It's been a while since I last wrote a blog because, well, I've been busy. I'm producing a show for The Adelaide Fringe and doing this producing work is the first arts related work I have done since the last Adelaide Fringe. It will be my 10th Adelaide Fringe in a row and for some reason this time I am super intimidated and stressed out by the whole thing. It's like, I can't remember how to do the thing I've been successfully doing for the last decade. I've lost touch with the version of myself who is an accomplished producer because 2020 has forced me to be completely consumed by the version of myself who is a stay at home Mum to a 1yr old.
So, I've decided to try to take what I have learned from motherhood and apply it to my work as a producer. Realistically they're not that different. It's a lot of working out where people need to be and when, delegating very little for fear that nobody else can do it as well as you can and ultimately caring way too much about how it turns out in the end. The hypothetical future of your "baby" is by far the thing that you fret about the most, but here's the thing that I have discovered: stress about the prospect of being stressed is just double the amount of stress.
Think about it; the baby is awake all night and I'm thinking "tomorrow is going to be awful because we'll be so tired!" The actual being awake in the middle of the night is not stressful, it's the prospect of being stressed the next day that's stressful. But I can't possibly know how the next day is going to go until I get there. Maybe it will be stressful and maybe it wont be, but if it is, and I've spent the whole night being stressed about that prospect, then I've just been stressed twice when I could have only been stressed once.
It's the same with producing a show. Maybe it will go gangbusters and be a huge hit and everyone will love it. But maybe my performers will all drop out, and I'll be on at the same time as whatever the "must see" show turns out to be, or nobody will want to come because they're worried about COVID or there will be another outbreak, or I'll get a cold and I won't be able to be there in person, or an asteroid will hit the earth. I can't possibly know how it's going to work out until I get there, but I do know that if I get stressed about it now, then I'm wasting time stressing about the prospect of being stressed.
Maybe I'm doomed, but right now I've got a cup of tea, and 10mins to myself to write a blog, so I'd chalk this particular moment in time up as a win.
