Hitting for the cycle at Players Club with Jim Fryer

To the non-baseball fan, which means in one game a batter, hits a single, double, triple, home run.  If there is an equivalent theatrical metaphor it might mean: actor, stage manager, producer, director.   With my opening debut as a director of Bunnicula, the upcoming Children's Theater production, I will have 'hit for the cycle' at PCS.

The 'flip side' of my PCS trading card would show the following 'stats':

    actor: six productions from 'Fiddler on the Roof' to, most recently, 'Arsenic & Old Lace'

    stage manager: 'A Christmas Story'

    producer: 'Intimate Apparel' and 'The New Plays Festival'

    director: 'Bunnicula'

Although this has no doubt been done before it should put me in a fairly small group of dedicated Player's Club devotees who have seen this terrific facility from all venues.  How do the jobs compare?

The hardest, hands down, is stage manager whereby you get all of the responsibility and none of the glory.  To the contrary, invisibility is your goal throughout the creative process.  The job almost runs counter to every other job in the theater: avoid being seen, dress in black, talk in whispers and stay the hell off stage unless it's absolutely necessary.  Add lots of kids to the mix and 'backstage nanny' is added to the job list.  It's a Yin job in a Yang world.  The stage manager must get their satisfaction from knowing that the magic ain't happenin' without your ninja-like efforts executed with precise timing with your cohorts in the tech booth and prop departments.  The rush is that you're the one who says when the curtain goes up and you're the one who calls down the smoke, thunder and lightning and the one who magically makes it change from one setting into another to the gasps of the audience.   So while the actors following a show are getting their hugs and flowers from gushing admirers, you, equally exhausted, are wielding a push broom across a desolate stage sweeping up the confetti or glitter or whatever was the flotsam and jetsam of that particular show.  And with an Emmet Kelly-like sadness, you're the one who turns out the lights when it's over.  PCS, btw, excels over any other theater I've known in the professionalism of its tech staff and backstage crews.

Actor: by far the easiest and most glamorous job at PCS.  There are pressures, certainly.  Going up on lines, missing cues, props malfunctioning, cell phones going off, coughing patrons, talking patrons all are hidden land mines when you step on stage in front of people.  Endless memorization of the script is the real grunt work of acting; running lines in your head at work in the elevator, when you're out riding your bike, when you're standing in the checkout line at Kohls.  But the rest is pure and simple 'play'.  The person who first called these 'plays' must have been an actor describing the child-like fun of pretending to be someone else.  The sense of camaraderie is the great by-product where 5, 10 even 20 years down the road you still have a unique bond with your fellow castmates that often outshines those you have with non-stage acquaintances.

Ken Locicero and Jim Fryer in Arsenic and Old Lace

Producer: maybe one of my favorite jobs at PCS since: a) nobody knows what a producer does anyway, b) you can stick your nose in almost everyone's business without justification (see "a"), c) you don't have to be anywhere at any place at any time....unless you want to.  Like the stage manager, you have to get your satisfaction from knowing that the show does not happen without your efforts.  Sets don't get built, auditions don't get set up, props and costumes don't get assembled, the publicity doesn't get handled, the show literally and figuratively does not go on without you pulling the strings like some grand puppeteer.  The producer is, in the end, a troubleshooter more than a creator of art.  But that doesn't mean you don't have an emotional investment in the final product.  Watching 'Intimate Apparel' as it was performed, still one of the best shows I've ever seen at PCS or on any stage frankly, I had a proud-poppa-like feeling in having a hand in such a wonderful production.

Director: although it's my first time at PCS (thank you for the opportunity btw), it's not my first time directing, but speaking from experience this particular job combines the actor's glamour, the producer's power and the stage manager's responsibility all rolled into one.  The look and feel of final product is on your shoulders yet, in the end, the actor is the final arbiter of what is said and done; the stage manager is the boss once the production takes the stage and the producer is the one who sets the parameters of what can and can't be done.  Your truest partner is the playwright.  Your contract is with them more than anyone else.   You are part alchemist and part Dr. Frankenstein transforming words written on the page into a living, breathing entity.  So if you hear someone on the Second Stage early in October shouting "It's alive!"...that'll be me.

The thread that runs throughout these various jobs is that you get to work with insanely creative people with one goal in mind: to create art.  Each experience, each show, each performance is different and fascinating in its own right and I thank Players Club for letting me share in the process.