Recently my favorite Director / Choreographer team joined up for a new production, Catch Me If You Can. It is a musical adaption of the movie that started Tom Hanks. Who is that team? Jack O'Brien and Jerry Mitchell. I was thinking back to why they are my favorite, and when I first started to follow them. I actually learned about them from a report I had to write about them in college. Yes, it was just a one-page summary on each of them, but it made me learn who they are and taught me a lesson about how important it is to know people before you “know” them.
Peter Sargent made us write those one-page reports in Lighting Design class. We were assigned people in whom I assumed we might have interest one day. Well, I can’t tell you how many times Jack and Jerry (I say that like we are friends0 have come up in conversations over the years.
Knowing people in the business is so important. I always ask how many students know who Cameron Mackintosh is when I teach at the Missouri State Thespian Conference. I have learned to not be shocked when no one raises a hand.
I encourage you all to poke around the Internet Broadway Database and learn the names of the greats and see what they have worked on. It will make you a better student of our business.
I'm always disappointed when I start rambling on to my theatre friends about so-and-so's new show, and just get blank stares from them in return. I always feel like such a dork for knowing all those people and shows, but I can't help that I retain seemingly useless stuff like that! I find it interesting, not to mention extremely helpful in conversations with those who actually DO know what I'm talking about.
ReplyDeleteI've actually stunned multiple people before... they would be telling me about shows they had worked on, but couldn't remember the names of the people starring in them. And I would know, and they would say something like, "How on earth did you know that?!?"
That's taking it perhaps a bit too far, but there's no excuse for people working in theatre to not know who, say, Jerry Mitchell or Kristin Chenoweth are.