The Producer Hat
I came to Infinite Variety Productions the way many artists do—through the stage door. In 2018, I was cast in a workshopped version of In Their Footsteps. One trip to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival later, and that was it. I was all in. It wasn’t just the show (though the show was, and remains, extraordinary). It was the way it was made. The way we collaborated. The way the stories took root and grew, not just onstage, but inside us. My soul needed that kind of theatre. And my soul doesn’t tend to speak quietly.
Pictured: Kate as Jeanne “Sam” Christie in the 2021 production of In Their Footsteps. Image courtesy of Stefano Corso.
At some point, I started producing. I don’t remember when the switch flipped. Ash and I just clicked—she’d start something, and I’d be there pulling out the calendar, making the spreadsheet, booking the venue, tweaking the copy. I’ve since produced five original IVP shows, and helped shape them into something that can tour, transform, translate. Versions adapted for radio, restaged for new venues, even performed in new languages. Stories evolve—and so do we.
Pictured: Kate (left) and Ash (right) at the Trevi Fountain in Rome, elated and jet-lagged. In Their Footsteps at the Onstage! Festival Italy, 2021.
Since 2021 alone, I’ve brought in nearly $40,000 in grant funding. I’ve written and edited so many proposals I honestly couldn’t give you a number, only a slightly haunted look. I’ve booked national and international tours. Maintained our website. Rewritten our press kits on no sleep and too much coffee. I’ve pushed for sustainable growth, not just so the work gets seen, but so the people making it can get paid.
If you want a case study, look no further than Revisiting In Their Footsteps: In Honor of Dr. Lucki. It was one of those rare projects that felt both urgent and right. When Lucki passed, we knew we had to do more than mourn—we had to amplify. Ash reached out to our friends at WLIW-FM, and they offered us a Veterans Day Weekend radio slot. But it couldn’t just be a rebroadcast. We needed new assets. We needed an experience.
So, I put on the producer hat—again.
Pictured (from upper left, clockwise): Dr. Doris “Lucki” Allen from her 2016 interview with IVP; the graphic image for Revisiting In Their Footsteps in Honor of Lucki (graphic courtesy of Riley McMillan; a screenshot from the roundtable, featuring Ash Singer, Nirupa Umapathy and Christina Brown Fisher; and the graphic for In Their Footsteps (courtesy of Kristen Hasty).
I built a production timeline, assembled a crew, wrote a roundtable script, oversaw two rounds of audio-visual editing, shaped a 50-minute conversation into a sharp 23-minute piece, and led the post-production process through every draft. All while fundraising. All while building out segmented marketing content with targeted clips and shareable copy. We made it. We aired it. We won a 2025 Gracie Award.
Being a producer is not (always) glamorous. It’s a lot of screentime. A lot of spreadsheets. A lot of rewriting the same three sentences in six different ways. It’s answering emails at odd hours, finding creative workarounds when a curveball hits (and it always hits), and carving a path forward when the road disappears.
But it’s also this: the work gets done. The work gets out. And the work gets seen.
That’s what I signed up for. That’s what I’ll keep showing up for.
Pictured: Kate (left) and Ash (right) in a production meeting, 2024. Photo courtesy of Enlightened Photography.
