A Productive Process. By Mattie Mitchell

Well, we made it. One show down and one more – as well as an amazing workshop – on the way. And more than that, for this current board, it’s been one whole year. Elections are on the horizon for Cap & Bells, and more than ever as a senior I find myself looking back and wondering what I could have done differently, and as often what I was even doing to begin with. The theater is oddly grounding in that way. A production manager’s job is methodical, scheduled, almost a little predetermined (excepting when everything looks like it’s about to go crazy of course.) I have notes from every meeting, and they’re all still faded out but remaining in my google calendar. But on the whole I think I might be ready to hand over the passwords and templates to the next PM. My confidence in the underclassmen has finally outweighed my obsessive reluctance to delegation.

We put so many new efforts into C&B shows this year. Apart from the things that the audience never sees (weekly and bi-weekly production meetings, organized build and hang/focus calls, weekly board meetings to help shape and then fine tune the season, and so many others) we put on The Pillowman – long renowned as one of the most technically difficult as well as emotionally challenging shows in modern drama. We changed people into stone, into birds, into ships and gods and trees in Metamorphoses, and we just last week produced a reading of an entirely Williams’ student created work, East o’ West o’. In the middle of that, a series of fantastic ten-minute plays over winter study which challenged directors to work minimally and cooperatively, a challenge to which a great group rose magnificently. Look what we can create in just a few short weeks. And we aren’t even done yet! Williams students will never stop overachieving, will we?

And just who is “we” anyway? Is it the 10 board members I’ve had the great pleasure to work with all year? Is it the 32 actors who have participated in our many productions? How about the 14 designers for those shows? Or the 8 great stage managers and assistants? How about the 9 amazing directors? The 25 people I call upon (which doesn’t include actors or crew for an individual show) to help with our sets and lights, sound and costumes? (PS. If you want to join that list, e-mail me!). And let’s not forget the vast majority of the C&B community – the hundreds of audience members that come to see our shows?

“We” is all of these people. You guessed that from the top of the last paragraph, too, didn’t you? Because Cap & Bells is a smart, creative, dedicated, energetic and mostly fun group. We have cool ideas that we then make happen! From everyone who sends in a show proposal, to everyone who participates onstage, backstage, and looking at the stage, we need you, you make us, and we are grateful. And also (as I just misspelled that word entirely on the first try) we are Great-Full.

Enough terrible puns. I have you people’s lives to schedule for the sake of Theatre.