September Stress

For those who aren't aware, Heritage (where I work) puts on a musical each year involving our clients.We have found that theater has a great impact on our students and helps them in their treatment at Heritage. My first year at Heritage, my involvement was trying to drum up publicity and selling tickets. Over the years, I was recruited to be more involved and I became the Box Office Manager and a Production Assistant. I still handled publicity, but I spent at least one night a week assisting with the rehearsal.  One year, my boss asked me to type up the rehearsal schedule and get it out to everyone. I wish I had known then what stress that little assignment would lead to.

I have become known on campus as "the Play lady" since I seem to be a central point of knowledge for the play each year. Shortly after last year's play, the production assistant who designed the posters and playbills was laid off and those jobs wandered my way. So....I find myself trying to manage and sell tickets, manage the rehearsal schedule, work one or more rehearsals a week, sell advertising, generate publicity, design the poster, and design the playbill.  To say that my plate is full is an understatement!

To top this madness off, the director of our plays for the past 10 years has now retired from her calling to direct the LDS church productions in Nauvoo, Illinois, and her 79 years on this earth seem to be making her quite cranky. My boss, the CEO, is not as involved in the production as he usually is since he's trying to figure out what to do about the upcoming $1 million budget cut due to California wanting to cut what they pay us to treat their kids (keep in mind that we're a nonprofit). I find myself in the miserable position of basically being a production manager (unofficially) - battling the production people as well as our own staff to find rehearsal schedules that minimize the chaos, coordinating production needs with a boss who I can barely get in to meet with anymore, and panicking because I had only 2 ads for our fancy playbill with only 2 weeks to go before taking it to the printer. When kids are late to rehearsal, the director takes it out on me. When the director feels like we need extra rehearsals to get where we need to be, the rest of campus takes it out on me. Not to mention my own guilt about the lack of ads for the playbill.

I did manage to come up with a solution that has now covered the costs of printing our playbill. Just when I was feeling pretty good about that, our campus was hit with widespread illness, including 3 confirmed swine flu cases. ALL campus activities were called off this last weekend to give everyone a chance to rest and hopefully get past the illnesses. That meant losing 3 rehearsals with our choreographer who comes in from Los Angeles to help us. Coming back to rehearsal today, I was greeted by the grumpy director who was doubting we could be ready for opening night. When group therapy went long and the kids were late to rehearsal, I got chewed on for that too. The director threatened to quit and things pretty much stayed crazy the whole night. I ducked out to avoid crying in front of her. Most of the night I just tried to stay out of her way. I really believe in what we're doing with our performing arts program, but I'm beginning to lose faith in this director. I used to like her so much and now I practically have panic attacks when I think about having to face her. If I survive this year, who knows what the next year will bring.... (picture taken accidentally when scrambling to answer phone during rehearsal)