We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Laura Bueno. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Laura below.

Laura, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Quality control is a challenge almost every entrepreneur has had to focus on when growing – any advice, stories or insight around how to best ensure quality is maintained as your business scales?

Keeping consistency in my business and maintaining quality as I grow is the most important thing! I’ve had several assistants throughout the years, and the number one requirement is that they are people of integrity. When I first started, I did everything. I was the person who taught every single class, booked every single school program, ordered everything, and honestly, I stretched myself too thin. I realized that the only way to grow is to teach others how to do what I’m doing. I’m able to promote my program at other schools now that I have been able to teach others to do what I do and how I like to run my classes. This may come across as being somewhat controlling, but to maintain my brand, it’s extremely important that schools are getting the same program from one of my employees as they would have if I was teaching there.

In my Edudance ballroom dance program, I’ve created routines for swing, waltz, rumba, cha-cha, merengue, and tango so that any of my instructors can step in and teach from any point in the program. This also allows for each school to get the same instruction so that there is consistency throughout. It helps my instructors as well, so that they are able to sub for each other if needed and not have to worry about knowing or not knowing a certain dance step that that particular school is learning.

For my Playground Players Productions programs, which are fully staged musical theater programs held during or after school, this is also true! I have created a system when it comes to auditions, casting, and overall production scheduling so that when I need to be somewhere else, my assistants are able to take over without the children missing out on valuable rehearsal time. My assistant of 10 years has actually just moved and is planning to begin a branch of Playground Players up where she has relocated.

Overall, the most important thing is making sure that I have systems in place which helps everyone! We all will know how to communicate to the parents, teachers, and students; and we know what works and doesn’t work. My goal is to have enough trustworthy instructors to expand this business throughout the county and really share the wonderful world of theater to those children who may not have the opportunity to be a part of something like this anywhere else!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started my business Playground Players Productions in 2016 and officially in 2017. The school where I was teaching music asked if I could run an afterschool theater program after having done a musical with the third graders in 2015. Because I needed to accept funds from parents directly, I found myself needing to become an official business. That’s when Playground Players Productions was formed. Since then, I’ve directed approximately 7-8 musical theater productions a year at a several different schools, including Homeschool Enrichment Centers (I’m a registered vendor with charter schools), Blossom Valley Elementary, Coronado (Islander Youth Theater), Hearst Elementary, and Vista Grande Elementary. We’ve also provided summer camps and spring break camps, which provide a more condensed theater experience.

Edudance-Classrooms in Motion was founded in 2002 by Anne Krantz and her partner Christian Wasinger. This program teaches children etiquette and ballroom dance culminating in a final showcase for parents and friends. In 2018 I took over the business after having been an Edudance instructor from the beginning, and I combined it with Playground Players Productions. Edudance has been a staple program in schools across the county and remains so to this day!

Knowing that I always wanted to continue performing throughout my life, I also felt the urge to teach kids and teens the ins and outs of the theatrical word. My goal is to give them a realistic and hands on experience where they will learn inclusivity, creativity, and self-expression. All students are welcome regardless of their background!

Have you ever had to pivot?

I suppose the one that comes to mind is how I got through the pandemic and all the school shutdowns! I had 3-4 schools whose kids were planning on performing their final performances of musicals and ballroom dance showcases for the parents at the end of March. Of course, in 2020, the schools all shut down mid-March and nobody could perform. My instructors and I made instructional videos of the dances so that the kids at the schools could keep practicing since we didn’t know if or when we’d be back in school! This forced me to get better at video editing and learn some more technology! I was able to have some of the musical theater students record themselves and send in videos of them singing a song from the show. I edited them together and had a little something for all the parents to watch since they couldn’t perform live.

Once the shutdown happened, I turned toward my other business, Lollypop’s Bake Shoppe. People still needed baked goods for their celebrations at home and I could provide that!

Now that schools are back and I’m busy as ever, I still have my bakery business going strong! Being able to outsource some of my work has been invaluable!

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I don’t have a business partner, but one person who is as good as one is my friend and assistant director, Rachel Wattson. She and I met at church and we worked together on a few youth musicals there. I realized that she was a valuable person to have around! She has always been business minded and she has helped me incredibly throughout the years as my business has grown!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.playgroundplayersproductions.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/playgroundplayers
• Facebook: @Playground Players Productions

Image Credits
These are all candid phone photos