Wildlife Management in Relation to Art

House Manager Kyla Tully provided us with her graduate school personal statement submission, which recounts her experience last summer of wrangling a raccoon at APT. 

Working front of house in a performance venue requires a strong set of communication skills, supplemented with attention to detail and enthusiasm for arts creation. As is wont to happen at any large event, the assembly of a considerable number of people in a single space pits personalities and preferences against each other, and house management exists to balance the needs of the audience with those of the performance. When working in an outdoor performance venue, these responsibilities expand to include assisting patrons during extreme weather, and occasionally herding wildlife. As a house manager, the more serious incidents of patron distress or trapped animals move up the ladder into my jurisdiction. This is how I found myself attempting to capture a raccoon underneath the stage of American Players Theatre.

The outdoor theater at APT resides in the rural setting of Southwest Wisconsin, a 10 minute hike uphill through the woods from a gravel parking lot supplemented with a shuttle bus for those who are unable to complete the summit. Given the location, patrons and staff alike encounter a wide variety of wildlife during the performance season: snakes, raccoons, fledgling birds, frogs, skunks, turkeys, deer, bats, and above all, mosquitoes. Most interactions involve admiration from a distance, but every year there’s an exciting number of instances of house staff chasing something from underneath seats, away from the shuttle stop, or out of toilet stalls. During a performance of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, front of house received a call from backstage requesting assistance with a baby raccoon that was hiding near a trap door entrance. With all stage hands occupied creating a thunderstorm for the performance, interdepartmental cooperation was the quickest solution. A potential raccoon bite was not in the job expectations of the junior house staff members, so I ventured below the stage to find a terrified raccoon the size of a house cat cowering beneath the stairs. The thunderstorm wrecking Pericles’s ship above our heads was amplified to a deafening barrage of noise, and while the raccoon clearly wanted to escape, a human armed with a towel was not its preferred way out. A chase ensued, and the raccoon darted through the shadows until it vanished through a small tunnel under a staircase.

There were no further reports from backstage, and the remainder of the performance played out as expected for house staff. However, as the final lines were spoken, a call went out on our radios from the shuttle stop: at the entrance to the shuttles was a small, barely breathing raccoon. With the curtain call ending and a number of patrons about to crowd around the shuttle, I wrapped the limp raccoon in a towel and carried it off to the woods, leaving it on a makeshift bed while I doubled back to aid in the retrieval of assisted listening devices. 

While this adventure may be out of the ordinary for someone in management, it reflects the uncommon needs of APT as a unique arts organization and stands as a milestone in my growth as a manager. This particular learning experience required balancing the needs of staff from different departments to remove an erratic obstacle for the benefit of an unsuspecting audience; it demonstrated the particular demands that arise in every arts organization, and the level-headed resourcefulness needed for management within the field. However, it is rare to find a balance between the creative vision that fosters intrigue and the business logistics that keep an organization alive. I am keen to bolster a comprehensive approach to arts management through personal educational advancement, and to use my unique talents to assist in maintaining the longevity of arts, cultural, and festival appreciation.