Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lauren Pothier. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Lauren, so great to be with you and I think a lot of folks are going to benefit from hearing your story and lessons and wisdom. Imposter Syndrome is something that we know how words to describe, but it’s something that has held people back forever and so we’re really interested to hear about your story and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome comes with the territory of being a woman in any leadership position. As a teacher I feel it constantly, as a founding member of my theatre company, I absolutely feel it. I am always asking myself: what could I possibly know about x y or z? What makes me the person for this job? I try to overcome these feelings through my general anti-anxiety practices, but sometimes these feelings of inadequacy run deeper. Sometimes, humble bragging to myself works. Lauren! You have two degrees that make you a perfect candidate for running a nonprofit theatre company! That’s something I often yell at myself when I’m feeling low. Other times I look around at my past unsavory experiences in theatre and think about that quote “be the good you want to see in the world” and take it from there. Someone has to be the first in everything, why not this?
What my peers and I are doing at Reverie Theatre Group is fairly novel for new theatre companies, and none of us have a map to follow in terms of what to do. My imposter syndrome is given, as I am a woman who struggles with immense anxiety, but I also don’t have many people in my community to look up to for support either or who have willingly given their support. Navigating new lands on your own is enough to make anyone feel unsure of themselves. I overcome imposter syndrome by understanding that the work I am doing is going to make me feel better in the long run. I am aiming to make theatre safe and accessible, and even in our short two years in operation, we are already well on our way to achieve that.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
My name is Lauren Pothier. I live in Pawtucket, Rhode Island with my fiancé, my sister, and two cats. I have been doing theatre my whole life. I receive a BA in Musical Theatre from Rhode Island College in 2018 and a Master’s in Public Administration from Johnson & Wales University in 2021. My professional life is full of music and theatre, and I am working towards finding a home in public sector work.
In 2022, I co-founded a nonprofit theatre company called Reverie Theatre Group. I like to say we were created out of necessity- necessity because we all love theatre and wanted a creative endeavor, but also because we had all come from theatre backgrounds that were abusive and toxic and we wanted to create a theatre where safety and accessibility were held at the core. Reverie is born from the belief that theatre should be a collaborative and communicative experience for the cast and crew and should never leave anyone feeling used or hurt. We hold five core values in our nonprofit: respect, collaboration, community, diversity, and intersectional feminism. These five values drive most of everything we do. We strive to uplift marginalized voices, create a culture of accessibility, and compensate everyone who works with us.
My main function in this organization as a leader is to pursue our artistic endeavors and to organize our board members. As the board president and artistic director, I am responsible for running meetings, communicating with our artists, discussing visions with our directors, and aligning our board members with our mission and values for projects. Apart from Reverie, I am also a voice teacher working one-on-one with students of all ages, levels, and genres to work and develop their singing voices. I am very passionate about the voice and what it can do if we train it properly. I love that I am able to do that for a living.
Currently, Reverie is making our Rhode Island debut production of the play The Awakening of Spring, directed by me. As director, I am leading a cast of fourteen and working with an assistant director, stage manager, assistant stage manager, and intimacy coordinator, and three designers to create this play in just about six weeks. We rehearse three times a week and the production team has regular meetings to discuss the technical elements for this show. We are renting space at a theatre in Providence, Rhode Island, that is a part of another nonprofit called 134 Collaborative. This organization does a lot of work for the food insecure and the homeless population of Providence. It means a lot to us as an organization that we are doing theatre work in a building that serves our community in this way. The Awakening of Spring is running at 134 Collaborative May 30th to June 2nd and tickets can be purchased here https://events.humanitix.com/the-awakening-of-spring.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The three most important qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in my journey were definitely my communication skills, knowing how to speak up for myself, and understanding my worth.
Communication for me is definitely hard as someone with social anxiety. Speaking my mind is not something that comes easy for me, and I am constantly worried about other people’s thoughts and feelings – either about me or about a situation – so it has been hard for me to be communicative about conflict. As a leader, learning how to use communication to avoid conflict has been key. I implemented one of our main forms of communication in our organization and have never had a problem with mis-communication or conflict.
My Auntie Barbara taught me a lot about how to speak up for myself and how. She told me to never sell myself short and to always speak with a clear and forward voice. I carry that with me all the time, especially with my professional work with my company now. I hear her voice in my head whenever I start to minimize my accomplishments or talk down about my accolades. She instilled the confidence in me that I am still working on to be prouder of myself in these professional situations.
As for my own worth, for a while I didn’t really understand it. Sometimes I still have trouble with it. For a while, especially in college, I felt as though I was expected to go along with things even if I felt fundamentally against it. Don’t make a waves, stay in your place, etc. It wasn’t until I finally started to know my worth that I got myself out of situations where I felt trapped or underutilized. I felt confident that I could seek the fulfillment I needed elsewhere, and I did. Understanding my worth is one of the qualities that helped me forge my own path into cofounding a theatre company of my own and doing many of the things I do. Imposter syndrome creeps in, but I can squash it when it does.
To improve on these, there is nothing better than just diving in. We all joke and laugh about self-deprivation, but that really doesn’t get you far. You do the work, you have the awards, you have the testimonials- speak to it! Be proud of yourself. Keep the people around you and the people you work with in the loop on the work- as in, delegate often and be communicative on the needs and processes of the work. Finally, know what is best for you. You will make even better work when you know what you want and have the bandwidth to do it because you have people in your corner that you are working with clearly.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
With our theatre company, one of the main challenges we are facing is funding. As we are a new, small arts nonprofit, funding for the arts is limited and we are just not at the top priority for arts funding. We do a lot of our own internal fundraising, such as a Musical Theatre Cabaret we put up this past December that was very successful, and personal outreach to local businesses, family, and friends. Small arts organizations are funded mainly by individual donors and sponsorships, which is how we are able to do much of what we do. However, grants are a huge part of any nonprofit, and in Rhode Island we are not big enough yet to receive funding from the major grant givers. Grants are a big part of our summer Shakespeare program we do in New Bedford, Massachusetts each summer, that we present for free and pay all of our actors and crew. As a theatre dedicated to compensating our creatives, fundraising is huge for us to continue to do that work. I’m looking forward to a day that funding the arts through major grants becomes realistic for small arts organizations such as ourselves, so that we can set our sights bigger. Certain venues, shows, and mediums (musical theatre, which is something I want to produce!) are out of reach until we can start getting better funding.
Contact Info:
- Website: reverietheatregroup.org
- Instagram: @reverietheatregroup / @laurenpothier
- Linkedin:www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-pothier1213
Image Credits
Poster art credit: Tabitha Bradway Photo of person in light up cape credit: Brad Costa Photo of myself and woman in red (my sister, Sarah Pothier Bass) credit: Kellie Rock
