Producer and Theatre Manager

This year, the majority of my time was allocated to managing The College Avenue Players, as President for the 2008-2009 academic year.  This was a project very close to my heart, as I had been an active and devoted member of CAP for the entirety of my college career (I now look forward to being a devoted alumna!).  The leadership experience was an invaluable lesson in time-management, and learning how to manage one's peers without sacrificing friendships.

CAP's mission is to  "[provide] a casual, welcoming atmosphere in which its members can showcase and develop their talents, learn from one another, and provide entertainment to the public.  Entirely student-run and student-directed, CAP strives to develop a multi-faceted performing arts community.  CAP is open to all interested people regardless of their majors or career aspirations.  CAP is also dedicated to providing an outlet for students to showcase their own, original written material."  CAP is an open and welcoming student organization - rehearsals are only ever during the week and late in the evening after classes have ended, tickets are the cheapest on campus - never over $5 for students, and CAP is always thrilled to have non-theatre majors join the group.  CAP takes pride in its laid-back atmosphere and being welcoming to theatre-loving students of all skill-levels.  Seasons are open to any genre, though they tend to focus on comedy - every year kicks off with Comic Relief, a collection of sketch comedy scenes from popular TV shows where 100% of ticket sales go to charity, and each year closes with a performance by Wacky Hijinks - Rutgers' only student-written original sketch comedy troupe.

As President, I made every effort to please the wide variety of CAP members and to have the organization reach its full potential and further improve its reputation on campus as well as within the wider theatre community.  My efforts and contributions included:
     *Streamlining efficiency of board meetings by distributing calendars, providing agendas before meetings, and keeping meetings to an hour or less.
     *Organizing a Tech Seminar and requiring attendance by all board members and directors.  The purpose of this program was to educate as many people as possible how to assist the Tech Crew so they wouldn't feel underappreciated, and also so the board and directors wouldn't feel helpless if the Tech Crew were unavailable.
     *Improving CAP's relationship with university administration by picking a Dean of Students as our faculty adviser.
     *Ensuring rehearsals and board meetings ran as smoothly as possible by reserving meeting rooms for board meetings, and reserving two rehearsal rooms per night for when shows were rehearsing simultaneously.
     *Making efforts to unify the sentiments of the board by setting Goals and Expectations for the year.
     *Taking advantage of a marketing effort and procuring 40 free passes to a preview film screening of I Love You, Man.
     *Taking advantage of a publicized business opportunity offered by The Players Theatre in New York City, and solving a space crisis by securing us Off-Broadway performance slots for free.
     *Distributing Holiday/Thank You cards to every board member, crew member, and director from the season.
     *Improving our presence at the annual Involvement Fair by creating a display board, having the Publicity Coordinators create a season flyer and brochures about our organization, and getting promotional give-aways (keychain bottle-openers with our name and website printed on them).

Under my leadership, the board has taken on many new goals this year, including:
     *Creating a new board position to coordinate special events and external engagements.
     *Drafting a new, detailed constitution and establishing a new board leadership structure for 2009-2010.
     *Appealing for funds for a third program in order to set the precedent for the Allocations board that CAP consistently produces three mainstage shows per semester.
     *Improving board/director communications by implementing communication via online forum, drafting a set of expectations and responsibilities for both parties, and mandating production meetings at the read-throughs of every production.
     *Improving and strengthening alliances with other on-campus theatre groups via ad swap agreements.
     *Setting and announcing our season lineups earlier.
     *Fostering a sense of community among CAP membership by placing the link to our Wiki on the homepage of our website.