The participating members for February's 24-Hour Theatre project have been finalized. Now I get to wonder and worry about teams. Read my first post about teams here.
First, a summary of returning teams. Team Williams was completely decimated. One of their members was returning, but discovered a schedule conflict. That eliminates team Williams.
Team Wilde lost two members. However, three seasoned members will be returning.
Team Miller (my team) fared the best and will be returning with a single team member missing.
I mean no slight to the rest of the participants when I say that I would love to keep my same team with a single new member to replace our missing friend. It could be any of the new participants, I've worked with most of them. In fact, I invited several to participate in a collaborative project with me. They're creative, hard working, and talented performers.
So why don't I want to get mixed into the masses and get a new team?
Familiarity. My existing team has worked with each other before. We know what to expect. There's a good understanding of our capabilities. I believe that we could get started moving much faster. Our time together would be more efficient. We would know what roles we needed to fulfill in the group.
Plus, they are more likely to put up with me when I endlessly rewrite our scene.
That aside, I find it appealing to keep the teams as standing entities. It would always be Miller, Wilde, and Williams. Returning cast members would be automatically sorted onto their previous teams. New cast would fill in missing spots and then become part of that team. As available team members increased the production company would have to take care not to invite more than five members from each group.
Eventually you might have teams that are independent entities taking charge of submitting cast rosters to the project (subject to approval by the sponsoring production company). It would even increase available resources for the 5-person team during the project. It would give them a pool of colleagues to utilize for costumes, props, and possibly even scenery. Then you could really up the ante and have some fun. Team captain and team trades. One member gains bargaining power to remove members to other teams. Can you imagine the drama that could be created both on stage and off! It would be magnificent.
Okay, not really a great idea, especially since one team this time would be made entirely of new members. However, that's the same place the rest of us were in last September.
Either way, I am super excited with the cast list. I'm looking forward to working with people from my former team, previous members from the other team, and the new members. We're probably going to draw names again and randomly get placed on teams. I like my odds, because I know that together this groups is going to create a magical experience.
