#NerdsUnite: Big lights, big city, and a journey into confidence

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Jordan. He's a youngin living in the great big apple in the hopes of becoming his dream, a theater director. Will he make it? Won't he? What problems and struggles will he deal with along the way. I have no idea ... so that's why he's here. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT JORDAN!!! </editorsnote> 

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's Jordan Friedman

This is becoming a very exciting time for me right now in my project. I’m just about to start rehearsing the actual show itself next week. It’s weird for me in a sense thinking of this project in its early stages right around two months ago, and now to see much of this process actually begin and unfold in front of me. There’s still a lot of work to do, I’m working on some more script analysis and having a few meetings. Then I think a lot of my time, and these blogs will focus on the rehearsal process from the start of next week until show time.  I’ve done a lot of talking back and forth to different sorts of people, including another meeting with designers coming up as well as discussing with one of my friends who possibly could help me with graphic design work (This is very important to me since a three year old could probably make a better poster than me).  I’m also mentally sort of getting myself in a rehearsal-ready mind frame and thinking of how I can best use the information I have about the script. It’s been a lot on my mind, but I think I’m doing the best I can with it to make this show work and not overwhelm myself at the same time.   

Over two months into the process, this has been very interesting for me doing independent work. Up until now I’ve been primarily working for other companies who want me to work on shows that best fit the needs of their company or their target audience. While this was beneficial to some degree, I had concerns of falling into a certain niche as a theatre artist. I consider myself someone who likes to do a variety of work as a theatre director, and I want to be able to branch into work that I felt as if I was separating myself from doing in the work I did prior. It’s an atmosphere that I’m actually slowly getting used to, as I’ve done work at least somewhat supervised going back to college work being guided by curriculums and professors. It’s not as if such supervision was entirely bad, in fact a lot of positives came out of it and my core directing and theatre skills came out of it. However, being in the real world is a different feeling. You’re not doing work for a grade or because you’re directly being told to. If you’re a director in the real world, you want to do this for more than just one course. That sort of overall though is what I’ve incorporated into my M.O of working independently at least for one show. Will I return to working for other companies? Absolutely. I’m young enough in that I’m able to take in a lot of information from many different people. But what I’m doing now is seeking something I feel is probably intangible and something one best learns on their own, which is leadership techniques, and the idea of building something from the ground up.  It’s an experience I’m very glad I’m doing, and something I know I’ll carry with me for the rest of my professional career. I’ll leave you all on that note, I have a lot of work to do.

Until next time.

Nerd responsibly.

-Jordan

#nerdsunite

Follw him on Twitter at @jordanbfriedman!

A Director Blogs:  adirectorblogs.blogspot.com