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

Hi Mac, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump back to the first dollar you earned as a creative? What can you share with us about how it happened?

If we want to get extremely technical, my first dollar I earned as a creative was working at these strange, wealthy people’s Halloween parties each year. They would hire actors from the college I attended to show up and have a miniature Haunted House portion of their party that we would populate. It was… so weird.
However, I appreciated the honest work for an ounce of what felt like creative freedom, at the time.
My first real professional gig was Assistant Directing at Theatre Three in Dallas, TX. It was a new show called “The Manufactured Myth of Eveline Flynn”. It was really not bad, and I learned a lot from it. More than anything, I learned what a professional room looked like, and what to keep/leave behind from my years of practice theatre with friends in dark basements.
So strange to think how far everyone in that room has come. How lucky we all are!

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?

First and foremost, I am as much a public servant as I can possibly be. My goal is to change the way that producers view artists, artists view artists, and the public views artists. I am a huge fighter for equity standards in all rehearsal rooms, diverse/inclusive spaces, and physical safety for performers. Meanwhile, I try to make art that warrants everyone taking us so seriously. I like to make things that. have a tangible call-to-action. Plays that leave you thinking are incredibly valuable, but can’t we also make way for us to think through those challenging plays as a community in conversation? If the theatre serves as the safe space for foundational, communal change; why do we not take advantage of that safe space and invite the public one step further?
This is what drives me and my work, but if you’d like a more specific understanding of who I am, that might be a bit more complicated.

I have always found myself desperately sprinting away from any tightly defined boxes throughout my career, as I don’t quite have a single label more specific than “artist” or “creative”. So I will tell you exactly who I am, now that I’ve been so graciously afforded the time and space:

I am a philanthropist that has co-founded an arts nonprofit (Watering Hole Collective).
I am a producer that is the Associate Artistic Producer of a reputable, 40-year old theatre company (Teatro Dallas).
I am a teacher/coach that has taught at one of the best performing arts high schools (Booker T. Washington HSPVA) and workshopped at multiple Universities.
I am a stage actor that has worked at some of the biggest LORT theaters in the country (Dallas Theater Center).
I am a screen actor that has worked with reputable creatives (Joseph Kahn, Brandon Routh) and won awards.
I am a director that has directed plays, operas, and musicals all over the world; including New York and Prague.
I am a writer that has won awards at international film festivals for my writing (Paris IFF).

I am all these things and more, and I am a professional at all these things. It just so happens that I do not feel the need to pick one of these things and stay in my lane. My priority is not “to be a good fill-in-the-job-title”; my priority is to serve the projects that inspire me in whatever way they need me. And that has resulted in the aforementioned list.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Community Outreach. Hands down.

Being able to see this fictional thing that you create over several months in a rehearsal room all of a sudden have a real impact in the world is the trippiest thing. It is so hard to explain it, especially when being on the creative team. Something starts as an idea in your imagination, and with enough time and will, it suddenly exists in front of you. That part is strange, but even more strange is when it actually means something to total strangers.

We are lucky enough to have built an arts collective in The Watering Hole Collective that is built on that: community outreach that begins with an artist’s limitless creativity.
We have no interest in producing shows. We have every interest in investing in artist’s visions and changing our community via those visions.

We produced a new realization of “Spring Awakening” last year in a deconsecrated church building, where the actors were the ones playing the instruments. It was stripped down and fully realism. We staged it with the help of real teens and sex ed professionals, in order to allow the play to be a starting point for conversation with the audience in talkbacks. These talkbacks were not led by creatives, but by sex ed and mental health professionals that wanted to help the community process the challenging topics of the play.

We got dozens of patrons in sex ed classes and therapy.

This is the kind of work we want to do. Using art as what it was meant to be: the starting point.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I’m speaking as the Director of Communications for the company I co-founded (Watering Hole Colelctive), as well as the former Marketing Coordinator for the company with which I am now the Associate Artistic Producer (Teatro Dallas): I hate social media marketing for nonprofits.
I hate social media marketing for arts organizations.
I hate that everything I see feels like an ad, rather than an invitation.
I hate that if I’m going to see a piece of art, and whether or not that art is good is completely at the hands of the artist, that I never get to know the artist.

This is the one piece of wisdom I would impart, if I could impart any: always be personable.

The moment you stop being a real person talking to real people is the same moment we lose trust in you and your brand. Anytime I am in a meeting regarding marketing or communications, I always start with “I am the worst salesman in the world, which makes me your new favorite salesman”. As counterintuitive as it might sound, it’s 100% true.
The fact that I am bad at sales means that I do not have the capacity to schmooze you into a product that I don’t totally believe in. And it’s true, I only sell art that I believe in.

That radiates. People see that. That is how to gain trust.
And when people see that, they tell their friends.
Because that is sadly rare.
And those friends tell friends.
And now you have a following.
Don’t worry about numbers. Worry about reliability, honesty, and transparency. Numbers will take care of themselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.wateringholecollective.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wateringholecollective/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewateringholecollective
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/watering-hole-collective
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@WateringHoleCollective
• Other: I can be found at: macwelch.com All of social media handles are: @a_mac_welch

Image Credits
Sasha Maya Ada, Mark Quach, Laura Payne, Emily Ernst, Lucas Fowler, Jordan Muzzy