How to be a Theatre Maker with Tracy Liz Miller

Tracy Liz Miller Show Notes

“You’ve gotta try it.  You can’t say that you can’t do it because you’ve never done it before.” –Tracy Liz Miller

Tracy Liz Miller joins the show from New York.  What is a theatre maker? Well, take a look at this bio, listen to this episode, and you shall see!  Bio:  Co-Founding Producing Director The Bridge Initiative: Women in Theatre, www.bridgeinit.org.  Former Director of Theatre Arts at Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Chandler, Arizona. Co-Founding Producing Artistic Director of Pawling Theatre Exchange, www.pawlingtheatreexchange.org.  Co-Chair for the Statera Arts Conference IV that was held in New York City this October, 2019. www.stateraarts.org

Actor, Director, Producer, Teacher, Partner & Mother: you can learn more from Tracy at her website, www.tracylizmiller.com

Tracy discusses so many topics, including: 

·         How to balance family and career dreams

·         Expectations of hitting milestones and their aftermath

·         The competitive mentality that a lot of artists get tunneled into

·         How to know if you want to pursue the industry professionally

·         How to know if you want to go to college for theatre

·         Branching out from musicals to classical work

·         Internships that expanded horizons: Warehouse Theater, SC & Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, TN

·         What housing can be like at theatre companies and big cities for your theater gigs

·         How to push against (or let go of) the expectations of a linear life timeline for buying a house, having a career, personal milestones, and more

·         How to decide on whether or not to get more training in grad school

·         What makes a repertory theatre so valuable

·         What to ask yourself when you want to do this for the long term

·         What the Alabama Shakespeare graduate program is like

·         How to juggle career interests when processing a loved one’s loss (and Tracy’s openness in this section is heartbreakingly real)

·         How to channel self-doubt

·         How to help oneself translate the “no” from others into self-producing and taking positive action

·         Women’s Project Theater (WP Theater) www.wptheater.org 

·         How having courage to make a shift changed her life

·         Statera Arts www.stateraarts.org

·         How she started to produce work in New York City

·         How she became a “disrupter” in Phoenix, Arizona

·         Martha Richards and SWAN day www.womenarts.org

·         Her partnership with Brenda Jean Foley to create The Bridge Initiative: Women in Theater https://www.bridgeinit.org/

·         How she changed to asking herself, “How can I be of service?” and helped people, became head of a community college program, and o

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