draft email to Laramie team

[Elena Sokoloski]

Hi Eli (and team),

I'm reaching out in my capacity as a co-producer of Yeomen to clarify some of the recent communications issues we've had, as well as to make sure that Mike is going to have a manageable, clear schedule going into the weekend. I do understand that you're allowing Mike to make decisions about where he needs to be and when, but I don't think that makes any of these points moot. We just want to clarify what happened, how to communicate going forward, and how to make this most comfortable for Mike.

Abbie has kept us in the loop as she's tried to come up with solutions for Mike's double-booking this Saturday, and to be honest, the emails that I've seen have felt pretty hostile: I'm sure you didn't mean them that way, but I think that it's making communication a little difficult. We were surprised by Laramie's inflexibility regarding half an hour of call: As a director myself I understand the importance of half an hour in a full rehearsal, but we're also in production at the moment, and at least when I'm working with actors' schedules, calls for their shows always outweigh calls for my rehearsals.

We also understand that you're in touch with each other, and Juliet, we want to make clear that Abbie reached out to Eli with the support of the producers. It wasn't an attempt to circumvent you in any way, we just felt that that conversation was getting hostile and unproductive, and wanted to reach out on a personal level to Eli. We fully expected him to communicate with the rest of your team, we just didn't want to keep escalating tension without finding a productive solution by continuing to correspond in a way that didn't seem to be effective.

I also wish to clarify that we have confirmed that at no point was Yeomen call anything but two hours before the show: I understand if Mike gave you a placeholder of 1.5 hours, but he's known at least since spring break that call for shows would be 2 hours prior, non-negotiable no matter how long getting into makeup takes. I'm sorry that this wasn't communicated to you; I understand that, if honored, it would mess up the scheduling of your rehearsal.

 It's also confusing because on our end, Mike said he wasn't sure of the exact hours of his Laramie call until Wednesday, after we clarified Yeomen call at 3pm. As both the show in production at the moment and the show that had scheduled our call time first, I think we expected a little more willingness from Laramie to discuss the 3pm call time: Of course, we were very willing to negotiate this, it was just another factor in our confusion at the very inflexible position it felt Laramie was taking regarding Mike's 1-4:30pm call.

Please recognize, though, that this miscommunication was not the responsibility of either production team, and that ultimately, it isn't a huge deal. Actors are busy, they have a million call times floating around, this is extracurricular college theater, so let's give each other the benefit of the doubt and work to find a productive solution.

Moving forward, we want to make sure that Mike can be where he needs to be this Saturday. We're sending him an email soon to clarify what our production feels we need (the standard 4pm call), and to ask him what he feels like he needs to do for Laramie. I'm happy to cc you on that. Ultimately, we just want to come up with a concrete plan of when Mike will leave Laramie to come to Yeomen so that he isn't caught between stressed directors/SMs. 

Finally, out of respect for both production staffs, I feel that we need to find a more respectful way to communicate. The tone of the emails we've been receiving has caused a lot of unnecessary stress on our end, and though I'm sure that was unintentional, I think it has escalated this more than it needed to. If communication between Abbie and Eli or between Eli and Yeomen producers would be more cordial and productive, could we agree to do that instead? Again, I mean this with the best of intentions - I know that sometimes it's hard to de-escalate, we just want to make sure we have a productive and communicative relationship as we move into a busy weekend.

Thank you for reading through such a long email, and thank you for assuming best intentions of the Yeomen team in sending it! We respect you all immensely, and we just want to come up with a solution that works for everyone.

Best,

the Yeomen senior staff

[Abigail Sage]

Overall, great (and again huge thank you, wow). A couple of minor things:

I would address the email to “Laramie team” rather than primarily Eli — all of the hostile things came from Juliet, and Eli was super cordial/nice and generally cooperative (as I would have expected him to be given the fact that I know him better). I want to make really clear that we appreciate Eli’s cordiality (while of course not making it sound like we’re railing against Juliet’s tone, which is a rough line to toe but I 100% trust you there). 

I would also make clear that a 2h call is the HRGSP standard, even if it isn’t that of the HRDC, so it wasn’t a specially changed call time — he was just under an incorrect impression of what HRGSP calls looked like, which we apologize for. 

Other than that, this is beautifully worded and wonderful. Thanks again!

[Elena Sokoloski]

With Abbie's edits (thanks, Abbie!):

Hi, Laramie team!

I'm reaching out in my capacity as a co-producer of Yeomen to clarify some of the recent communications issues we've had, as well as to make sure that Mike is going to have a manageable, clear schedule going into the weekend. I do understand that you're allowing Mike to make decisions about where he needs to be and when, but I don't think that makes any of these points moot. We just want to clarify what happened, how to communicate going forward, and how to make this most comfortable for Mike.

Abbie has kept us in the loop as she's tried to come up with solutions for Mike's double-booking this Saturday, and to be honest, the emails that I've seen have felt pretty hostile: I'm sure you didn't mean them that way, but I think that it's making communication a little difficult. We were surprised by Laramie's inflexibility regarding half an hour of call: As a director myself I understand the importance of half an hour in a full rehearsal, but we're also in production at the moment, and at least when I'm working with actors' schedules, calls for their shows always outweigh calls for my rehearsals.

We also understand that you're in touch with each other, and Juliet, we want to make clear that Abbie reached out to Eli with the support of the producers. It wasn't an attempt to circumvent you in any way, we just felt that that conversation was getting hostile and unproductive, and wanted to reach out on a personal level to Eli. We fully expected him to communicate with the rest of your team, we just didn't want to keep escalating tension without finding a productive solution by continuing to correspond in a way that didn't seem to be effective.

I also wish to clarify that we have confirmed that at no point was Yeomen call anything but two hours before the show: I understand if Mike gave you a placeholder of 1.5 hours, but he's known at least since spring break that call for shows would be 2 hours prior, non-negotiable no matter how long getting into makeup takes. This is standard HRG&SP call, even if it isn't standard for HRDC. I'm sorry that this wasn't communicated to you; I understand that, if honored, it would mess up the scheduling of your rehearsal.

 It's also confusing because on our end, Mike said he wasn't sure of the exact hours of his Laramie call until Wednesday, after we clarified Yeomen call at 3pm. As both the show in production at the moment and the show that had scheduled our call time first, I think we expected a little more willingness from Laramie to discuss the 3pm call time: Of course, we were very willing to negotiate this, it was just another factor in our confusion at the very inflexible position it felt Laramie was taking regarding Mike's 1-4:30pm call.

Please recognize, though, that this miscommunication was not the responsibility of either production team, and that ultimately, it isn't a huge deal. Actors are busy, they have a million call times floating around, this is extracurricular college theater, so let's give each other the benefit of the doubt and work to find a productive solution.

Moving forward, we want to make sure that Mike can be where he needs to be this Saturday. We're sending him an email soon to clarify what our production feels we need (the standard 4pm call), and to ask him what he feels like he needs to do for Laramie. I'm happy to cc you on that. Ultimately, we just want to come up with a concrete plan of when Mike will leave Laramie to come to Yeomen so that he isn't caught between stressed directors/SMs. 

Finally, out of respect for both production staffs, I feel that we need to find a more respectful way to communicate. The tone of the emails we've been receiving has caused a lot of unnecessary stress on our end, and though I'm sure that was unintentional, I think it has escalated this more than it needed to. If communication between Abbie and Eli or between Eli and Yeomen producers would be more cordial and productive, could we agree to do that instead? Again, I mean this with the best of intentions - I know that sometimes it's hard to de-escalate, we just want to make sure we have a productive and communicative relationship as we move into a busy weekend.

Thank you for reading through such a long email, and thank you for assuming best intentions of the Yeomen team in sending it! We respect you all immensely, and we just want to come up with a solution that works for everyone.

Best,

the Yeomen senior staff

On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 2:54 PM, Abigail Sage <as...@college.harvard.edu> wrote:

Overall, great (and again huge thank you, wow). A couple of minor things:

I would address the email to “Laramie team” rather than primarily Eli — all of the hostile things came from Juliet, and Eli was super cordial/nice and generally cooperative (as I would have expected him to be given the fact that I know him better). I want to make really clear that we appreciate Eli’s cordiality (while of course not making it sound like we’re railing against Juliet’s tone, which is a rough line to toe but I 100% trust you there). 

I would also make clear that a 2h call is the HRGSP standard, even if it isn’t that of the HRDC, so it wasn’t a specially changed call time — he was just under an incorrect impression of what HRGSP calls looked like, which we apologize for. 

Other than that, this is beautifully worded and wonderful. Thanks again!

[Peryn Reeves-Darby]

Great edits @Abbie and looks good to me!

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Peryn Reeves-Darby

Harvard College Class of 2018

AB Degree Candidate in Economics and Visual and Environmental Studies

(601) 896-8143