Week 2 – Improv and also Bears

June 12, 2017

Not everyone can be the lead of every show but everyone at Creede Repertory Theatre (CRT) is a star. Everyone is working hard to get the season going with a new show opening every two weeks until the end of July. At that point we will be having 6 shows running at once with only two stage spaces. HOW DO WE DO THAT, YOU ASK?! Why, changeovers, of course. A changeover is the process of taking down one set and putting up another. This is not my task this time around but I see it happen and I talk to the people who work to make this magic happen and it’s truly astounding.

On my end, I finished sending out 400 letters to donors thanking them for their support and listing their benefits based on the amount they donated. To do most of this sifting through hundreds of names, I used a program called eTapestry that can do just about anything if you know how to tell it. Getting it to spit out the right information is the hard part.

Sometimes I worry that my contribution doesn’t matter because I am not working in rehearsals or on the sets but I have to remember that without the donation efforts, the theatre would not be able to afford the equipment and spaces it has. And I have been thanked a number of times by my fellow theatre makers for my work because they “wouldn’t know what to do” in my position.

Although stuffing envelopes and filing paperwork is incredibly fulfilling, I will also be participating in Farmteam for Boomtown. Boomtown is the locally famous improv comedy group in Creede and the Farmteam is their audition group that they improvise with for a majority of the summer and select certain members to perform at the end of the season. At Cornell I am a member of The Freelance Cosmonauts, an improv troupe, and we take workshops in Chicago as well as train 3 times a week and perform once a month. I hope to put that training to use in a larger setting regardless of whether or not I get to perform, I am excited to learn from professionals and see how they conduct rehearsals and prepare for shows that seem to be extremely popular. In addition, I hope to create connections with other improvisers and bring back their skills to The Freelance Cosmonauts and to Cornell.

And now for a spooky story: Internet is not great in the middle of nowhere Creede, Colorado so I was sitting outside a coffee shop using one of the few working wifi spots to video chat when I saw a shadow move out of the corner of my eye. I looked quickly to see a small cat-looking animal and was relieved and interested to watch it slink through the night. As I attempted to continue my internet conversation, I saw another shadow and looked up to see what looked like a husky dog. At second glance, I realized it was a young bear about the size of a golden retriever but much fatter. I proceeded to stand and say “There’s a bear here, I have to go” and calmly but swiftly walked away.  When I was far enough where I figured it wouldn’t mind me as much, I ran to my house, warned the others who were outside and went into my room and slammed the door. Creede has some wonderful theatre and also some dangerous bears.