Jerri Wiseman - Bringing Interactive Theater to Life with Stagecoach Theatre Company
Apr 17, 2024
Alimond Studio
Step right up to the grand stage of conversation as we pull back the curtains on the captivating world of interactive theater with Jerri Wiseman, the dynamic co-owner and executive producer of Stagecoach Theatre Company. From the bustling streets of Hong Kong, where the seeds of performance were first sown, to the flourishing dinner theater scene of Northern Virginia, Jerri's tale is one of passion, resilience, and the art of the show going on—even in the face of a global pandemic. She unwraps the intricacies of engaging a community through the arts, letting us in on the secrets behind their latest haunting production, "The Insanity of Mary Girard."
Theater lovers, brace yourselves; a smorgasbord of performances awaits, each one carefully designed to tempt your cultural palate. Whether you're whisked away by the enchanting "Mary Poppins," moved by the powerful narrative of "The Mountaintop," or clinging to your seats during the chilling run of "The Woman in Black," there's no shortage of magic to be devoured. Jerri highlights the seasonal treats, from the goosebumps-inducing thrillers to the warmth of "A Christmas Story," and beckons mystery aficionados to their year-round whodunit extravaganzas. Tune in for an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the Stagecoach Theatre Company and discover a treasure trove of performances that resonate with young and old alike.
Step right up to the grand stage of conversation as we pull back the curtains on the captivating world of interactive theater with Jerri Wiseman, the dynamic co-owner and executive producer of Stagecoach Theatre Company. From the bustling streets of Hong Kong, where the seeds of performance were first sown, to the flourishing dinner theater scene of Northern Virginia, Jerri's tale is one of passion, resilience, and the art of the show going on—even in the face of a global pandemic. She unwraps the intricacies of engaging a community through the arts, letting us in on the secrets behind their latest haunting production, "The Insanity of Mary Girard."
Theater lovers, brace yourselves; a smorgasbord of performances awaits, each one carefully designed to tempt your cultural palate. Whether you're whisked away by the enchanting "Mary Poppins," moved by the powerful narrative of "The Mountaintop," or clinging to your seats during the chilling run of "The Woman in Black," there's no shortage of magic to be devoured. Jerri highlights the seasonal treats, from the goosebumps-inducing thrillers to the warmth of "A Christmas Story," and beckons mystery aficionados to their year-round whodunit extravaganzas. Tune in for an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the Stagecoach Theatre Company and discover a treasure trove of performances that resonate with young and old alike.
Speaker 1:
My name is Geri Wiseman. I am with Stagecoach Theatre Company. I am the co-owner and executive producer for all of our shows there. We serve our clients by offering them unique interactive entertainment or original scripts or ones that have not been in the public. That often Something that's new and eye-opening, wonderful. And where are you guys located?
Speaker 1:
We are on Ashburnburn road in ashburn, which is the old part of ashburn okay, and tell me a little bit about how you got into this industry so, um way back when, um uh, we had a group of people who wanted to put on a show and and I decided I wanted to be part of that and we held our auditions in our small community in Hong Kong it was an expat community and we decided to put on a show. It went over really well that we continued to do it over and over again. So when I moved back to the States, it was something that I wanted to continue doing.
Speaker 2:
Wonderful. How long were you in Hong Kong? For Eleven years.
Speaker 1:
Went for two, stayed for eleven. What brought you there?
Speaker 2:
My husband's job, Okay yeah, did you enjoy your time there? I'm just going to step in real quickly because I can see I don't want it to go down too far.
Speaker 1:
Sorry, that's okay, you know. I'm pulling the shirt back just a little bit. There we go, just because we were seeing a little bit edge right here on that one. No worries, yeah, we can start over.
Speaker 2:
We weren't that far in.
Speaker 1:
Just start from where we were.
Speaker 2:
Okay, sounds good. So where were we? We were talking about what brought you to Hong Kong. My husband's job, husband's job, yeah, and did you enjoy your time there?
Speaker 1:
I think that was nice, loved it Absolutely and did you enjoy your time there. I think that was my last Loved it Absolutely loved it. Yeah, left kicking and screaming, oh really, wow. Well, my kids grew up there, yeah, so you know when. That's the life that they know, and we had grown to be part of the community so much, partially by being a part of these theatrical events, that it was just hard to leave. Sure, were your kids in the theater as well? They were initially, until it became, you know, not so cool.
Speaker 1:
And then my son graduated to lights but you know they were both very enthusiastic about being close to the theater and still are.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's wonderful. And are they back here now? Yeah, they're here. Okay, we've been back for a while. Yeah, well, tell me a little bit more about the theater.
Speaker 1:
So the theater is the only dinner theater in Northern Virginia. So we travel around to different places and commit murder for a living. Oh, like a murder mystery, we do murder mystery dinner theater, um. So we are in different places, like Outlands, um out in Leesburg, or we are at breweries, wineries, restaurants, any place that has a big enough room um and an audience that we can perform for.
Speaker 2:
Do you do private events at people's homes? Absolutely.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, we'll do that. We get called for fundraising events or team building A lot of times. People would like to incorporate a murder mystery into their annual meeting parties.
Speaker 2:
So is it a surprise? They don't know it's coming.
Speaker 1:
Sometimes that happens. It's best if people know that they're actually coming for a show yeah, because there's audience participation in it, and otherwise they're just a little thrown off.
Speaker 2:
That can be a little scary. Yes, it is Like what am I going to do? What's?
Speaker 1:
happening here. Yeah, so we founded the company just doing that. We added in children's shows to entertain our younger audiences and then about six years ago, we got our own space on Ashburn Road and with the space came the opportunity to do even more performances. We started doing improv monthly. We added in monthly magic shows and eventually we started up our after we added in monthly magic shows and eventually we started up our afterschool program and our summer camps.
Speaker 2:
Wow, you guys have really grown a lot in these six years.
Speaker 1:
Amazingly, and after COVID, we took our dinner theater mostly out Again. We were always traveling, but we do that now more so out and about, and we now have more stage productions in the theater. It's a black box theater, seats only 50. But it makes for really good setting for intimate shows, intimate shows yeah, I bet it's amazing.
Speaker 2:
So what current productions are you guys doing right now?
Speaker 1:
So tomorrow we open the Insanity of Maryary gerard and that will run through april and then next month. That is a psychological thriller or drama. So a woman in the 1790s was committed to an insane asylum by her husband and you'll find out whether or not that was just a convenient place to put her because she didn't always agree with what he said and he wanted to have his own way. Or was she really insane? You kind of find out.
Speaker 2:
You just gave us a perfect little trailer, yeah.
Speaker 1:
So there you go. You have to come in and see, come in and see and check it out. It's a great script. The actors are phenomenal. They really bring this to life. Where are your actors coming from? They come from all over. We'll put out a casting call of asking for actors and they'll come as far away as DC or some into West Virginia, maryland, but most of them are local. They are looking for ways to just continue to practice their craft. Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:
It's an art form for sure, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:
What do you guys do to promote your productions and um social media, mainly um any free online calendar that I can get onto we do but uh, things like this podcast are absolutely a um great at getting the word out there. I mean, we've been in business now for 13 years and we still get asked. You know like, where are you? I've never heard of you before. And so we try, we just keep trying. We're a major part of Visit Loudoun, trying to bring out-of-town guests into Loudoun County.
Speaker 2:
That's where I think I've seen you before. Okay, yes, visit Loudoun. Yes, visit Loudoun, trying to bring out-of-town guests into Loudoun County.
Speaker 1:
That's where I think I've seen you before. Okay, yes, visit Loudoun. Yes, visit Loudoun. We're an active member of the Chamber of Commerce. We recently joined the Loudoun Bed and Breakfast Guild. For people who are traveling and want to see some great entertainment, we can either go to the Bed and Breakfast and put on a show there. We can either go to the bed and breakfast and put on a show there we have small group murder mysteries that we can do or we invite them to our theater to enjoy magic or improv or something that's going on that weekend Wonderful.
Speaker 2:
It sounds like you guys have grown a lot in the past six years. Where do you see the future going?
Speaker 1:
We want to expand a lot more than we are. We just moved into a new studio space in the same building that we're at, so we've more than doubled our space, which has allowed us to increase the number of afterschool programs that we have and our summer camps, and we are just going gangbusters. We have kids who seek us out because they have heard so many great things about our programs. We have opportunities for kids to do theater on the stage, of course, putting on different shows, but also we have a mentorship program where we have mentors teach the teens how to run lights or sound or live stream, how to work on costumes and what that entails Stage managing, directing. We've taken some directors from actors beginning actors and launched them. They're now in college studying theater, theater, and they're coming back now to direct some camps for us. It's great. It is amazing to see these kids grow.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it is really wonderful that is, and a lot of the schools don't offer these programs too. Well, loudoun.
Speaker 1:
County has an amazing theater program but it hasn't hit so much in some of the middle schools, and that is our sweet spot, so we like to bring in the kids from elementary, from five years old.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, because our school doesn't have our elementary school doesn't have a right any theater program so we're trying to do more of that, build them up so that once they get to middle school, they're doing a lot more production, um, rather than just simply classes. Both are necessary because, even as an adult actor, you find that it's necessary to go back and you know, start, keep working on again, keep working on your craft. Yeah, because if you don't use it, you lose it. Exactly so you know, and we still. We offer classes for adults, acting classes, improv classes, and if anybody wants to come in and train for tech, we will do that as well, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Now did you. Are you an actor as well?
Speaker 1:
I used to be until I had this theater company. That requires all of my time, but yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Do you still try to get in there a little bit?
Speaker 1:
It's hard. It's hard to do Every once in a while. You know, I can go do an improv something or other, but if I require my actors to know their lines, then I have to be able to set the standard. And if I'm busy here, there and everywhere with all these things that are going on, then it's a little bit more difficult.
Speaker 2:
It's a little bit yeah. Do you have a favorite production that you guys have done, Something that really spoke to you?
Speaker 1:
Yes, one of my favorites is the Hamilton Murders. Right when Hamilton was starting to get popular on Broadway, I was like any community theater worth their salt should be putting on 1776 or some kind of show that would capture that interest. Everybody's interested in this. It's all the rage and we got to thinking. Got to thinking, well, wasn't there a conspiracy around that? So my partner, terry Smith, wrote the Hamilton Murders and it's all about what was the conspiracy behind Aaron Burr and his relationship with Hamilton? Did anyone you know who could have arranged a murder or what? So that is my favorite. So we recently had that done by Foxcroft School. They adapted the script and, because they had, they did it as a stage production instead of dinner theater and put it on with a lot more characters, added a few more scenes. They worked very closely with Terry to get that done and it was amazing.
Speaker 2:
That's awesome. I love a good conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:
Tell me a little bit about what challenges you're facing in your business and how you overcome them what challenges you're facing in your business and how you overcome them.
Speaker 1:
Well, challenges that we find are getting people to help with productions. So we're always looking for new playwrights, because a lot of the murder mysteries that we do are original from local playwrights, so we're always looking for playwrights. For that we could use more directors and we're always looking for more instructors for our after-school programs. Good to know. So, finding those, and so part of that is going out, trying to get that resolved is going out, and networking is going out. Trying to get that resolved is going out and networking, speaking with other people, other schools, and seeing if they have other people in their network that might be interested. And we've, you know, recently contacted some schools or they've contacted us and said, hey, you know these things are, you know, we're interested in that. What do we do to collaborate?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. What do you find most rewarding about what you do?
Speaker 1:
So it's gotta be the kids. It's always the kids, right? When you see the kids and we've seen them grow, like you know, from itty bitties, and then like never having, never wanting to take the stage because they're so shy, and then just growing into a person. We have this one girl who, um, I won't name names she came and was working in our lighting booth. Um, it was a little overwhelming when you have like 20 kids in a summer camp and they're, you know, boisterous and exciting and all this, and so she would be underneath the table kind of cowering. Now she is direct, excuse me, directing, and I, you know.
Speaker 1:
I get emotional she's now directing these kids as tech director and she is confident and it's just amazing to see how much respect that the other kids give her and the adults, because this girl knows her stuff. And just seeing kids like that growing or finding comfort because they can't find their place where they are, no matter what, right they're discovering who they are and they have a safe place with us to experiment, to figure out who they are and who they want to be. Yeah, and that's what gets me. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:
Beautifully said. Are there any last parting words you'd like to leave us with about the theater?
Speaker 1:
Well, come see a show. Yes, come see a show. We have something for everyone. We've got mary poppins coming up for the littles. We've got um the mountaintop coming up, which is the story of martin luther king's last day a very memorable um uh drama. We've got the woman, the woman in black, coming in at Christmas time and Family Favorite, a Christmas Story at Christmas. So just in between there, we've got more murder mysteries throughout the year. Come see us, you'll love it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, well, I'm going to have to come check you out, because I know my daughter would love it.
Speaker 1:
Great Great.
Speaker 2:
Well, thank you for coming in today. It was a pleasure to have you.