Episode 8: Ginger Poole and Mill Mountain Theatre
Lacey: [00:00:00] Here I am with Ginger Poole, the producing artistic director of the mill mountain theater in Roanoke, Virginia. Hi, Ginger.
Ginger: [00:00:08] Lacey hello.
Lacey: [00:00:11] So nice to see your face. Listeners, we actually can see each other's faces, even though we're doing audio here. I would love to start by hearing about your community and your mission and the overview of Mill Mountain Theater, which I have to say that I worked there in the late nineties and I have very fond memories.
So I'm really excited to hear about what's going on these days there.
Ginger: [00:00:36] Always wonderful to talk to a MMT alum. It's amazing like how we can reconnect with those that have had a stint here in Roanoke and a connection to Mill Mountain Theater. So thanks for reaching out to us and having this conversation with me today. So Mill Mountain Theater, we started up on the mountain.
If you're familiar with The Star City, we literally have a Mill Mountain. And there's a gigantic iron star that sits on the top.
Lacey: [00:01:03] How did I not know this? Because this is fabulous.
How did, I don't know? Now I feel very remiss. So please, correct the situation for me
Ginger: [00:01:14] So we need to have you back. So that's, there's the first invitation Lacey, you have to come back giant. I still don't know how you missed it. It's literally like a 70 foot steel star on top of Mill Mountain, but that was the original home . And we were originally Mill Mountain Playhouse and we were up there on the mountain. And we're 57 years old. So that was in 1964. So there was a group of friends.
They were directors and actors. So they started Mill Mountain Playhouse as a summer stock to get together with friends and produce theater all summer and then spread out and go back to New York or wherever their home was at the time.
And it. It did really well, really quickly. So they had from like 1964 until 1976, this phenomenal run and growth of producing so much theater and having this amazing attraction where their box office sales were insane. So here's 1976 and I've got former board members that were around during this time that actually remember being at their homes.
And again, like you can see Mill Mountain from just about anywhere in the city, and they remember seeing these plumes.
Lacey: [00:02:35] Oh, no,
Ginger: [00:02:36] so here's here's the irony of how people have described this. And this is actually a quote from the local paper, the Roanoke times at the time that it was an accidental arson. How's that for an oxymoron, an accidental arson, which means somebody probably flicked a cigarette, but it landed in like the mulch or the pine straw or something.
And it was an all wooden building and, they flicked it and didn't, nobody was around, nobody was working.
Lacey: [00:03:08] That's so sad.
Ginger: [00:03:10] it is so sad. So what do you do when you're successful theater burns to the ground. Your board of directors are some savvy, go getters in Roanoke and they start immediately looking for a new home. So there's an amazing area, probably two miles from downtown and it's called the grand and village and they have their own downtown area, a wonderful neighborhood.
But that's what the home of the Grandin theater is. And it's one of the oldest historic, cinema houses and that had been sitting vacant for years and years.
So that was the new home for Mill Mountain Playhouse for almost eight years. So the performance space was very wide very shallow, no fly space, no wing space, no storage whatsoever. No dressing rooms, no backstage bathrooms. So what they did and they made this work and to hear the stories of people that touched all of that theater during those eight years, it's kinda magical again, not the most perfect place, but they made it work and they tell stories of how their sets were just so flat and shallow, and they'd still do giant musicals I think they said it was about 11 feet deep, but like 40 feet wide.
They would have interns that would walk actors with umbrellas. They would walk them to a store behind the cinema house. And they would use that as their green room in their dressing rooms. Can you imagine running across the parking lot to make your entrance?
and it was during those eight years that and an amazing group of board of directors who truly were the catalyst to change the face of downtown Roanoke.
During the seventies Roanoke, the downtown area really took a turn. That's when all of the box stores were starting to pop up in the suburbs and the downtown area, the restaurants were gone, the boutiques and the mom and pop shops all of those closed up.
Lacey: [00:05:15] right. Cause you got a mall
Ginger: [00:05:17] we got a mall.
Lacey: [00:05:18] my hometown too. We got them all and the whole downtown went kaput and actually one of the things that brought it back was the Adirondack Theater Festival was a theater. Yeah.
Ginger: [00:05:30] And it's the same thing. Thing these people had these amazing people had the vision that if we have a home for Mill Mountain Theater, it's going to be a risk. But if we can bring theater in the arts back to downtown, everything else will come So in 1983 was the ribbon cutting for Center in the Square, it's literally in the heart of downtown Roanoke.
It occupies a city block and that is the home of Mill Mountain Theater. And that's where they changed their name. We got fancy, we moved downtown. So Mill Mountain Theater, not Mill Mountain Playhouse anymore, up on a mountain. A little bit more of the, of this history as for a story really quickly is that was in 83. You were there.
And what I call just the roaring nineties, because that was, if you think about really, nationwide, that late eighties and the nineties, they were good to us. Money was being spent. Productions were huge. Staffs were huge.
And then unfortunately it was in the early two thousands, where this was happening nationwide that you started seeing arts organizations, particularly theaters, hitting financial trouble and closing down and Mill Mountain Theater did not dodge that bullet of the financial scare.
So what we did do the board of directors made a really tough call. This would have been in 2009 that we were going to cease productions. Notice, I didn't say close, and I have never mentioned the word bankruptcy because we did not have to do that. So I came on full time in the summer of 2008. This decision was made in February of 2009. How's that for good timing. I came into take over the education program and really turned that around and made that a true revenue line for us. But at the time, we were looking in excess of $850,000 in debt,
A lot of money it's a lot of money.
And so of course, staff was released they retained three of us to help them put pieces together. The three of us that were retained were all willing to go as long as we could. And then had an understanding that, it could be the end next week or tomorrow or whatnot. So during this time we realized really quickly that Mill Mountain Theater was worth salvaging. There was an amazing board of directors. And there were, by the time we started doing this hard work, there were seven.
And I called them my magnificent seven because they were the ones that we formulated a new business plan. We made some hard decisions on, what does this mean moving forward? We can't just pick up the pieces because obviously that business model is not sustainable. This was the group that we went out and we asked forgiveness.
Some of it was met with a handshake and a hug. And not just, if you get that, but when you get back, we will be there for the theater. Some was met with if you don't pay our bill, we will have to close mean some of these like tiny, like the copy houses that, would do our copy and make our letterhead and things and then some were negotiated pennies to a dollar.
So we got to some of the hardest work that I've done truly in my career.
Lacey: [00:08:50] You basically went out and created your own chapter 11 to reorganize your theater without actually going into chapter 11 and involving lawyers and the whole nine yards. You did it on your own,
Ginger: [00:09:04] We did it and with the forgiveness and and even some donations, even at that time, knowing that their donation was not going to anything but to help us relieve debt. We got our financial house back in order and we started the long climb for almost four years. I was the sole employee.
Lacey: [00:09:25] Wow.
Ginger: [00:09:26] Yeah. Think about that.
Lacey: [00:09:27] I mean, I know how large that theater is. It's not small.
Ginger: [00:09:31] When you were there, we probably held around 36 to 40 full-time employees. So during those four years, we really got a hearty grip on our education program. And I formed the Mill Mountain Theater Conservatory, and we were serving pre-K through adults and professionals in all genres of theater instruction from singing to dance, musical theater, acting improv, technical theater, we were doing it all. And while we were doing this, we were building the bricks again, to start building, honestly, what's a new theater.
Starting fresh. It made sense. It was scary as hell and it was the hardest work I've ever done.
Lacey: [00:10:14] I'm just so fascinated by this. I had no idea that's an incredible story.
Ginger: [00:10:21] thank
Lacey: [00:10:22] Truly. So when you said it's a new theater. I want to hear more, like what do you, what exactly do you mean when you say that?
Ginger: [00:10:30] When I say that, it means we have a complete, complete new business model . We have a complete new organizational chart as far as the different skill sets and personalities and job titles that we need to make the theater work. We have figured out the perfect formula for us as far as an artistic season where we're not killing our staff by calendar alone.
There used to be the days where, we would have so many things stacked, but you had a large enough staff that you could be building two shows at one time where now we also changed everything from our fiscal calendar to our operational calendar, it's on the calendar cycle which has helped us we can plan and budget and it makes total sense.
We have a system to forecast. I can tell you at any second, if if you said, where are you today on this production? I can pull it up and tell you to the penny where we are. So it's a different philosophy. It's a different approach to arts administration and the business model. We're not the only ones I think there, of course, there's other people have had to morph and adapt to survive, but I will tell you something that I'm very proud of that after, I've been in leadership now for 12 years and after three years of that close call of almost having to say, we've got to close the doors, we had alleviated all of our debt, all of it, and had six figures in a savings account in the bank.
Lacey: [00:12:02] That's amazing.
Ginger: [00:12:04] Thank you. We've got that. And I will say for the last seven seasons, we have operated in the black consistently. So we know that this this model, it works for us. I think it works for other theaters. We've also been very generous because I don't want anybody to have to go through what we did and if I can share or help and save them a step or save them a cost, I've had people, say, can we pay you to do this?
Know that the work's already done. Let me send you a template. Here's this here's, our handbook or here's how we budget.
So I'm happy to share it because again, I don't want anyone to have to do what we had to do to get to where we are now, but we're healthy. We'll talk about crawling out of a pandemic. I'm sure we'll
Lacey: [00:12:49] that was on the tip of my tongue.
Ginger: [00:12:52] Oh, my gosh, I still, I feel like my knees are still, scabby and I'm still dirty from crawling, but we did reestablish our relationship with Actors' Equity Association.
And that was something that I felt strongly about. I'm a 25 year card carrying member myself, and I felt strongly that to be the professional regional theater, we've got to have a relationship with them. And back when we were facing all of that financial woes, we cashed out our bond because we needed it to pay debt.
So had about $36,000 wrapped up with Equity, knowing that when we cashed out that bond, that would sever
Lacey: [00:13:30] for people who might not know, can you just briefly explain what you mean by that? Some people don't know that theater is spend that kind of money to have that
Ginger: [00:13:38] Yes. So Actors' Equity Association. So for a theater, anybody can hire a union actor, but you have to go through getting approved, being bonded, having contracts that are approved. You're also held to a certain level of what is acceptable, how was their housing, how many breaks do they get?
As far as the contracts and the bonding process with a theater or any organization, the tiring an Equity union member, it is a security blanket. So if something goes wrong with the production, if there's God forbid, a natural disaster, a hurricane, a flood, and the show is canceled for whatever reason, those Equity members are guaranteed to still make their contract paid out.
And that's what the bond does. So if anything were to happen to the theater, the members are taken care of. So that's what you buy into. And over the years, it builds up and builds up. And at the time we were up to about a $36,000
Lacey: [00:14:39] And it makes sense, if you suddenly couldn't pay those actors, the union will pay them for you. But the practical result is that you have thousands and thousands of dollars tied up and you can't get to it. You don't have access to it.
So that, that was the, yeah, really the take home there that I wanted to point out.
Ginger: [00:14:58] Now I'm glad you, that we went a little deeper to explain it. So when we cashed that out, I knew that in there that whenever the time was right, we wouldn't have to start completely over in our climb back to any type of professional, regional Equity house.
That was something I felt strongly with that even with our youth shows. We were in a point, like I said, I was the only employee with Mill Mountain Theater. I was teaching every class. I was paying the bills. I was cleaning the toilets. And I say that because it's the truth.
It's not a martyr thing. And again, I had the support of the board and they would set in as well. But even in those early years of rebuilding, we would teach classes in the spring, the full semester, teach classes in the fall, a full semester, summer camps, probably about six or seven weeks of summer camp.
But the only production we would do every year was a holiday show December with just children. These junior production, which is like we did Annie junior. That's spent an hour and 15 minutes long and it's meant for youth actors, 18 years and younger. So the adult characters are played by, your high school students. So we did that for about four years. Now, it would make us a lot of money but it was a different game.
But even with those productions, I could afford one Equity contract. Talk about bottom of the rung of the ladder.
I was just passionate that we don't drop all the relationship whatsoever because then we're just a glorified community theater. There's nothing wrong with community theater, but this would have been a really expensive community theater to uphold. So with that, we started the climb and we then jumped to Guest Artists Contracts.
When I could afford a little bit more, maybe I would have one actor and one stage manager, then I got to where I could afford, maybe two actors and a stage manager. And then we started our true transition period, which takes four years. And our transition period should have ended up season of 2020 that was canceled.
Lacey: [00:16:58] is life.
Oh my gosh. No.
I'm just blown away. I had no idea. Okay.
Ginger: [00:17:06] I'm so glad that you have that mental picture.
So the Cinderella story. With Equity right now. And then there's another part that's like still hanging out there, like the guessing game, but for the season that was canceled for so many of us 2020, that should have wrapped up our fourth year.
Now, why is this fourth year so important after you finished the transition, you then and here, I'm going to I'll explain all of this to Lacey. Cause it's like another acronym that we live in. But it meant that we now can issue E M C points so EMC points are the acronym is Equity Membership Candidate.
So this is the feeder program to earn your Equity card. And honestly these are like golden bricks when you're negotiating with young emerging artists. And it really is, it's the top question I have gotten in all audition arenas. Do you give points to give points?
And I've had to say like for so many years, no, not yet. We're working on it. And then when we get a little closer, I'd say we will be able to in 2020 and then 2020 happened, and there are no points, cause there were no shows. But that was like in negotiating. It just, it means a lot. So the happy ending of that 2020 season that was canceled, that should have been the end. We actually wrote an appeal letter to the council and we had about, probably eight or 10 testimonial letters from recent Equity artists that had worked with us, just speaking on our behalf and they accepted it.
Which means the very next production that we produce, we will be able to issue EMC points. So , that was a big celebration. And actually that's really hot off the press. That's just about two weeks old.
Lacey: [00:18:55] That's wonderful. So I was looking at your website and I see that you are planning a production of Midsummer Night's Dream, which I guess would be the very next production that you produce.
Ginger: [00:19:04] It will be but that fits under our youth audience programming. So we're taking like the way we planned this 20, 21 season. And I keep calling it the plans of the season. Cause we don't know what we're going to be held to by the state, by the nation, by the union. This will be the fifth year for our Young Playwrights Competition. We call that Right Stuff. That's a hundred percent virtual, so we'll still be living in the virtual land.
So that'll start off. You mentioned Midsummer Night's Dream . This is 18 years and younger performing in it. It is outside. So again, we've made that choice and we are integrating mask throughout the performance.
So we're inching into managing what it's like to be in-person inside our walls. And the first one that we'll do it's a one-woman show.
So again, we strategically made these choices that we've got these baby steps. The next piece would be Tomas and The Library Lady. This is a very important piece of who we are as a company, we do a tremendous amount of outreach, and we have a summer tour that goes out, and this is young artists that are, recent grads are still in college.
They're the performers. We're proud to say that we have a cast of native Spanish speakers because the show is bilingual. And we have a native, Spanish speaking director. So that was important to us that we have the right people tell this story at this time. Where typically we would go into schools and libraries, every single performance this summer, everything will be outside.
So the first Equity production under our roof in our house, is Million Dollar Quartet that and that was even strategically chosen.
It's a smaller cast. If we had to stage it, and we might, depending on where we are with, it could have all of those artists stay in their quadrants of the stage and it would still play.
So that's where we are as far as the planning we have announced to the public, the timing of the season has been approved by Equity. And then the one missing link, Lacey, is the safety document. That, that has to be approved through Equity and they are so inundated right now, as you can only imagine.
And they've had to go through furloughs themselves. So that is the piece that really it's the linchpin.
Lacey: [00:21:25] Do you feel like you are unable to move forward in terms of, casting, hiring your design team, until you know that's been approved? Does that really put a crimp in your process of getting that show on it's on its journey?
Ginger: [00:21:40] it's made our process different. And just the full story, as far as our Million Dollar Quartet, Equity immediately approved our audition notice, which says to me, go forth and find your Now that again, it had to all be virtual, which is fine. We all live in a virtual world. Anyway. As far as auditions,
So we've assembled the full creative team. We have cast the show.
Everybody knows that all of this is pending on the safety work document by Equity. Now what's the holdup. there's so much paperwork. And I will say I'm going to toot Mill Mountain's horn one more time. If we go back to okay, COVID happened basically what last two weeks ago, a year ago was the shutdown roughly, is that right?
yeah,
Yeah. So we had just finished our second full week of our rehearsal for Dream Girls. And for us, we have a three week rehearsal process. We go into tech, we open. So we had enough of the show that we finished a designer run that Sunday. And then I called the cast and everybody back on a day off, that's not good
Lacey: [00:22:48] Nope.
Ginger: [00:22:49] them the message that this is happening.
We we have to shut down. We won't see this to fruition. That was hard. I was a hard day. There was so much confusion and so much unknown. But I will say from that shutdown, we immediately formed a task force with our board and some key people within the community that took the deep dive on, what does this mean? What is our responsibility as an organization? Not only to our community, but to our artists, to our staff or volunteers, to our students, to our families.
We are very fortunate. Very fortunately see that we have three medical professionals on our board and we have four lawyers that serve on our board
and where that team, at least we could, we had the critical thinkers.
We had the people that were a little bit more in the know than just like following the news. And we also reached out to another medical professional. He is not on our board, but his name is Dr. Paul Skolnick. And he is the head of infectious disease here in Roanoke and represents the whole state of Virginia.
So that was also nice to sit down with somebody who could, again, not have all the answers, but have a clear answer than what the news was or what social media was or whatnot. So we immediately went to, what can we be doing now? So we started our own like safety document as far as how will we handle internal operations?
How will we handle, classes? We immediately switched to completely virtual everything. Where we could, everybody was working from home. We've got one individual our director of development where his office and his whole job is just like the file cabinets in his office as far as all of the connection.
So he would come in and actually be in the office, but the rest of us were able to do our work from home. And that's when we started having the conversations with, again, Actors' Equity, as far as what do we do to be ready? And they've gone through many cycles of what this document needs to look like.
And even the most recent coming out March 3rd, this month, the most recent document came out. And as you can only imagine, I we went through furloughs. We let more than half of our staff go. That's not fun. And, we did have some roll back on actually today. Which was very exciting.
It's great, but it's still bittersweet because it's not everybody, so it's that thing of you want to celebrate, they don't want to celebrate too much because you're like, wait, no, there's still some of us that are still home. So that was hard. And now I feel like we've done everything, we can, we truly have done everything we can to be ready for this 20, 21 season plan, but I keep calling it. The only thing we're waiting on is the approval of that safety document.
Lacey: [00:25:48] So it makes me think, one of the things that I've talked with a couple of other artistic directors about is the loss of money that had already been invested in shows. And I'm sure you had the same thing with Dream Girls when the shutdown happened and and then you can't make it up with ticket sales of course, because you don't have the show. And I feel like it's the same risk on this side. You've already had to put money out to hold your auditions to to start to pay maybe some of your design team so you still have that risk that you're going to lose that money. How do you account for that? Is that part of your, your multitude of plans?
Ginger: [00:26:24] It is. And I think, it goes back it's reminiscent of the story I told you, if, 2009, when we, dodged a bullet of truly closing the theater doors, it's similar, except the major difference this time around is everybody's in the same boat. Everybody's asking for forgiveness, everybody's asking for money, everybody's asking the same people for money.
And these people, they're usually the big pockets in a community. They have businesses that they've got to protect too. So I feel like we've gone through the exercise of doing this, but now everybody's in the same boat. I will say like those that had invested and given into that 2020 season with corporate sponsorships, individual sponsorships, donors the most part, all right, either said, take this as a gift for 2020, or they said, roll it over and give me a show in 2021.
We don't care what it is. Just put us next to a show. . And that, that helped a lot. But when you think about now you're here at 2021 and that huge generosity of saying, put me on a 20, 21 show, we still have to go out and make the money to have people donate and sponsor and whatnot.
Like it doesn't forgive all of the needs that 2021 holds I think, and just so many other, you know arts organization , in, museums and galleries and whatnot. There's the PPP money. We're fortunate enough to get round one. And we also got round two and now we're dancing, doing our tap dance for the shuttered venue operating grant.
So we're getting all that together.
Lacey: [00:28:07] I wanted to ask you how you kept in touch with your community, with your patrons and your students. I know you said you went online during the pandemic. What's going on now in terms of keeping in touch with people? How did it feel to have to just way?
Ginger: [00:28:24] Sure. So that immediate switching gears to virtual we were fortunate enough that we had a really large social media presence already. Facebook, Instagram even Twitter that we were proud of and that we always have content and it's always current and we try to make it interactive where we can, so that we had in our back corner.
So that helped switching gears to you, virtual education. And, I wish I had the team here to speak. The amount of prep that it took and the amount of editing and to make sure your connection and your signals are right.
And then you've got, a child who's in your class and his screen is frozen and, or his, he doesn't know how to unmute himself. I It's it's a whole nother world of classroom management that every single educator. I would say, give me a in-person class with, 17 unruly six-year-olds versus doing that on zoom again, did they do a beautiful job?
They did an incredible job. An incredible job. And it was, again, some of the hardest work that I think they've ever been faced with because it was so different. And it was that weird thing of doing something that you're still so passionate about and that you're so familiar with in a typical classroom.
But yet it was so foreign, but once they got their rhythm down, they were an insanely amazing team. I always say it's the children, the students, and the families of this community that have pushed the doors open to Mill Mountain Theater.
That's what I used to say about our story in 2009, guess what folks? They kept the doors open again in 2020, our class numbers did not drop if anything, some increased. We had regular students in Canada. We couldn't do that in, regular classes. We touched about eight different States
that was huge.
We have developed a podcast it's called Meet Me at Mill Mountain, The Podcast. And we just recorded our 20th episode. So that's been another form that it's not only kept us connected. It's given entertainment, content. And again, we've pushed out of not only our walls, but out of our region.
Lacey: [00:30:38] I love that. We pushed out of our walls. That is great.
Ginger: [00:30:43] Thank you. But it's true. We made a touch that we couldn't have done in a normal scenario. And that's just, pushing us, pushing our boundaries and making us, it's almost water, when you put water in too small of a container, it figures out a way to
other big piece of the communication for me has been to be completely transparent. I am transparent to a fault. I will tell you the good, the bad, the ugly, and sometimes I'm not supposed to, and I just can't help it.
I feel that's true transparency in what we were doing at any given time during this journey in the past year. We've just told that story to whoever would listen that, this is where we are now.
This is what we're worried about. This is what we need. This is what our plans are, but don't lock us into that because our plans may change just like we've realized this whole past year. So I think through that it's helped that we haven't dangled any carrot that's not really there. And even going back to the casting and audition process, with the offers that are out, their agreement says all of this work is pending on the approval of the AEA producers worksheet, which is the safety document. , it might be harder to be completely transparent, but I think it's better in the long run to not lead anybody, any missed hope
Lacey: [00:32:07] Yeah, I th I think that's a great attitude. I've heard people well in the industry, my peers, my colleagues, really express a sense of confusion. think a lot of people see a general lack of transparency, not pointing fingers at any particular person
but just feeling confused by a general lack of transparency. I believe there are many important conversations happening at all levels, in all theaters, in New York, in regional theaters and those conversations aren't really being recounted to lots of people who really want to know what's going on.
So I think that, what you said is really great. I want to ask you about the other really big thing that happened in 2020, which is the protests for social justice and the murder of George Floyd and how that affected either you personally, or your theater or both your community. Have you had an opportunity in all of this going on to, think about what that means for you?
Because obviously there's been a lot of conversations, good conversations in the industry about what that means for us. I'd just love to hear your thoughts on that. And I like to preface this by saying we are two white women having this conversation that I'm aware of that and that to our listeners, we want to be allies. And if we are not doing that, please get in touch with me and give me some feedback and let us know.
Ginger: [00:33:30] I so appreciate that Lacey. That day shook us to the core. We literally we stopped what we were doing at the time. We spoke as a staff. out to the board president immediately and we started Thank God for Google docs, because we literally had, there were about, I dunno, five or six of us working on the same document at the same time and on phone calls
We all felt very strongly that we needed a statement that day, so I literally had, from our president of the board to two key members they're such mentors and they're such leaders.
One is Reverend Bill Lee. The other one is NL Bishop. They happen to be two black men that serve on our board. They give so much more than what that, that picture, as far as just being a Mill Mountain board member, these are key people in our community that touch so many different demographics within their own rights.
And they were so honest in how we needed to shape this. They were the ones saying, Ginger, as a white leader, you realize when the statement goes out, you're going to have pushback. You're going to possibly lose some patrons. You might lose some donors. You can use some sponsorships.
Are you prepared for that? And I said, I don't think I'm prepared. But I will get through it. We'll get through this together. And I realized that by doing this, we may lose some support, but it didn't and defer us from moving forward with what we knew was the right thing. And we pushed that out. We pushed it out through our Constant Contact, which is our big email blast. We put it on all of our social media platforms and we also sent out true press release to see if any of the news, needed to pick up or want it to pick up. It was the honest work and the not sidestepping and the listening to others. That it was a really important day. Did we do it perfectly? Maybe not. Did I get push back? Yes. From a few, I know in my core, we did the right thing to the best of our ability and that's something that I recognize as far as day. It was a painful, harsh, brutal, honest reminder of the work that has to be done and is yet to be done. And I feel that, if I look back on, I know, taking it back to. You know us as an organization
diversity and inclusion and equality, it's been written in our strategic plan for the past four years, writing it in a plan. Doesn't give you a pass that anything is happening. So it gave us, like we had to hold that mirror in front of us. And like you said before, like your disclaimer, as far as like our conversation on this is two white women It made us acknowledge and we even have this on our website that we acknowledged that we are a predominantly white organization.
Here is what we are doing. I think where we have knocked it out of the park, as far as representation is in our casting. And we've done that for many, for several years, that we've really proud of what we've done and been able to do with our casting. Where we can grow is to continue the diversity within our staff and our board.
And I'm proud that with COVID there's been a lot of change. I People move away. People need to take another job because they've been furloughed for a while. All of that. So as we start reassembling this. Mill Mountain, I guess it's now what 3.0. Since I've been here that it's given me that opportunity to, and again, I'm a strong advocate of you need the right skillset first, but then you need to look at the big picture too. And whether that's, we're diversifying our pool of directors, but some people of color, we are diversifying our staff with again, which it just it's the right thing to do. And they're amazing. And we want them here and they're just bring so much to the table and the work that our board does.
They're the ones that I don't handle the nominating and recruitment of the board, but we have we do have diversity on our board, which we're very proud of. And we'll just continue to uphold that diversity a big commitment that where I just addressed and talk about, holding the mirror in front of your own face.
I said, we've got in our plan or strategic plan that we will continue the work and the education and training of our staff in, DEI initiatives is it's been on our plan for three years. We haven't done anything. It is on our plan. It's a plan, but we haven't done anything to put in an action. So we had the opportunity to this was an incredible opportunity and I hope they do this again, but it's actually like a 14 hour course that the University of South Florida and the Mumo College of Business put on it's it's diversity inclusion and equality in the workplace. So what we did was we signed up every single staff member, including the staff members that weren't even back on staff yet because their comeback date was actually today. This is just the first step that Mill Mountain Theater is doing as an organization. But we, as a staff are taking this course and the investment that Mill Mountain Theater is doing is we're paying our employees.
They're not doing it on their weekends, on their free time or whatever. So we are invested in our staff and so invested that we've even included those that aren't even back with us yet.
They're going through the same training. And again, this is step one as a whole that will continue. here.
Lacey: [00:39:30] What I heard was first of all, how important the makeup of your board is, and that's something that is a theme at every regional theater. And I, again, I, some of the intent of this podcast is to educate people who might not understand exactly how a regional theater operates and all of the complexities, that a nonprofit institution has. And so I really heard you talking about the importance of having your board reflect BIPOC members of your community and acknowledging that, as goes the board.
So it goes the theater in a way, a bad board it very difficult to run a good theater. So I really appreciated you pointing that out.
Ginger: [00:40:10] I'm like, I'm reliving, just hearing the words of, again, going back to NL, Bishop, who said, Ginger, we've done this and it's, we've all signed off on it. This was just a one-on-one that I had with him. And again, this is a man that I adore and respect tremendously, and he was a teenage boy, during the first big Civil rights movement in the sixties.
And so he knew what the risk were. And I remember him saying to me, Ginger, we've done this work. This project has done. We've given it our blessing. We're ready for you to put it out there, but I want you to understand, I support this 110%. You Ginger are doing the right thing. But is Ginger, the producer are ready for what ripple effects this might have.
And I remember I just sat, I just sat there on the phone and he said, if you are not, I'm ready, I will support you as a board member to say, Ginger has pulled this and we're going to rethink it. He said, but if you put it out there, I'm also going to support you 110% and say, Ginger, put this out there for us.
And I think it wasn't until that moment that it was such a heartfelt protective moment that he was truly giving me a pass if I needed it. And knowing that he would have supported either decision that I made he's that type of human, but I just remember really hearing his words on there's a risk to this, and it's not just, you check a box and then you get the yay and they'll not did the right thing today.
Lacey: [00:41:46] I obviously don't want people to just put out a statement and say they did everything they were supposed to do. But I also think that sometimes people forget that, in, in these communities all around the country, even making a statement can have consequences, negative consequences.
It's hard to, I think, remember that sometimes because in the theater industry, we all generally have had the same reaction of horror and we want to do whatever we can, that doesn't mean that everyone out in your community feels that way.
And so when you take that stand, you are making a statement. What do you hope the future holds and how do you think we can get there? And you can take that in any way you want.
Ginger: [00:42:25] will say in the past two to three weeks, I personally am more hopeful than I've been in the past year. correlation with whether it's the news, or even my own personal social media feed to see every single morning, all of the different, my first ouchie from Fauchi or I got my second shot or I've gotten my, all of this reassurance daily that the vaccination process is happening.
I'll say that as of let's see, it was March 15th, Mill Mountain Theater is a 100% vaccinated organization. and we very proud of that, including those that aren't quite back with us. I included them in all of the getting appointments. I was obsessed with getting people appointments to the point where it was like, Did you text me at 11 o'clock last night?
Yeah, because there was an appointment at CVS. Did you get it? Yeah, I got it. Thanks for the texts. Maybe I was a rabid, crazy woman trying to get everybody. I think that's a big step for just the comfort level and the trust level when we do open our doors back to our community, we can say, this is who we are, and this is how we respect this.
This is what I can say to Equity. Look, I've gotten a completely 100% vaccinated staff, creative team and cast and crew, please pass this. Please let us do our show. I think it's it all adds together, but that's like the past three weeks, I felt more hope and positivity as far as not just, personally, but just seeing the big picture and the ripple effect across the country.
That I'm hopeful that, as the President said by the end of May, we're going to hit a certain level of vaccination that's going to change the face of how, where it doesn't give anybody a free pass. I want to make sure everybody understands that again, your vaccine doesn't mean you can just run around like a crazy person, but it does give you that sense of confidence and a little bit of security that things are changing.
So that gives me hope. I think the work that our industry has done during the past year has been tremendous. Whether they are huge box office successes or not, the work has continued. The work has not stopped. That's a given, and I think that needs to be recognized and applauded, and that we are a part of the change in our industry.
That's not going to go away. I can't wait to have people back in our house and hear, see, feel people and the interaction and all that. I cannot wait, but I don't think that virtual experience is ever going to go away completely. We've opened doors to accessibility and a way to do things differently that's just now part of our makeup.
I don't think we turn our heads to it. Once the doors reopen
Lacey: [00:45:18] Yeah, I totally agree. I think there are so many benefits for, especially for certain groups of people to have access in ways that we did not give access before.
Yeah, that is, a silver lining. I don't know. It's hard for me to say silver lining in conjunction with COVID it, but there is something beautiful about theater reaching more people.
Ginger: [00:45:44] Even what you're doing now, I this is a, it's a, it's an entertainment piece. It's an educational piece. It's it's content that is relevant in the world that we live in now. And I think that's a new forever piece. I don't think podcasts are going away
Lacey: [00:45:57] Nope. And as you said, I definitely would not have had the time or even have thought about doing something like this pre COVID. although I've always been fascinated by regional theaters and have a love affair with, the whole concept and how they affect the communities that they're in and the non-profit model, which has just, it has so many wonderful and terrible things about it. So that's, that was the Genesis for this, but it is nice to have the opportunity to actually do it. And it's so great when people like you agree to come and talk to me and tell me
Ginger: [00:46:25] Any
anytime in Lacey, like I think there's I want more with you. So we need to have podcasts
catch up and
Lacey: [00:46:31] coffee,
zoom wine. I could use any wine, same wine, definitely. Or like a zoom whiskey. I'm a, I'm a fan of the whiskey. So maybe the zoom whiskey.
Ginger: [00:46:47] I love it,
Lacey: [00:46:47] so thank you so much Ginger. It has been a pleasure. I cannot tell you.
Ginger: [00:46:51] Thank you so much, Lacey. And if anybody's interested, please check out and follow us on our social media and you can find out everything that no mountains doing@millmountain.org.
Lacey: [00:47:01] Yes. Thank you. And I will put that in the show notes.
