We were lucky to catch up with Christian Haines recently and have shared our conversation below.
Christian, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?
I would say my optimism is a combination of a healthy amount of melancholy and a love for a good self help quote or concept. As far as the melancholy is concerned, it may sound funny, but I am more positive if I let myself feel my feelings as they come up which leads to a bit of melancholy. If I allow myself to just fully feel sadness in the moment or not shove a bad or sad thought to the side, then I can deal with it and keep going. Life’s not built to be this endless stream of success, there are highs and lows and there are sad things and happy things, and the more you ignore the sad things the happy things start to seem a little hollow.
Currently my favorite self-help quote and concept are: 1) “The Obstacle is the Path”, meaning the hard thing that’s in front of you is the road to your to your objective, not the thing that is impeding you, and 2) the concept of Neutral Thinking. It’s very popular within sports psychology and it’s the idea that if you’re playing a sport (or doing a scene) and you have a bad play, you’ve got to get back to a neutral mindset, not too high, not too low, so that you can perform in the moment on the next play, which I think is what most performers really want.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’m an actor, director, producer and the one constant in my creative life is a show that I produce called ShotzLa. It was concept that I borrowed from a theater company in New York that we used as a fundraiser in grad school and then started doing in New York City in 2009. The concept is simple: Six writers get three themes, their cast/director, and 2 weeks to write a short play, then the actors and directors find a few hours over 2 weeks to rehearse and we put it up for a night. It’s been a staple for a bunch of artists in New York, San Francisco, Boston, LA, Louisville and soon London and Missoula. It’s simple, effective and activates community in a way that only short play programs can. There’s not too much commitment to for the artists and they get to exercise their muscles and put together a short piece that can be funny, significant or something in between.
We’ve got a couple things going on that are really exciting. First off, in Los Angeles we’ve started to integrate short films into our nights and it’s been really great for the actors and filmmakers. The results have been impressive and a couple of these films will be going on to festivals next year. The second thing that’s going on is that we’re expanding a bit. Our newest addition is Louisville, Kentucky and soon we’re going to be having one in London. This has always been kind of a dream of mine. A Shotz in every city. We have been doing this for 15 years now and my hope is that people can take the concept and run with it. As long as you do it basically like we do and aren’t some racist-sexist-s%tbag, you can call it Shotz and… viola you have your own little theater company. It’s ready to go, it’s open source (free to use) and we can walk you through it. To go along with that, we’re coming up with a new website called Shotzplays where you can go if you want to hear about or connect to the Shotz that are coming up in your community. Hopefully it grows and helps people create.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1)High risk tolerance- You need to have a bit of a bit of daring to embark on something like this. You have to have faith in yourself and the people that you ask to join you. That can be scary, but if you can handle it it really pays off
2)Passion for what you are doing- With any endeavor you choose to take on you want to make sure that you love it. Being a theater producer is like being an entrepreneur but you rarely make money. So you really want to love what you’re doing or you can’t easily backtrack and say, “I don’t want to do it, it’s too risky, it’s too much.”
3)Forgiving personality- The act of creation for the stage is such a communal effort that if you start to become negative in your problem solving, those problems will compound. Having a forgiving personality toward yourself and toward others is a great way to ensure that things go smoothly. If you want people to perform their best, I think that having the ability to forgive and encourage is essential.
The advice I would give is to just do it. Put yourself in producing situation. You don’t have to be the “Next Big Theater Company” right away. Don’t put yourself in a position to take a BIG fall out of the gates. Baby steps. If you take a fall, it’s just a little fall and then keep growing. Ask yourself what you need to improve, take a step back and try to make sure that you’re giving the best of yourself and see what happens.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
Well, I first freak out. Then I take a minute and make a list. As long as I can get it out of my head I can tackle it. I get everything that’s on my mind into list form and then prioritize what I need to do. Generally I end up doing a bit of self care before moving onto tasks.
I also try and not do business after 6pm.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://amioswest.org
- Instagram: shotzlosangeles
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShotzLosAngeles
Image Credits
Main photo: David Muller
photo 1: Christian Haines and Amy Kersten. Photo by Aeron Macintyre
photo 2: Christian Haines, Amy Kersten & Sarah Kiney. Photo by Aeron Macintyre
photo 3: Christian Haines. Photo by Katja Kurganowski
photo 4: Christian Haines: Straight White Men at Mari Theatre Co.
photo 5: Christian Haine & Ephraim Lopez. Photo by Natalie Hon
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