We recently connected with Liz Flemming and have shared our conversation below.

Liz, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

If you had told me I would be doing what I’m doing 10 years ago I would have told you I know nothing about managing things and could never run my own business. “I am an artist through and through.” It’s amazing how your desire to promote change can impact your career path and what you think is possible.

At 22 years old I started working as a professional actor after I graduated from college as a Musical Theater Major. I lived my life out of suitcase. I went wherever there was work. I was also a disabled actor who spent most of my career hiding my disability because I didn’t want anyone to think I couldn’t do what everyone else could do.

I am low vision. this does not mean I just have bad vision. My father is blind and it is hereditary. I have severely obstructed vision that I have been hiding and navigating for most of my life. After spending years on the road working in inaccessible spaces… It was a holiday contract that changed my career path and my focus.

I was doing 12 shows a week, the set was all white and I couldn’t see where I was going, and my colleagues and I felt abused by the director. That job was the job that pushed me to look inward and decide what I wanted to do with my life. I decided to say no to my next theater gig and start work on what I could do to make the theatrical community a safe space for actors.

After exploring option after option I realized that the industry I loved so much wasn’t going to change unless I created a place where marginalized communities could be uplifted. So, I started work on my company Out of the Box Theatrics a Non-Profit Off-Broadway Company committed to lifting the voices of marginalized communities through the stories we tell and we do so it sight specific locations in order to challenge out audiences expectations of what theater can be. We are now headed into our 8th season and have grown beyond what I thought was possible. It is both the hardest thing I have every done and the most rewarding.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My parents were big fans of classical music theater and they took me to a show at our local dinner theater when I was 8 years old and I fell in love instantly. I will never forget that experience. I was mesmerized by the singing and dancing and I knew I had to be part of the theatrical community. I begged my parents to put me in musical theater camp and once I stepped on stage I knew I had to be on stage. I felt at home there.

As much as I loved and had the drive to perform in the theater I also struggled. I had a disability that limited what I could see when I was learning blocking or choreography. I remember feeling the pressure to keep up. Every teacher I had told me that I needed to lead with a yes and mentality. If I was unable to see what was being taught instead of saying what I needed I was told that it was my job to learn how to keep up and shut up. That stuck with me through out college where I studied musical theater and trickled into my professional life. After spending years working as an actor I started feeling unsafe and realized that what needed to change and adapt wasn’t me but the industry that I loved so much.

I decided to be part of that change 8 years ago and start my Non-Profit Out of the Box Theatrics a theater company committed to lifting the voices of marginalized communities through the stories we tell and we do so in site specific locations in order to challenge our audiences expectations of what theater can be. I am now creating the change I want to see in the industry by producing work that is equitable under union contracts that provide health and pension. We have been nominated for major awards for the work we are doing (The Drama Desk, Drama League, Off-Broadway Alliance, and Antonyo Awards) which isn’t a reason to do the work we are doing but an acknowledgement that change can be valued by our community.

What I want more then anything is for the entertainment industry to invest in this kind of work. Artists feeling elevated and safe should be a top priority. Despite our accolades by our colleagues it is such a challenge to receive support for the work we do and I want people to invest in change and not just talk about it.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

I constantly pray for the day when I worry less about how to keep us going. The arts have taken a hit from the pandemic and honestly we struggled before the pandemic so the fear of having to close our doors is constant.

Being a cause driven organization in the theatrical community is tricky. Some people will want to support your work freely and some want something in return which is fair but always complicated. Prior to the Pandemic we were going to produce a revival that we worked endlessly to revise and update to fit our mission. Of course that couldn’t happen when we wanted it to due the shut down. We lost a good chunk of our funding during that time. That being said I knew that this show needed to be produced by us because it was important to our mission and I knew we needed to make it happen once the world opened up again.

I received half the support I needed to support the show in 2021 which meant that I’d be walking into the production with a deficit. This meant that I would be depending on ticket sales to keep payroll going. I knew it was going to be scary and it was. Every week I watched ticket sales elevate but they weren’t what we needed to keep going. We had received incredible feedback but I was terrified that we were going to over draft our account every week. We added a show for a supporter of the writers who gave us a large donation for him to attend on a date that was convenient. We all thought he might able to help us extend the show for a week or 2 after seeing the production. He ended up giving us a large donation so we could make it to the end of the run. However, he was over extended and giving to multiple projects so he couldn’t help us add anymore performances. That being said his donation meant we could pay everyone with ease and get to the finish line which was a huge gift to our organization.

Despite the support from this funder for this production Out of the Box Theatrics was depleted financially after putting out all the remaining funds from ticket sales to health and pension fees for our artists from the production. I had to take out a personal loan to keep us going until I could receive additional support. I will admit I regretted my choice to produce the show in that moment but we received some pandemic support months later that got us back on track. Additionally, we received a nomination for best revival from the Drama Desk panel. We were nominated and in the company of major Broadway shows. We also received the support we needed to produce a cast album for this production months later.

So, what did I learn from all of this? I learned to keep going even when it seems impossible. Money makes things happen but it shouldn’t be the reason to stop pushing for what you believe in. Non-Profits don’t exist to make money we exist for the cause. Of course it is important to be smart about what you are doing… That being said I believe that if you believe in something fight for it and trust that you will find a way to support it.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When I started my company I knew it would take time to pay myself for the work I was doing. I spent a year and half fundraising for our first production and worked as receptionist at a school part time to support myself. It took me a year and half to fund our first production.

When I decided to produce our first full season I lost my job at the school I worked for due to budget cuts so I juggled a temp job and freelance producing during that time. I started feeling like my office side job at the temp agency was taking away from the work I wanted to do on my company but at that time I didn’t have enough funding to think about myself. Everything we raised went into the work and the artists we hired.

I ended up taking a full time job as a Managing Director at a theater downtown I had worked with on a few projects. I was working 70 hour weeks between my company and the one that paid me. Burn out is very real thing and I knew this wasn’t sustainable. It took 5 years but after the company I worked for let me go do to the pandemic I made a choice to make my company my full time job. Sometimes I panic that I won’t be able to pay myself but then I remember that if I don’t fill my own glass I can’t fill anyone else’s. You really can’t invest in others if you don’t invest in yourself first.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ootbtheatrics.com
• Instagram: @littlelizzybiz
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liz.flemming.79
• Other: www.ootbtheatrics.com

Image Credits
Michael Kushner, Kyle Huey, Lew Whitener