ETC: Passion for Making Theater and Paying Actors

“Someone asked me what my greatest pleasure is in doing this work,” said Garry Posey ETC’s artistic director and an instructor at Chattanooga State’s Professional Actor Training Program. “I like signing 30 checks at end of a show and knowing that we’re the only theater in Chattanooga that’s doing it consistently. If ETC makes money, the people who help us make money as well.”

ETC has grown quickly. Posey began the company in 2007 by co-producing a summer theater festival with Chattanooga State. He did that again in 2008, then presented a small number of shows in 2009. The same year Christy Gallo and John Thomas Cecil, who had been Posey’s students at Chat State, joined ETC as producing partners, and all three planned the 2010 season. ETC is now in its third full season of 10-13 shows. Cecil and Gallo both also act in many of ETC’s productions.

“When I started this in 2007 I wanted to start a theater that paid actors. At that time we were a ‘whenever I have money we’ll produce a show’ outfit,” said Posey. Now ETC pays all its artists – actors, designers, directors, and stage managers – a percentage of box office receipts. But the company’s ambitions for creating professional theater go beyond just paying actors.

“Quality is something I’ve always harped on, the quality of the performances and the acting. We want to guarantee that quality time and time again for and with the community,” said Cecil, who serves as producing director.

“I think we’d like the experience an actor has with the company to be similar to any have other professional company somewhere else in the country,” adds Gallo, who is ETC’s public relations director.

ETC has worked to cultivate what Posey called a “symbiotic relationship” between the actors and the audience. “Both groups have to be engaged and artistically satisfied, in my opinion, for a performance to be successful,” said Posey.

Productions are characterized by minimalist staging and emotional engagement, where the “aesthetic distance” that separates audience and actors is small. Presenting Macbeth, for example, in a 45-seat theater means that no audience member is more than ten feet from the action, including combat.

“I want the audience to be a part of what they’re experiencing. It has taken patience to develop that with the community because it’s so different. We’ve lost people who say ‘I like my distance from the actors. I don’t like to be right up on top of them.’ And that’s okay. This may not be for everyone,” said Posey.

“What we’ve seen over time is that we are developing a very specific patronage who enjoy the experience they have, the material that we do and our approach to that material,” he said.

Some of those attempts at engagement fail to connect, he admits. The show scheduled for mid-October was Sweet Nothing in My Ear, a drama centered on the child of deaf and hearing parents that was to be cast with both deaf and hearing actors. It was to be performed in both English and American Sign Language, with both languages translated on stage. The production had to be put on permanent hold because ETC was not able to cast enough deaf actors in supporting roles, but Posey promises it will be staged in a later season.