Dramagirls participants were recently asked about the relationships between the Dramagirls and their mentors… here are some of their responses:

Girls said:

• My mentor is nice and understanding. And I could talk to her about stuff.

• Asking her what she is seeing, what she has. It makes me feel good.

• They hear me and they are nice to me.

• I can trust her.

• She feels like my sister. We look alike, we both have blue eyes, brown hair, and we both laugh weird.

• I can really tell her things about me like a friend or a diary.

• She is nice and she says a lot of interesting things.

• Because my mentor is a girl, that makes me more comfortable talking to her.

• You get to tell her how you feel or ask questions so she can help you.

• I can talk to her about anything and she will either give me advice or talk to me about anything.

Mentors said:

• It’s hard to get a word in edgewise, but it’s easy to learn about her. She feels a lot like me when I was her age.

• She is very outgoing. We are very similar.

• We are still finding our creative space to collaborate in. It is always fun but sometimes a little difficult to “steer” her towards creative/imaginative thinking, but we are making progress.

• She’s so kind. She’s into art. She’s really smart.

• She’s a spaz like me. And hilarious and intelligent and full of ideas.

• We have good eye contact and are starting to open up more. She’s a sweetheart.

• She is very open and honest. She is happy and curious. She loves to play and have fun.

• She’s very sweet and open and tends to ask a lot of questions.

• She is social and outgoing and a good and subtle reader of people.

• I’m still learning how to talk to my girl – which ways are most effective, which areas she needs help learning to lead, when it’s best to just listen and when it’s best to provide feedback.

Photos by Mentor Michelle Alba

Humans consider nine months to be a normative period of gestation. It is, with most ventures in life, a good time to look back and say, “How’s this going?” Relationships: if you’ve lasted nine months, most often give yourselves a pat on the back. If you’ve lasted nine months because one of you is “staying” in the other’s sound proof basement, perhaps it’s time to reconsider the arrangement. New city: after nine months have you found good friends? A coffee shop? Apartment without hobos? tIf the answer to one or more of those questions is no, perhaps you should check Portland out.

“Maine or Oregon?”

Doesn’t matter, hippy. Just move.

And jobs. I have now been working at Redmoon in some capacity for nine months. If this job were a pregnancy, I would now be the proud mother of a dust- and whimsy-covered infant whose limbs might end up in a centerpiece. Frank Maugeri would not be allowed near that baby. Since it’s a job, I’m simply looking back and judging whether it’s had a mostly positive or negative effect on my life. Let’s take stock.

Pro: Money on a consistent basis. Having gone from a swing stage manager and freelance production manager (which does not mean I own my own business, no matter what the IRS says) to a salaried production associate, working for Redmoon for nine months (with two notable absences to Louisiana and Ireland), I have made a living from only doing theater for most of a year. Having borne the slings and arrows of my parents’ terror that they’d be supporting me the rest of my life, this is most definitely a good thing. Suck it, Fine Arts Degree. I have survived in spite of you.

Con: Bruises on a consistent basis. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I am a delicate flower, and have bruised like a peach since the age of 2. A lot of my duties as a production associate involve lifting. Lifting all kinds of things. Metal things. Cumbersome metal things that cannot be gracefully hefted, or even prevented from banging against one or more limbs as you cart them to and from the back of a van. Also climbing, catching, and cage fighting. As a result, I kind of look like my roommates have been playing four-square with my legs. They are such bastards.

Pro: Doing something different everyday. Variety is the salvation of the work place, and with a job caught in the web of spectacle logistics, strange requests and errands are an inevitability, not to mention a constant delight. Looking at what I’ve done, it almost seems as though I’m being paid to take part in an ongoing scavenger hunt, the prize of which is yet to be determined. In the last nine months I have been assigned the following tasks:

1. Buy one hundred and seventy-five pounds of purple cabbage.
2. Locate as many purple umbrellas as possible in the greater Chicagoland area and bring them to Redmoon.
3. Procure 40 pairs of green high heels, along with as many doll parts as possible. Preferably with slender limbs.
4. House a Danish-Australian.
5. Move a dying dogwood tree downstate.
6. Smuggle a Flake bar overseas.
7. Find out if the puppets are in transit.
8. Research Dutch hotels.

Do I enjoy doing these things? Yes. Why am I doing these things? I have no earthly clue. So that Frank and a Dane from Australia can shack up in Arnhem where no one will mind if they wear ladies’ shoes and necklaces of Barbie arms while they eat cabbage and chocolate, luxuriating in the sense of calm that comes from knowing the tree is out of the picture and the puppets are on the way, taking time for a casual stroll in the rain after lunch.

Con: Being the production department associate, and no longer a manager, this means I am also the catch-all. Adam and Caleb don’t want to do something? That’s my job that day. Not that I mind or resent this, it’s part of the work and I’m happy to do it. It’s just that there’s definitely a check to the whimsy and glamour of theater in doing paperwork. Even in the arts, you cannot escape it.

In general: Redmoon rocks. I really enjoy it, and money and crazy stories beat bruises and paperwork any day of the week and twice on Sundays. I think the kid’s gonna be all right.

Caitlin Parrish recently took some time off from her Redmoon production duties to moonlight as a stage manager… read on for details of her adventures:

What can you say about stage managing for the International Gay Theatre Festival? You can say that no matter how cool something sounds if you put the word ‘International’ at the front of it, there will always be the same brand of fun involved in theatre production.

Fun No. 1: Doing a show at one of the oldest theaters in Western Europe is gorgeous. With a burnt out back wall and generous stage visions of apocalyptic Beckett and Pinter shows dancing through your head like the best, most depressing parade ever. “Oh My Effing God, this space would be perfect for The Dumbwaiter!” You can feel the existential street cred in every ancient stone and chill, damp wall. Then you try to work the sound equipment and discover it’s about the same age as the building, has a problem when it comes to differentiating between ‘Pause’ and ‘Skip’, and may have consumed cocaine before the show, as there is a light powder dusting the sound deck and no one is claiming it. For a show with 27 scenes and cross fade sound transitions for each, one begins to understand why so many people in this country cross themselves on a daily basis.

Fun No. 2: Speaking of Catholicism, and doing a festival with the word ‘Gay’ in the title, have any of you heard of Sinn Fein? They’re a delightful group of individuals also known as the IRA. Although I was assured by my many Irish compatriots at the festival that there wasn’t anything to really worry about, I ended up having to escort a member of said organization from the play before mine (a Terrence McNally piece depicting Jesus as a gay man in 1950s Texas) who treated me to a thoroughly interesting lecture on how our festival was infringing our rights and we should expect a protest at some point. After helping the TD for the festival check the space for any mysterious packages that may have been left beneath seats, we were in fact treated to a, granted, rather tame protest of about three people holding signs that probably took more crap from entering patrons than they handed out. As Chris Nugent, the excellent administrative head of the festival put it, “These protesters are quite sweet, really. They didn’t even bring rocks.”

Fun No. 3: Upon arriving in Dublin a day early to acquaint myself with the theater space and get a leg up on tech, I encountered one of the heads of the Festival itself. Very excited, I introduced myself and expressed my happiness at being involved and working in Dublin. From behind his Robert Evans sunglasses and tan he grabbed my hand, eyed a cute young man that had entered behind me and inquired if I was the stage manager for the Chicago show. Having just told him that, I nodded.

“Grand. Your show isn’t selling as well as I’d like. The picture on the poster is quite artistic, but you can’t tell that your lead’s a good looking guy, which he is. What you have to do is dress the cast up posh and take them to The Dragon. It’s a bar on Georges Street. Have them hand out fliers, buy a few drinks, and, you know, really PUSH the show.”

“Do you mean whore them out a little?”

“Exactly. You’ll be fine.”

I will now by including ‘American Pimp with EU experience’ under the special skills section of my SM resume.

And now, show closed, off to do research and work in Oxford, Cardiff, and Aberdaron, I look forward to heading back to the US and Redmoon with my newly acquired skills in talking sound boards off a ledge, sweeping a house for bombs, and ordering non-equity actors to shake that ass.

Slainte! (Good health) And see everyone soon.

Caitlin Parrish