Twelfth Labor Production Blog--1st Installment

Twelfth Labor Production Blog – 1^st Installment

This series of blogs will be posted periodically to record the creation of Tutto Theatre Company’s production of “The Twelfth Labor” by Leegrid Stevens.  The goal of the blog series is to form an eyewitness record of this new play by an emerging playwright, auspiciously produced by Tutto Theatre Company. 

A play production has an immense lead time requiring planning more than a year in advance.  To those involved, all the work seems like isolated points in interstellar space, seemingly disconnected but gradually coming together in time and space to become a living, breathing human experience named live theatre.  To those fascinated with this art form, the process of all the disconnected points coming together appears mysterious.  My blog will confront the mystery and pull out a few, but not all, of its secrets. 

As of this writing, March 17, 2012, the production has accomplished two milestones, the auditions/casting (January 7, 8 and 14, 2012) and the first production design meeting (February 20, 2012). The performance is scheduled for the first three weekends in August, 2012. 

Earlier, the production budget was built from Tutto Theatre Company’s City of Austin contract services matching grant for the 2011-2012 biennium.  The match was accomplished out of the proceeds from prior productions including Leegrid Stevens’ award-winning “The Dudleys! A Family Game,” donations and in-kind services.  These funds were secured largely before the selection of the play. “The Twelfth Labor” (12L) was of interest to Tutto Theatre Company because it is a new play.  Producing new, contemporary plays is a commitment stated explicitly in the mission statement of the company.  Tutto queried the possibility of producing 12L during the production of “The Dudleys! A Family Game.”  To the surprise of everyone, playwright Stevens stated his enthusiasm for a Tutto production of another of his works.  The deal was only closed, however, after a very long series of phone calls, e-mails, texts and face-to-face meetings in the spring and summer of 2011.  The finished deal was that Tutto Theatre Company would give the play its first full-scale production running for an industry standard three weekends, or twelve performances.  Artistic director Gary Jaffe would direct the play, and Erin Treadway would play the central character of Cleo, per the playwright’s wishes.  The dates of the play were only specified as sometime in the second half of 2012.  The venue of the performances would be sought by Tutto and it would be a locale that would meet the production requirements. 

The venue selection turned out to be a circuitous and involved process in its own right.  The board members and AD Jaffe phoned, e-mailed and texted as many theatres and performance spaces as they could recall, touching almost all of their collective theatre connections.  At that time, in the summer of 2011, MacCallum Fine Arts Academy in central Austin was finishing construction of their new, very large arts center.  They set a grand opening performance for September 30, 2011 on their state-of-the-art proscenium stage.  The Tutto board of directors and AD Jaffe turned out in force for the event and were highly impressed with the facility and the performances.  By a unanimous act of will, the board and AD Jaffe made contact with the director of the theatre division of MacCallum Fine Arts Academy, M. Scott Tatum.  The goal of this contact was to gain a space for 12L at the Macc.  The surprising aspect of the negotiations was that they became an extended game of media tag, just like dealing with the playwright and making contact with venue managers.  Nothing’s easy.  It was not until December, 2011 that Tatum agreed to a production of 12L at Macc.  The performance space would be a black box theatre near the arts center. 

With the venue secured, the 12L performance dates tumbled into place.  The show would premiere August 2 and run through the following two weekends, until August 19^, 2012. 

Auditions were held January 7 and 8, 2012 in the old theatre auditorium at Macc.  The auditions were a combination of open calls and requested appearances.  Callbacks took place on the following Saturday, the 14^th.  The whole process was arduous.  Auditions and callbacks by themselves surely justify hour-by-hour descriptive blogs to give the least sense of this essential component of the playmaking process.  It suffices here to state that AD Jaffe considered the readings and all the actors’ performances in excruciating detail.  Phone calls and social media blasts occupied the entire weekend, well past the scheduled afternoons.  The result, gained by this arcane divination called auditions, was an impressive and complete cast. I’ll have much more on the cast members in later blogs. 

 The final getting-the-ball-rolling event was the first production design meeting held in the Macc black box on February 20, 2012.  Board members Matt Ervin, Daniel Brock and David Robinson met with Director Jaffe, Stage Manager Tara Chill, Set Designer Ia Enstera, Lighting Designer Natalie George and Costume Designer Ben Taylor Ridgeway.  The meeting was strictly an introductory meeting between the staff and the designers.  The discussion was almost exclusively a chat session, as all the designers know each other and have worked together on several previous productions.  The only takeaway from the meeting was the agreement to show initial design concepts at the next production meeting on March 27^th. 

Upon leaving the meeting, I felt that the vastly separated points were somehow less disconnected, that the stars were beginning to align, almost imperceptibly. The premiere was slightly less than six months away, and we had started the process more than a year in advance.