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[0:00] Brian Sedita: Hey everyone, welcome to Page to Stage.

[0:03] Mary Dina: A conversation with theater makers.

[0:04] Brian Sedita: We're your hosts.

[0:05] Mary Dina: That's Brian.

[0:06] Brian Sedita: And that's Mary.

[0:07] Mary Dina: This episode is part of our series on Chicken and Biscuits, a new play by Douglas Lyons.

[0:12] Brian Sedita: In this series, we uncover the process behind the play through our central question.

[0:17] Mary Dina: How has this play fed your soul?

[0:19] Brian Sedita: We hope you enjoyed this episode.

[0:26] Cheryl Dennis: Hi, my name is Cheryl Dennis. I'm the theater manager at Circle in the Square Theater. I deal with front of house, with theater staff, mostly making sure that everything runs smoothly.

[0:40] Mary Dina: Amazing. And I just want to point out that we're recording this the day after Chicken and Biscuits played their final performance at Circle in the Square. But we're still, you know, releasing episodes in our series on Chicken and Biscuits through the end of 2021. You know, you can't go see the show anymore on Broadway. I hope that people, all of our listeners, find great value and entertainment in the episodes as much fun as we've been having making them.

[1:05] Brian Sedita: Yeah, it's been great. It's been cool because we started recording. Well, actually, we started like pre-production on this, like before they even started rehearsals. So I feel like we've really been with the whole journey of the show. Well, not the whole, but the whole Broadway journey of the show, which is exciting. It was a really fabulous show. It was a joyous show. It filled the theater with laughter and love, and it was a really great show to do coming back from a pandemic.

[1:33] Cheryl Dennis: Yeah, totally.

[1:34] Brian Sedita: So, in that same vein, how long have you been working at Circle in the Square?

[1:40] Cheryl Dennis: You know, I was just I was a company manager before I was a house manager. So I think I was very young when I first stepped foot in this theater. My first show was either 2000 or 2001. I was the assistant company manager on True West, and that was the first time I was in Circle in the Square. And then I came back two more times, one for Metamorphoses as a company manager and one for Frozen, different Frozen, not Disney Frozen. And then I took a few years off of theater to have a kid and kind of be with my kid. And then I came back as the theater manager. So I really feel like I've grown up at Circle in the Square Theater. It's encompassed my entire professional life, like bookended. And it's a really cool theater to be like great, amazing theater.

There is no other theater like it on Broadway. What you can do in that space is phenomenal. It's got stadium seating, and we only go 10 rows back. So when you look down, you're always close, you're always getting these amazing views. It's funny because I talk to so many people outside of this world and they say, you know, where do you work? And I tell them, and they're like, I saw this there. Oh, wait, no, it couldn't have been the same theater because I thought I saw another play there, and I was like, No, it was the same theater. We can do anything there, and I love it. I really do.

[2:52] Mary Dina: So I wanted to dial in on Chicken and Biscuits and the process of when you would begin starting to work on the show. Do you go to see like final dress rehearsals? Or is there a way that you would prepare the theater to get it ready for the production to come in?

[3:07] Cheryl Dennis: Well, this show was different because we were coming back from a pandemic. So a lot of things I normally would have done, I didn't do, and a lot of things that I never would have done. Like I've I never thought I would know this much about epidemiology in my life. I went to school for acting for crying out loud. Like I'm using biology on a daily basis. That's an interesting question to answer right now. Normally I would go see a final dress rehearsal in a space before it came in here, so we would kind of know, but I didn't on this one because of COVID protocol. For this one, the biggest challenge was getting a theater back and running after COVID. And it's probably some one of the things I'm proudest of that I've ever done in my life.

It was not, it wasn't easy. And it was stressful because you were up, it was a whole new playing field, you know. And anybody who was trying to get a theater up right now, we were just it was uncharted territory. There were guidelines and there were protocols, but how we implemented and making, and it was nerve-wracking. It was a little stressful. Like I certainly lost more sleep than I have in years because you were kind of charged with keeping everybody safe. When we got to opening night, I turned to somebody, I was like, I feel like I just climbed a mountain.

[4:18] Brian Sedita: So, what are those normal things that you still did for Chicken and Biscuits that you were able to maybe lean on and kind of go on autopilot a little bit more this time around because you had a lot more responsibility?

[4:30] Cheryl Dennis: Well, load in just like the mechanics of load in, like doing dealing with the load and payroll. I know I've done this so long that I know most of the union roles are just there. So putting that process together, like a load in happened like a regular load in, except for with COVID protocol. We're really fortunate. We have a really great front of house staff, and most of the people who work here have been here for five, 10 plus years. So they're really the experts, and this theater runs very efficiently and it runs like a ship. Everybody knows what their job is. So all of that, like getting everybody back kind of into place and to do their job, that took very little effort. That just happens.

That's like the magic of this building. And I remember back from when we were just chatting with Christy, who is the music coordinator for Six. When you just said that you were doing payroll for load in, it just brought me back to that conversation we had with her, where I didn't actually realize this prior to talking to her that there's a split in who in the theater gets paid by the theater or the theater owner versus the producer, which I find very fascinating. And also I'm sure very probably gives you a lot of headaches, I'm sure, to get started.

[5:40] Cheryl Dennis: What's interesting about that is that I don't want to say I would do it to relax, but it was kind of like doing a local one load in payroll is kind of like doing a giant Sudoku puzzle. So when you just like kind of want to put numbers in and go on autopilot, that's what I would do when I couldn't wrap my brain around more complicated problems. Be like I'll enter some numbers. I find this calming. I'm also a nerd.

[6:01] Brian Sedita: I love that.

[6:01] Cheryl Dennis: So, what are you responsible for in terms of staffing and getting it ready to have an audience come in and see the show?

[6:11] Cheryl Dennis: Again, we're very lucky because a lot of the staff that has been here has been here for so many years. Our head usher is a woman named Georgia Keglahan, and she was here prior to me coming in back in 2000. So, really, it's calling Georgia and saying, Hi, Georgia, we're coming back. Can you reach out to everybody? Here's a performance schedule. I'd love, you know, everybody comes to a dress rehearsal and then we hit the ground running. And it kind of is that department by department. We have a great treasurer, Mandy. I called Mandy and said hi. You know, get the it's really just calling each department and saying, gather your people and bring them to the theater.

[6:46] Brian Sedita: And now, are those departments like what are they doing in the interim between shows? Are they working on other projects? Do they have a day-to-day responsibility to the theater when there's not a show running?

[6:58] Cheryl Dennis: You know, most, and it's why I think theater so many employees in the theater struggled during the pandemic. Most people were just unemployed for a year and a half. It was really, really, really quite difficult. It was also the nice part of seeing everybody. There was, I have to tell you, when everybody came back to work and when we had all the ushers come back and all of you know the porters and everybody, there was a true sense of joy with everybody just seeing each other after a year and a half and it's starting to feel somewhat normal. It was fantastic.

[7:26] Brian Sedita: Yeah, I'm sure like a little surreal as well. So I wanted to ask so other theaters on or other theater owners on Broadway will rotate. So if you're an usher that works for Jujamps and like you are probably rotating among their various houses that they have for any of their shows. Is that the case? So when you say you have people like they are like strictly or exclusively working with Circle on the Square?

[7:50] Cheryl Dennis: Yeah. I mean, we have ushers who've been here for every show for years. That's where they take days off is because you have to. It's a brilliant schedule. But no, I mean the people I now when they in the interim, they might go work in another house, but no, we don't, we don't, they're not here for some shows and then go. It's the same staff for all the shows. So it really is like a built-in community.

[8:12] Brian Sedita: It's a great, yeah. And we're a really neat house too because we don't have a stage door, which means you're walking in the front door to get to the back. It's so everybody really knows each other. The ushers get to know the company, the company gets to know the front of house staff. It's really a neat environment.

[8:27] Cheryl Dennis: Okay, so I feel like we all collectively as an industry, we really learned the value of a work-life balance. But there's another type of balance I think that falls specifically into what you do between working in an office or at the office versus working in the theater and like being there on the ground, if you will, with patrons. And so how where what is the balance for you in your specific role?

[8:51] Cheryl Dennis: Office and show.

[8:52] Cheryl Dennis: Yes. And part of that stems from the fact that we are one theater. I don't work for a big chain, I work for Circle in the Square. So it's good because I have probably slightly more autonomy than other people, but also slightly more responsibility. So I would say it's probably about 50/50, 50% dealing with office and paperwork and payroll and union agreements and all that. And then the other 50 is interacting with front of house and people and company members.

[9:14] Brian Sedita: And when a show's running how many performances a week do you typically like to be at the theater for and really what's like the bare minimum that you need to check in?

[9:32] Cheryl Dennis: So we so how many do I do? It depends on what's going on in the show and it also you know I like to be an overachiever and that's a theme. So at the beginning of a show I don't leave like I just don't leave. I come in at seven o'clock and I leave at midnight because I've always felt it's really important that if there's any kind of problem that the company has a representative from the theater that they can talk to um and that's in load in in tech because when stuff goes wrong it never goes wrong at like four o'clock on a Monday it goes wrong at like midnight on a Friday. When we're doing previews of through opening I'm usually at every single show and then once we're up and running especially coming off of COVID um I don't know I probably average anywhere from five to six right now once we were up and running.

And I've got a really great assistant Jason who we were gonna try to do this together but schedules couldn't work out who then takes over some of the other shows. And he is mostly just audience based he doesn't deal with as much with the office stuff.

[10:33] Brian Sedita: Interesting. That's yeah, I mean, we haven't in terms of like theater management, we haven't really dived into the specifics of what, like how someone I mean, not to say that like there's one path for anything, because we all know that that is definitely not true. You could, you know, most people I would argue go into acting from school and then find their way elsewhere. But what at least with either your colleagues, people that you have worked with in the past, what is the a pattern, if you will, of like what people are if people are interested in pursuing theater management as a career, what are the other roles that you would suggest them looking into, looking up, reaching out to in terms of getting to that position ultimately in their own careers?

[11:16] Cheryl Dennis: You know, it's funny is I got I went to school for acting, though it's a foreign university for acting. I got an internship my senior year with Liz McCann and theater management wasn't even on my radar, you know. I was like, oh, I want to go working on Broadway. And so I did, and then I just kind of loved it. And I didn't, and again, I never started out as a track to wind up here. Like I was an intern and I read scripts, and I think she made me the literary manager at one point, and then I was a production assistant, which meant I got coffee for Brian Darcy James. So I adore it. I don't want to say I fell into it because it got to the point where it was like, oh no, I like I like putting together shows and I like putting together theaters because they're all big complex puzzles.

So the short answer is get in the building. Just if you want to pursue a career in arts management, at least from my view, get in the building, like intern or usher or you know, be an office assistant because number one, you're gonna start to learn where you want to be. And I learned so much working, working throughout the years. I've learned I've learned so much as a company manager, and then I get a whole other education as a house manager. So the neat thing is I feel like I know both sides of the business, which I don't know how many people get that. But just get in the building however you can just get in the building and start talking to people.

[12:32] Mary Dina: I love that advice. And that's I mean that I feel like that's very applicable. I feel like I looking at my own path could have easily said the same thing to me. And so I love that. Thank you for sharing that.

[12:44] Cheryl Dennis: Well now I want to know what your path was. I know that's not we're supposed to be talking about I want to know.

[12:48] Mary Dina: Ultimately a producer track but it you know was a brief actor brief brief actor in high school didn't get a lead my senior year and then was asked to help with programs and other and I just got involved. I just like did the things I stayed late after practice and like helped paint a set. So I just think it's just like immerse yourself. Which is like very similar just like be get in the building like get yourself like in a seat but also like be you know observing the the front of house like observing the lobby and the different roles because there's more there's so many positions. I always say I wish I had this podcast when I was in college to kind of like say to say get out of this BFA acting program and and do do something that's not in the theater because the theater is going to be there and your skills you can learn in something else will be able to bring you back to the theater and you'll be a great asset to the theater having not gone to theater school.

[13:40] Cheryl Dennis: I feel like so many programs are getting more and more specialized. Like I when I went to Fordham it we had a theater department. That's what we had and you just did whatever you want to. Now they actually I think they have a theater management program and they have a design program and they have all of these different tracks. And what was interesting is when I was there it was just you could kind of pick and choose whatever you wanted to do and try it out. I do wish there was a little bit more of that in the world because I you know, I if you would have asked me at 21, do I want to be a house manager? I would have been like, no.

[14:11] Mary Dina: Yeah, right.

[14:13] Brian Sedita: Thanks everyone for listening to this episode of Page to Stage. This episode is part one of a two-part episode with today's guest. Check back next week for part two. To keep up with us, you can find us on Instagram and Facebook at Page2Stage Podcast. Until next time. That's Brian.

[14:27] Mary Dina: That's Mary.

[14:29] Brian Sedita: We will see you later.