Quick Chat: Jai Auzenne

APT: Hello, Jai! Welcome to Quick Chats! What has been happening today in the world of company management?
Auzenne: We're getting ready for tech week! We're ramping up for all the designers to come in and tech snacks to go out. I've never done a three-week back-to-back tech process before!

APT: This is your first summer at APT! Would you mind sharing with us a little about your journey here?
Auzenne: I focused on stage management in college. The way I got into company management from stage management was that I was COVID safety trained during the pandemic in college, and then once I graduated my advisor’s theater was looking for a temporary COVID Safety Manager. While I was doing COVID safety work for them, I was also assisting their company management.

In May of last summer, I got a last-minute hire at Weston Theatre Company in Vermont because they were looking for someone to work as a COVID Safety Manager and help with company management. So when I wasn’t doing COVID safety work, I was assisting company management and I started learning a lot more about that side of things.

From there, I found this job!

APT: Interesting! Do you think you use a lot of your stage management training in company management?
Auzenne: Oh, yes. I find that company management and stage management are the same job but with a different focus. A stage manager is focusing on a specific show or set of shows and making sure that everything is organized and taken care of in that way, and we in company management are making sure that the entire company is being taken care of. In the same way there’s paper work and lots of organization that has to happen in both jobs. Setting up housing feels like tracking scene changes and moving scenery. There’s a lot of the Tetris game that stage managers play that we have to do when we talk about storage as well. I feel like they play a lot hand in hand.

I actually became interested in company management because there were skills I felt I lacked as a stage manager that company management would force me to develop.

APT: Though your title is Assistant Company Manager, you’ve been working as the Active Company Manager while Company Manager Andy Truschinski has been away for a few weeks. Can you fill us in on anything you’ve been learning about company management during this period?
Auzenne: It’s definitely been interesting! I feel like I learned that I actually know a lot more than I thought I did, which I love because I definitely was feeling the anxiety of “I am not qualified to do this job.” I definitely have learned a lot more.

Andy was really great about taking care of the bigger, not-so-fun issues, and learning the ins-and-outs of what he normally did every day, I now have much more of an understanding about that after taking it on for a few weeks. I think we’re a much better team now just because I have gotten to see things through his lens now. There’s also a lot of handling financials and attending meetings with department heads that an Assistant Company Manager wouldn’t usually do, but I appreciate it because it’s stretching the skills I’ve been wanting to stretch for a while.

Jai Auzenne helping to kick off the APT Company Picnic in May, 2024. Photo by Hannah Jo Anderson.

APT: Not only is it your first season at APT, it’s also your first summer in Wisconsin! Anything you’re looking forward to as we get closer to the shows and some sunnier days?
Auzenne: I'm excited to see an APT show! I was just telling some of the people in the Costume Shop that tech week is my favorite part of a show process. Everything’s an idea up until tech, and then seeing everything come together is always so exciting. And I know that it can be the longest, moststressful, hardest part of the process, but it’s also so beautiful to see everything become real. There’s something about seeing actors in costume with the lights and sound, when it feels like a real show to them so you see them transform a little more into their characters. I’m so excited to see this part of the process.

I’m also a bit of an art history nerd, and I haven’t been to Taliesin yet, so I’m really looking forward to that, too!

APT: When you're not working here, what are some of your hobbies or passions?
Auzenne: I have this fun struggle with the fact that I chose a career in the arts because I love doing this, but it makes it hard because some of my favorite hobbies are also arts-related. And so it can be really easy to exhaust yourself with all the creative, art-based stuff you do.

I also got a degree in dance, and I miss it, so I’m trying to get back into that. I did anything and everything, but ballet is my favorite. I have been looking into places where I can take classes because I just need some movement-based thing to do again. I have recently gotten back into reading after taking a hiatus in college. Kendra Luedke’s in the process of teaching me how to crochet because that’s a New Year’s Resolution for me. And sometimes I just need to veg out and watch some Bridgerton.

APT: Okay, Wild Card Question: company management provides tech snacks to actors, production teams, stage managers and basically everyone during evening tech rehearsals. What are five foods (tech snacks or otherwise) that power you?
Auzenne: What powers me? Goldfish for sure. I’m a charcuterie girly at heart. Yesterday for lunch I had a little thing that was macrons, and pistachios, some grapes. I have discovered cheese curds now that I’m in Wisconsin! Muenster is my favorite kind of cheese, and I didn’t know they had muenster cheese curds. And my pickles and sliced sausage.

I don’t know if this counts as five or not, but I just need my charcuterie spread. Give me my adult Lunchable.

APT: Sounds delicious! Thanks for chatting, Jai! Is there anything else you'd like to share?
Auzenne: It’s been an interesting time but definitely an amazing time working as Acting Company Manager, and I’m so glad Andy is coming back!