Fin

"So, what have you learned, Dorothy?"

Through feedback I've solicited throughout this process, here are some of the key points for me to work on in the future:

• Heroics don't scale well - Yeah, Sean, you can do pretty much anything you set your mind to, but you can't do it all at once. Delegate. Disseminate. Diversify.
• Focus on character-to-character interactions - Humor and comic timing come naturally for you, but don't sacrifice core, honest interaction for a joke. A smile on an audience member's face for the whole show is worth more than three big laughs swimming in a sea of stupor.
  
• Trust the material and urge your cast to do so - Reinterpretation is clever, but sometime alienates your core audience.
• Don't accept a 50% solution - This show has shown you that you CAN achieve most of your original vision for a production, but as with the first point above, you will have to rely on relationships to achieve that.
• Exceptional planning pays off - The minor conflicts that arose over the course of the production were minimized by your early planning. A plan can always be adapted. It's the lack of a plan that breeds discontent and confusion.
• Accentuate the Positives - Provide constant feedback, especially that which is good. Then, when something constructive must be addressed, the communication chain is already established and tuned for improvement. Don't take for granted people who consistently deliver good work.
• Bad news doesn't get better with age - Address issues early and thoughtfully. Ask others for help, even if you anticipate they might not be able to assist. News travels quickly. A solution WILL present itself.

And the feedback channel is always open to me. Please offer any and all feedback on your involvement with this production, as it will help me make the next one that much better.

To build a community where the value of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, you must provide an honest, earnest, and compelling vision for how the world will be improved by its existence.

That's what I wrote as the original vision of the show, and we certainly achieved that, both on stage and off.

With that, I officially close this blog, and look forward to the next chance to share the process with you again. I'll do my best to maintain links referred to here, but many are out of my control. Sorry in advance for that.


- Sean