…And That’s A Wrap!
The Cast and Crew of The Legacy of Baker Street celebrate after the opening night performance.
In a span of 5 months The Third Side Theatre Company launched AND produced a sold out show. We are all physically and emotionally exhausted in the absolute best way. It’s like after having a huge cry or laughing all weekend with your best friend. We are satiated with emotions. Maybe the better analogy is pregnancy, labor and delivery. Regardless, it’s the kind of tiredness, joy, and pride that are only experienced a handful of times in life.
When we decided to produce The Legacy of Baker Street, I knew we would put on a great show but I was unsure if people would come. There’s a black box theater in Evergreen? What is the Third Side? What’s The Legacy of Baker Street even about? We sold out 6 performances…I did not expect that!
It might not seem impressive to sell out a 30 seat theater but just 50 yards away was another performance by a professional artist and they struggled to fill their 150+ seat auditorium. They were lucky to get 30 to arrive. My point is not to knock that performer or that theater but to show that it isn’t the size of your theater that matters, but what you do with it.
After closing our run, we circled up at the wrap party and tried to put our thoughts and feelings into words. We sat on the floor around boxes of pizza and passing celebratory drinks of champagne, wine, and beer.
From our first read through in February 2023…
…all the way to a SOLD OUT inaugural production! Tracy Doty Photography
Juliet: Just from the people that I’ve talked to about it, like, I run in a different circle than you guys. They are not regular theater goers. They came to support me and they walked away impressed and saying it was like nothing they’d ever seen or will see at, say, the DCPA. I love our catch phrase “theater from scratch” and I think people really liked seeing something different.
Leann: I hear a lot from more established theaters that people don’t want to see something they don’t know. Where did that idea come from? Then they ask, “How would we market that?” Granted, we don’t have an overhead. We don’t have rent to meet or staff to pay and that allows us to take risks.
Kellie: What excited me about this group from the beginning was the raw creativity and…in different ways. You all have amazing creative skills in different ways than I do and it fills in the gaps.
Jeremiah: There’s a team effort and it takes each individual to do their part. We’re each motivated to do the best we can within the framework of the team. When there’s a gap to fill, someone else jumps in to fill it. I think that’s why, after we did The Old Man and the Old Moon, we couldn’t walk away from each other. I’m not surprised at all that this went as well as it did. We’re a group of solution oriented people so we’ll always be successful at what we do.
Brian: Yeah, the way we work…it’s, it’s intangible. It’s hard to describe but you know it’s there. What I remember telling friends of mine about this group was that; we decided we didn’t want to say goodbye to each other and we created this new thing.
Nya: I felt welcome the minute I stepped into this group. I was so nervous because it’s hard…it’s hard to come into a group of people who know and work with one another SO well and are SO talented. I was terrified. But you all have been so kind and so warm and I feel honored to have worked with y’all. Please call me again!
Nya is not a Third Side member. We hired her to do our lighting design and plan to work with her again! Amazing job!
Pre-Show Team Circle at Dress Rehearsal, Tracy Doty Photography
Leann to Brian: So bizarre that you wrote this show before you even knew any of us.
Brian: It almost feels like there’s some cosmic thing because it’s like everybody was perfect for the parts that they did.
Michal: Even with Old Man/Old Moon…it was like that. There were only 3 other people that auditioned besides this group. To me, it was a God Thing. He brought me the exact people that I needed for that show and it created this team. So for me, I’ve always felt it was divinely created.
Andy: The sentiment that I think was expressed by a lot of us: “Will people want to see a show they’ve never seen by a playwright they never heard of?”, and framing that as a negative and something to overcome….but the reality is, that we exist in a world now where media is being created by more people than ever before. So you have to meet that with new things. People don't want to see the same thing they've seen 50 times.
Michal: I was surprised how much kids loved the show. We’re talking 5-10 year olds and they are excited for Act 2 and reenacting the fight choreography they saw Leann doing.
Ryan: And a straight play at that! Not a musical. I know I’m a pessimist but I was not as confident as everyone else. I was concerned when we booked a reviewer. I thought, “What if this is bad and it’s in PRINT?” We’d be done. When, for weeks we had only sold eight tickets for Mother’s Day…I was very concerned.
Jeremiah: That’s a good example of when we all came together and said, “We need a solution. What do we do?” Everyone started coming up with ideas and it really speaks of this group of people.
Juliet: Agreed. The reason we sold out Mother’s Day is because we all participated and hustled. We can’t just sit back on our laurels and expect Marketing to do the job for us.
Kellie: I always knew we had the potential to do this but I wasn’t sure it was going to actually happen. This is only scratching the surface of what I’m imagining we can do. We have all these little seeds of things and it’s going to take the same faith. We can do that more and in different ways and with really funky musicals. Who even knows what we can come up with!
Third Side is remounting The Old Man and the Old Moon at the People’s Building in Aurora this November. Come see the show that brought us together!