TRU Talks About Theater

In the room: producer James Simon (Islander, Pippin revival, Roof of the World, The Velocity of Autumn, Bells Are Ringing revival; limited partner in Rent, Vanya & Sonya & Masha & Spike, Little Women); Molly Morris, producer (Islander, Come from Away, Diana, My Life Is a Musical); producer-general manager Martin Platt of Pemberley Perry www.pemberleyperry.com (Woman in Black, Islander, The Last Ship, Everybody's Talking about Jamie, Vanya Sonia Masha and Spike, Dames at Sea, Sarafina!). Learn how a small two-person musical took on technology to create a soundscape like no other, and was named Edinburgh Fringe's Best Musical by Musical Theater Review. Just before COVID hit. So the journey to off-Broadway, never an easy one, was complicated by shutdown. How did it finally find its way to a newly renovated theater on 46th Street? Why was that space the best choice for this show, and what were the pluses and minuses of being the first show there? In what ways, if any, was this small Edinburgh show rethought for New York?

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Friday 4/1 - Success by Association: The Advantages of APAP for Getting Seen and Getting Booked. In the room: Sue Noseworthy, Director of Membership of Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP), and Mister Mojo of Mojo and the Bayou Gypsies. First, a basic overview of APAP as an association, and how they serve members with a specific focus on the APAP/NYC conference’s showcases and EXPO hall, plus their new colleagues program and information about joining. Then Mister Mojo will speak about smart ways to use this annual conference for extending your artistic reach, his personal experience as an artist member of APAP, and advice for others who are looking to join APAP and get on the radar of bookers around the country.

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In the room: Eric Neal, founder of Third Act, the first-of-its-kind NFT marketplace for the theater community. Through NFT creation and issuance using year's the Hedera Token Service, productions can offer theatre-goers the next generation of authentic digital merchandise. Learn what NFT is, how it can range from one-of-a-kind collectibles to limited editions; what NFTs can offer a show in terms of marketing and community engagement; and how technology tracks the provenance of each item to assure authenticity. Though it sounds like an abstract concept, it actually has very practical applications.

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In the room: producer/videographer Jeremy Handelman of Off the Leash Productions; commercial producer Cody Lassen (How I Learned to Drive revival, Thoughts of a Colored Man, Tootsie, What the Constitution Means to Me,Indecent, Significant Other, Spring Awakening revival); and Gio Messale, head of content and producer specializing in Production, Acquisitions and Programming at BroadwayHD theatrical streaming platform. We'll look at using technology in creative ways to shake up "business as usual" in theater and better serve audiences; and consider current tastes and trends in the entertainment industry and how to tap into a post-shutdown consumer culture. Should we presume extensive Zoom fatigue by now, or has online medium reshaped the consumer experience?

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In the room: Marcia Pendelton, founder and president of Walk Tall Girl Productions, a boutique marketing, audience development and group sales agency for the performing arts with a special emphasis placed on the theater. Recent credits: MJ, Thoughts of a Colored Man, Lackawanna Blues and Skeleton Crew. In addition her company provided marketing services for Choir Boy, Saint Joan, August Wilson’s Jitney, and Sweat as well as significant group sales support for Tina: The Tina Turner Musical and Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations. The good news: the current season has shown a significant increase in works by black writers produced by more diverse teams. The bad news: this long-awaited uptick happened during the reluctant post-pandemic reopening of theater. Will this conscious effort to bring more diverse voices to the stage have a lasting effect? Has it changed the makeup of the commercial Broadway audience?

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In the room: writer David Beardsley (Every Creeping Thing), writer John Busser (Obstacle), writer James McLindon (The First Anti-Vaxxers), writer Kristy Thomas (Only Black), writer Ian Patrick Williams (Slave Trade). A zoom reading can be as simple as talking heads in frames, but what do you do when you need to generate the sense of a real production with interaction and production values, and still adhere to the restrictions of shutdown? Though we're coming back to live performance, in order to use the Theatre Authority Benefit Agreement, TRUSpeak still needed to be shot virtually with actors in isolation. What happens to a play conceived for stage when it has to be rethought for virtual presentation? What did the writers learn, and what might they take with them into the future? What was it like having to think in film terms? What was lost, what was gained?

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In the room: Chris Grady, producer, director at CGO Institute, fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, staunch networker; James Steel, a Scottish born commercial producer (Ushers) and specialist in ticketing and sales in the West End; and Megan Schadler, a New York based writer and producer exploring trans-National productions and producing for companies in New York and the UK, co-founder of The Fifth Producer multi-national collective. A follow-up to last October's conversation with Chris and Megan, a reality check on the UK scene and explorations of needs/hopes for the future. We'll also hear about current initiatives to foster stronger ties among producers, with a focus on international collaborations that generate opportunities to find what connects us all as human beings. Plus a dive into the differences in producing here in US versus UK, and the variables in reopening theater.

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Friday 4/8 - Virtual Teamwork: "TRUSpeak" and the Director/Technologist Collaboration. In the room: director Andrea Andresakis (Slave Trade), director Glynn Borders (Obstacle), TRUSpeak technical director Iben Cenholt, editor Joe Nelms (Slave Trade), technologist Carley Santori (The First Anti-Vaxxers, Slave Trade). In transitioning from live performance to virtual for our TRUSpeak: Hear Our Voices! gala, TRU made a choice to bring on technical collaborators from day one when possible. We'll talk about the value of a director of photography and the absolute necessity for a creative editor, the advantages of bring them on early, what each does and how a director's vision is guided and often inspired by a tech-savvy collaborator.

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Friday 3/25 - Maximizing Your Visibility on Social Media. In the room: Benita Samuels, Linked In subject matter expert with The Visibility Solutions Group. Understanding of LinkedIn and social media platforms is the start, but Benita expands the conversation into broader marketing, strategy and business-driving initiatives for solopreneurs, including artists. Click here to watch the YouTube video - or click here to subscribe to our channel!

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In the room: Brisa Areli Muñoz, theater director, cultural worker, and arts educator whose expertise lies in devising original participatory works, Artistic Director of the New York City Department of Education’s All-City Theatre, and the new artistic director of Musical Theatre Factory; and Pablo Hernandez Basulto, manager of community impact for Public Works at The Public Theater. Non-traditional modes of creating theater have had a long proud history, and yet are not understood – or are misunderstood – by many theater professionals today. Now that we are returning to a post-COVID world of live performance, and we have had a year and a half to reconsider our priorities and our art, perhaps this is a good time to explore creative options. Come hear Brisa and Pablo, practitioners of participatory theater, talk about their passion and their methods of expression that engage audiences. Click here to watch the YouTube video - or click here to subscribe to our channel!

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