Image: a photo of Rosemary, a white woman with shoulder-length auburn hair, well-lit, sitting in a darkened room. She wears a headset and glasses, and rests her face on her right arm that has a watch on it. In the bottom right are white pages in a purple binder.
We’re excited to introduce the newest member of our staff, Production Manager Rosemary Lisa Jones. Rosemary joined our staff a few weeks ago and is working on our upcoming stream of ASL Midsummer Night’s Dream. Our interview questions are in bold text and Rosemary’s responses are in plain text.
Tell me about yourself.
I’m Rosemary Lisa Jones, I’m a queer white woman with a passion for theatre and games.
How did you get involved in stage management?
Totally by accident! I very dramatically quit theatre after high school and went to UW for Political Science and Philosophy. I made it like 3 months before I was totally desperate to do some theatre. I went to the Production Manager at UW’s School of Drama and asked how to get involved in a show. She was basically like, “Congratulations! You’re the stage manager for the next show.” And so I was! It was pretty intense, but I found out I liked it a lot, and I was pretty good at it, and it’s all history from there.
Can you tell me one of your most rewarding experiences in theatre?
Probably stage managing Three Sisters at UW, directed by Jeffrey Fracé. The show was just really big and really weird and abstract in a lot of ways and I was in way over my head – but I really excelled in ways I didn’t expect. During the tech process of that, it was a big like, “Oh, this is real! I’m really doing this!” kind of moment.
What do you do outside of theatre?
I’m really into games of all kinds. I play video games and stream them on Twitch, I DM and play tabletop roleplaying games, and I’m just constantly playing something. I almost always have my Nintendo Switch on me. I spend as much time as I can with my girlfriend, and we try to get outdoors whenever we can – hiking and taking walks and finding little adventures to have.
What makes you passionate about theatre?
It’s the collaboration and limitation of it. Theatre naturally happens on a time limit, with finite resources and a team full of artists of all kinds. This makes a fantastic little explosion of ideas that push at the boundaries and fill up every inch of the space they’re given – like a high pressure gas. I’ve never worked on a show that the team wished they had a little more time for, a little more budget, a little more leeway. It’s perfect; I don’t ever want to be satisfied with what I’ve done.
What’s a personal/professional accomplishment that you are most proud of?
Is it fair to say my whole career so far? It really feels like I was launched out of a cannon – a few years ago I bumbled my way into stage managing and since then I’ve gotten to know a huge community of artists in Seattle and really develop a lot of awesome artistic and professional relationships. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m proud of how at-home I feel in the Seattle theatre scene.
What’s something cool about yourself that people might not know?
My big party trick is that I can juggle. I’m also pretty good on a longboard, you might catch me zooming around town sometimes.
We are proud to offer on-demand digital streaming of Sound Theatre Company’s acclaimed ASL-spoken English bilingual production of ASL Midsummer Night’s Dream. Available August 14. Tickets are on sale now.