The Herald spoke with some of the principals from “Guitar Strings, a Cowboy and a Lost Peacock” about getting the play to curtain, how the production materialized so quickly, the process of collaboration and some of the difficulties experienced along the way.
Rod Barker
Producer/Strater president and CEO
On the Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering and the origins of the show
I looked at all of the different sorts of creativity that go into the gathering – poetry, great music and just the dynamic energies that are going on. I wondered if I could capture some of that. I was thinking about my great-grandparents and my grandparents and what was Durango like long ago through the eyes of those people who homesteaded here and ranched and farmed and ran businesses? I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to tie all that together somehow? Then there was another part of this whole thing that started coming clear, which was how have we changed in our society? What are the things that have changed nicely and what are the things that haven’t changed so nicely? So, I started writing a script and trying to put together some of the thoughts. Then, I realized that I’m just not a writer. I had a good idea of how it would go, but I’m not the guy to do that. I was introduced to Sarah Syverson, and Sarah is a really good writer. She put a lot of fun into it; she put the elements I was looking for and mixed it all together.
On the collaborative process
I learned that the collaboration about writing is about putting some elements out there and then stepping back. If you’re really involved in owning something that has to be said, you’re going to squelch the process. But everyone else is going to help the writer see it from different angles. I’ve never done anything like that before.
On the parallels between producing a play and running a hotel
You have to make sure the end product as a producer or general manager or as an owner, meets those requirements of the vision you had. But it doesn’t mean every element of the vision is yours. In fact, that would be wrong.
Change is a challenging thing because every organization likes to come to a place where it can be something stable. A play likes to be something stable. And when the play that’s stable isn’t the play people want to see, you have to break it. And in a hotel, when something is stable but it’s not what people want, you have to do the same thing, you have to go in and break it and let it reform. And that chaos that you allow to happen causes creativity. It’s painful, it’s uncomfortable, and sometimes, it puts you at odds with other people, but it’s required in all of our lives and all of society.
On difficulties and frustrations
Changing directors three times was very difficult. I literally had to call everywhere ... L.A., San Francisco; Santa Fe, Denver, Aspen, Colorado Springs, San Antonio. I was calling all these people in the places looking for someone able to come out here and take on a play on short lead. That was really hard. It was scary. I don’t have an option not to perform a show in here.
On casting and expenses
I was looking for somebody, originally I was thinking they needed to be in their late-40s. Most of those actors are pretty well-established and they don’t take short-lead business. And most of them are equity. And when you get equity, the union part of it is so expensive that I came to realize there was no way to afford somebody because you’d have to pay them so little on the front side but by the time you add on the pension and all the health benefits and the per diem and the travel, it’s completely unaffordable in a small audience like we have.
David Holub
Note: The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity
