Last week we recorded and edited the last short story for the new audio collection “Wayside Cross” – one year after we recorded the first voice for the project. We now have to add the final effects, record the music, and mix. The covers and inserts will be completed and then the master will go to the manufacturing house. If everything goes well with that and their shipping department gets it back to us okay, we will be done. It will be time for the release party and time to forget about how we got it done. Time to welcome the amnesia.

What famous writer said he hated writing, but loved having written? Producing is like that.

There is a line that is repeated in the movie “Shakespeare In Love.” The stage manager/producer is being threatened by his creditors. He assures them he will have the money to pay them when the show goes on stage. But the thugs know that the playwright is missing and the actors have no script. The stage manager says, the show will open as planned. When they ask him, how? He says, I don’t know.

It’s not that producing or directing a performance that involves actors and technicians is especially courageous. It’s not warrior time in a warrior culture. It’s foolhardy. And if you do it right, it will take all you can give to get it done.

If you are trying to do something new for yourself and for everyone involved, then you will be hanging yourself over some edge and everyone will be experiencing the free fall that comes from embracing new material in a new way. Take that challenge and add in the normal schedule, technical, and financial problems of any performance work and you have the real thing: anxiety and confusion and doubt and frustration. And it all has to somehow serve the performance. It’s a strange and magical stumbling.

I once did a series of short performances for Maine Public Radio for broadcast during the Friday news show. We recorded two stories at a time. One night the actors and I struggled to get one three minute sequence done. Take after take, we couldn’t get it right. Finally, with some editing and some luck, we were able to patch together a take that worked. Then we did a second story and we did it right the first time in one take. After the engineer shut off the recorder, we all looked at each other in shock, then clapped like kids. Sometimes that happens.

So the first thing I try to remember about production is that sometimes it works easily and sometimes it doesn’t. This project was all about schedule problems. We recorded 24 pieces. We ended up with 18 and cut that to 16. We lost week after week due to cancellations and time conflicts. The most recent example: my graphics and web director is moving out of state so I will be doing the final covers and inserts as he is moving.

The second thing I have to remember is that the production itself is not the final work. You strive for a high quality production values, but once you bring the final 140 minutes of 16 voices and effects and music together, the complete work makes its own demands.

I am fortunate to be working with a great experienced team. We are working to do something new with the audio literary experience. We don’t want listeners to be amazed at the acting or the writing or the music or the production. We want that to be invisible. We want the stories to ambush the heart, not stick in the ears. We want willing listeners to be surprised and moved by the desires of people in a world as real as can be imagined.

This project has been a tough one and it’s not over. It will get done. How? God only knows.