorry for all of the run ons!)

As always, thanks for reading.

XO,

Erika

Going Home

Tomorrow, I'll be going back to my undergraduate stomping grounds as a guest. I've been invited by a class of graduating senior theatre artists to talk about the Boston theatre scene, my career and the artist community I found since I graduated Brandeis. I just spent two hours working on some notes and outline, and I have some interesting tidbits:

Theatres that didn’t exist before 1980 – The Huntington, ART, New Rep, Nora, BPT, Wheelock. One of the oldest we have is the Lyric, which was only founded in the mid 70's.

Shocking to think about...how young the Boston theatre scene is... Many of the aforementioned theatres are world are known internationally, and they're barely older than I am.

One of the topics I'll be speaking of is the sheer number of new companies that have popped up in the past decade. Many of which are even within the past three years. I've talked alot about community in this blog, and I think that's going to be what carries this movement through the next few years. I've recently gotten a wind of what the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston is up to. It's an exciting time to produce fringe theatre in Boston!

K