Running and Producing

The festival block ended last week, and finally I can get around to publishing this newsletter. Just prior to festival, Eugene, the artistic director, told me he’d been thinking that an ultra-marathon runner is a great set of skills to have in a production manager too. It sounds crazy at first, but the more I thought about, the more I realised he was right, for three main reasons: fatigue management, problem solving, and resilience.

Both ultrarunning and festivals are a game of fatigue management. We are often run off our feet, working long hours, and don’t have a lot of time or energy to eat and drink. I actually did think about energy gels as a way to stay energised throughout festival (but I erred on the side of not doing this). It becomes a question of when to sit back and when to surge forward – not every event needs my full attention, so when can I have an easy moment so that I might have energy for a problematic show later?

Both ultrarunning and festivals require problem solving. In festival, this looks like solving issues the artists have with a venue or equipment. In ultrarunning, this looks like managing physical pains, nutrition, and pacing plans. Things often go wrong, and in both disciplines being able to adapt quickly and invent a new plan is the difference between floundering and being successful.

Finally, both ultrarunning and festivals need a huge amount of resilience. Hour after hour many little things go wrong and it takes strong mental energy to keep moving forward and not let the little things get to you. The fatigue eventually gets to everyone, but it’s a matter of staying positive despite feeling like everything is falling apart. And of course – eventually you reach the finish line, against all odds, with a huge smile on your face. It’s a huge accomplishment, and one that you only pulled off because you were strong enough to keep going.

Current Project Progress

No real progress on the thesis this month, I’m afraid. But the goal is to progress the compositions to around 75% by the end of the month.

PhD thesis: 40%

Composition Portfolio: 45%

Question of the Week

This week’s question is: “How do you recover after a really intense project or event?”

A timely question, given I have spent the past week relaxing after festival. Normally I spend a lot of time on the couch, watching TV, playing games, and reading. I think a lot of people fall into the trap of doom-scrolling, which is not great. It’s better, I find, to engage with art in some way, and things which make you put in some effort (reading and games) are better for this. I normally also clean and get my admin sorted, so that I’m ready to launch back into my next thing. Finally, I eat – a lot!