Make This Theatre Director’s Trick Your Go-To Life Rule

Let’s talk about a simple go-to life rule…

Did you know where you sit can help you solve problems?

Have you ever directed a play? I sure haven’t. I haven’t even been in one except for that role as Charlie Brown a very, very long time ago. But have you ever thought about what goes on to get a show into a theatre?

No, me either…  but I do know opening nights don’t just magically happen. A few days ago, I read an interesting story from Michael Roderick. He’s a former producer and ideas guy of sorts. 

Mike publishes a daily email newsletter where he brings a different perspective or way of thinking about an array of topics ranging from relationship building to messaging, and business in general.

So back to the theater…

Did you know the director, cast, and crew in a major production have less than a week to figure out how to make the show work in the actual theater where they’re going to perform? To me, that sounds like a recipe for problems.

I don’t know about you, but I would have thought they had the theater from the get-go. According to Michael, it can be a few days, or sometimes only hours. It makes sense though, high-dollar New York theater venues need to be producing income, not rehearsals.

But how do they pull it off?

How do they know what needs to be tweaked from what must be completely overhauled? It turns out there’s an old director’s trick they use.

Here goes… the trick is…

“Watching from different seats in the house.”

Exactly… simply watching the walk-through and rehearsals from different seats in the house! Who knew? That’s ingenious when you think about it. Thanks for sharing that Michael!

The interesting thing about working on a visual art form like theatre is that the story can actually change quite a bit depending on what angle you view it from.”

—Michael Roderick, former Off and on Broadway producer

And this is where the life rule comes in.

After reading Michael’s story, I immediately thought of several other ways that the same idea can make a lot of the craziness we deal with every day a whole lot easier to, you know… deal with. 

Simply watching from different ‘seats’—angles, perspectives, roles, that is—allows the story to morph and become clearer.

‘Watch from different seats’ could be a very useful life rule.

We know we tend to become myopic in our point of view. Over time, our perspective becomes fixed and more narrowly focused. We rarely see what’s happening in the margins.

We humans develop habits we aren’t even aware of most of the time. And our own worldview is no different. The way we look at the world around us simply becomes a habit.

What if we tried looking at problems we face from a different angle? At work, we might change our view by asking customers, coworkers, or employees what a situation looks like from where they sit.

Suddenly sticky problems become much easier to solve.

The opportunity to watch from different seats isn’t limited to producing a play or solving problems at work. The interesting thing about most anything in life is that the story can actually change quite a bit depending on the vantage point from where you watch.

Every angle, each individual perspective, and all the different seats in the house result in their unique point of view.

So now you know more than you ever wanted about producing a Broadway production.

I wonder if it could help us in that play called life? Why not? We’re acting in it every day.

What do you think? It just might. Maybe give it a try sometime and see how it works.

Here’s to getting your best curtain call.

Be untucked.

p.s. Thanks for dropping by LifeUntucked®. If you found this post helpful, think about sharing it with a friend…

p.s.s If you like this post, try this one… Life is a Series of Trade-offs… Pure and Simple

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