By Andrew Orsie

Step 1: Have the Dream

Creating your own work. It’s something everyone talks about. It’s such a freeing, exciting notion. Full control, making something that is exactly what you want it to be and is entirely yours. A New York City show producer. Sounds great, yeah?

Step 2: Face the Crushing Weight of Reality as it Bears Down on your Chest

Then you start actually seeing it as a set of logistics, and realize, oh, you have to fund it. You have to create marketing materials. Get people to show up. Cast the show. Write the show. Book a venue. Answer the emails of “Are there big names in your show?” with a polite, “Well, if by big names you mean long names one of the cast has a thirteen letter last name soooo…”

Step 3: Sit in the corner of your sofa, in the fetal position, gripping your knees to your chest, probably sobbing with snot and everything

SO INSPIRING.

Step 4: Get a Tissue/Get Back to the Joy of the Idea

It’s daunting. Over the past year I had some rough experiences doing work by other people and it took me into some dark places that made me think I might leave behind my creative pursuits forever. But I didn’t want to abandon them quite yet, I was determined to do something for myself that I could feel proud of.

Step 5: Brainstorming (a.k.a. Actually Start)

I started brainstorming concepts, themes, motifs. Initially I thought I would just throw a simple solo cabaret together. It seemed easier, it’d definitely feature me to the audience, and singing is a comfort zone for me as I’ve been doing it since birth. But the more I toyed with those ideas, the more I found I was still uninspired. They weren’t bad ideas. I certainly could have used them to make lovely shows. But they wouldn’t really be fully showing me. More and more I realized that’s what I wanted to do.

Step 6: Self-Doubt That Puts You Back on the Couch (But Maybe With Less Snot This Time?)

So I asked myself to make a list of the talents I had that stood out, qualities of mine that could be called unique. And I had none. So I cried again for another month. You’ll notice self-doubt is a major theme here (spoiler: still hasn’t gone away).

Step 7: Identify “the Thing”

Then one day, you realize you’ve got a Thing. I bet you have one, probably one you don’t even think about. Maybe it’s something you do every night at home. Maybe, like me, it’s an acapella group you direct every Wednesday night. And the realization dawns on you: not everyone does that Thing. And maybe you’ve got a couple Other Things, you can combine them and suddenly this show is plausible! This is the first wave of excitement.

Step 8: The First Wave of Excitement

You start furiously jotting down ideas, picking out songs or scenes, sketching ideas for how to market this Thing. It’s thrilling. If you’re lucky, that adrenaline rush carries you through a week or two at the start.

Step 9: Tell People – DEAR GOD DO THIS ONE IF NOTHING ELSE

This was where I took my most important step. I told people about my idea. I made myself accountable, because far be it from me to self-motivate even once in my life. I can’t even get out of bed to make waffles in the morning, and that’s a low effort/high reward situation if I’ve ever heard of one! But if I’ve said it to other people? Well now I have no choice, better start shopping venues, this show’s GOING UP.

Step 10: Ride the Roller Coaster

The roller coaster high at the start inevitably plunges. You feel overwhelmed, you probably cry again (if you have any moisture left in your body after sweating through the New York summer). This cycle continues for most of the process. Up, and you do tons of work and have so much vigor for the project. Then down, where, without fail, you tell yourself it’s terrible and no one will like it and you’re paralyzed. You have to hold faith in those down sections that the ride’s got to head back up sometime. Even if only for a day, it will come again.

Step 11: Watch It Happen

It’s a tumultuous process. But when you’re in the up times, when you’re really doing The Thing, you will shock yourself. I know I did. I never thought I’d be able to put all of this together. Every new obstacle felt daunting, and I had no clue how to approach it. Yet one foot at a time, I figured out how to climb every one. And each foothold, each new idea I poured into the show was so very me, was so purely from me and me alone, that I was stunned, and moved, and proud. To watch a cast of close friends working with me to put something together that was actually mine; it’s almost indescribable. You know that feeling when you’re late and you run to catch a subway train on the god forsaken MTA and you sneak in juuuuust as the doors close? It’s that feeling times ten thousand.

Step 12: Put the Show Up Because PEOPLE SHOULD SEE HOW COOL YOU ARE

Now my show is going up in less than one week. I’m still terrified about it. But I’m also thrilled and cannot wait to show my work to people. I conquered my way through the fear, even used it if necessary, with the help of the most supportive friends and cast and family I could have asked for. FIVE DAYS from now, I’ll be able to call myself a show producer. In freaking New York City. Hopefully people come, and laugh, and leave having enjoyed themselves. But I know no matter whether or not they do, they’ll have seen my personal work. Little old me, who could certainly never put a show together, right, voices-in-the-back-of-my-head? I could hardly ask for more.

Thanks so much to my talented, hilarious friend Andrew for sharing his experience! Andrew’s show, that he mother fu—-ing created and produced (SO PROUD) is called Game of Tones:

Having much more in common with Whose Line Is It Anyway than Game of Thrones, join your Drew Carey for the evening, Andrew Orsie and four other brave singers, Alec Lee, Elliott Litherland, Kate Hoover, and Leah Dubbin-Steckel, as we navigate a series of songs with very specific subsets of rules. Can we change a song’s lyrics at random? What happens if we all have to suddenly do impressions? Can an audience member’s participation throw the entire thing off? You’ll have to find out in this night of game show tomfoolery and luscious harmonies. 

For more deets and to buy tickets to Game of Tones on September 29th at 6:30PM at The Duplex, click HERE. Having been on stage with Andrew many times, I can confidently say he is my favorite kind of Off-Off Broadway triple threat: charm, talent, and authenticity. This show is going to be a delight. Don’t miss it!