Workin’ 9 to 5 (and other hours as needed)

July 3, 2018

This week has been incredibly busy. We opened our second musical, 9 to 5, and we’re preparing for the 4th of July, probably the biggest week for CRT and Creede as a whole. I’ve been working a lot more box office shifts and a lot fewer development shifts, reflecting the increased workload for Front of House as we move up to a four-show season. The more I work Front of House, the more I like it. The acting skills that I learned in shows and classes at Cornell are definitely helping with being able to smile at every person that walks in the door of our theater. The nice thing about CRT, though, is that I’m hardly ever acting. Most people are genuinely nice, and I’m excited to introduce them or welcome them back to this amazing place.

One thing CRT is good at is taking care of their company members. Specifically, taking care of their company members by feeding them. One of the things that we do whenever we open a new show is have a tech dinner during tech week. This is basically a celebration of the hard work that everyone is doing, where we can all get together, hang out, and eat some good free food. Another thing we do, recently implemented, is having potlucks every day that we have two musicals. It’s mostly meant for people working on those shows, whether actors or tech, but everyone can come in and bring something or eat something. I really like these events- it feels like it brings us closer as a company. In other food-related news, CRT decided to do something very nice for the interns. They basically gave us all care packages, filled with good food so that we don’t forget to go shopping and then starve. We got plenty of food, ranging from bananas to ramen to eggs. They also included a note talking about how we were appreciated for the work we were doing. I’m learning a lot about what it means to be a good employer, and showing your employees that you care is definitely part of that.

While a lot of my work this week was with Front of House, I did also work in Development a bit. On Thursday, June 28th, I spent my whole day working with Graham on various things that we needed to do to prepare for the preview performance of 9 to 5. Luckily, this time it didn’t involve skewering anything, just setting up tables and making sure everything looked good for all the donors coming in. Since we didn’t have to do any food prep, we spent almost the entire day working on a display for the development desk. Graham designed the entire thing, and I helped construct it and get it up on the wall. It took a surprising amount of precision, and I’m very proud of how we did. It looks really good! It’s the backdrop to the new development desk, which has a donation box and information about other ways to support CRT on it. We also made a display for a development campaign that started last year, called Raindrops on Roses. Patrons and company members submitted their favorite memories or parts of CRT, and Graham made a word cloud out of them. Our display was a poster with that word cloud on it, with several pictures from old CRT shows surrounding it. Those two displays took us all day, but they paid off! I’ve seen several people admiring them during my Front of House shifts, and our donation box has been progressively gathering money.

While this week has been a good one overall, my favorite part by far was Pride. Creede celebrated its fourth annual Pride on July 2nd, and it was amazing! There was a cookout, a parade, a dance party, some trivia, and tons of other awesome events! This year’s Pride was focused on community outreach, trying to make Pride be inclusive for everyone, not just company members. Tons of community members both came to the cookout and danced in the parade, and there were good feelings of community all around. We even learned a dance and danced down Main Street for the parade! It was the perfect celebration after a long week. I got to celebrate an important part of my identity with a group of completely welcoming and non-judgmental friends. It was one of the most fulfilling Prides I’ve ever been to, made even better because of the small size and intimacy. Creede is a good place to spend the summer, and it keeps surprising me with how cool it can be even after a month.