An Ode to the Producers

• Holly Lucas

To our dearest love,

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day, or simply the M to our Mission Impossible.

Little do the audiences know the work behind the face they see stuck with velcro on the board in the lobby - and with a picture as large as the director, the choreographer and the MD!

Producer…

But who really knows what you get up to? Unless you’ve been a producer, you’ll never know...

You’ll never know the absurd multi-tasking, the sheer number of spreadsheets, the conveyor belt of questions that need to be answered.

You’ll never know how excellent we are at managing the back and forth of twenty emails at once; negotiating deals with theatres, organising cast and crew, finding the perfect scenery, costumier, a dog…

You’ll never know how thankful we are when the rehearsal venue is unlocked when we arrive.

You’ll never know that feeling of elation when you get to show week and the set is up, the lights are on and the room is buzzing, knowing you helped organise it.

Even if none of the cast remember that.

As a director, we thank you for keeping us on track when we really wanted those smoke machines, projectors and pyrotechnics. For listening to our rants and raves of, “Screw the budget we need them!” then convincing us otherwise (the treasurer thanks you for that as well).

We thank you for answering our endless questions at absurd hours because you work a full time job as well as taking on this silent role.

We thank you for keeping us calm when we realise that what we’ve set with the cast won’t fit on the stage and then inventing solutions at the drop of a hat.

As an actor, we thank you, and not just with a card and a box of chocolates at the end of the show. We promise next time to send you our bios for the programme by the deadline. We promise to rub out all the markings in our scripts before we hand them back to you. Most of all, we promise to remember to ask you how it’s all going and if you need any help.

At the end of the show you may swear never to produce again. But you may be one of the few, the few who are hooked on spreadsheets and the power of organisation. You are the people we need, for without you, the show would not go on.

We cannot compare you to a summer’s day.

You are one of a kind, the best kind, the Producer.