Bloomington theater is moving in a new direction. Melinda Seader and Aubrey Seader present contemporary theater and music through Off Night Productions, their new theater company, whose slogan is “Theatre for Everyone, Every Night.” 

Having discussed for years the possibility of initiating the project that became Off Night, they plan to increase decision-making opportunities for the women and nonbinary artists who contribute to the arts in Bloomington. Through theater production, they will also provide accessible and inclusive performances by increasing the staged visibility of women and their stories. 

Off Night Productions was awarded an Open Stages grant from Constellation Stage & Screen to stage its inaugural production, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Proof, by David Auburn.

Off Night Productions co-founder Melinda Seader first got involved in theater in Sacramento, California. | Courtesy photo

Melinda Seader, co-owner and community outreach manager for World Wide Automotive Service, has designed and constructed sets and props for more than a decade. Active in the founding of WonderLab Museum of Science, Health, and Technology, she brings her nonprofit marketing and development experience to theater production. For example, she produced Off Night’s ads, flyers, and posters, and collaborated with Aubrey Seader to select rewards for their Kickstarter campaign fundraiser in May. She also designed sets and props for Proof. 

While in college, Melinda Seader became involved in theater both onstage and backstage as an intern for Music Circus in Sacramento, California, the largest tent theater of its kind west of the Mississippi at the time. She recalls: “From designers to choreographers, directors to stage managers, builders to truck drivers, the crew was almost exclusively men. But I brazenly drove that truck and built things.” 

Sets and props were the “things” she would build in the early 2000s when her daughters, Aubrey and Kate, discovered theater. She also marketed performances, while “feeding the casts of their shows,” she says.

She recalls that in the 1980s, the women in theater with whom she worked seemed to be hairstylists, makeup artists, or costume designers, if they were not acting onstage. 

“Fast forward to today,” she says, “and I am happy to see women represented across the wide field of jobs available in theater.” Still, she believes in further growth in the areas of direction and production to include more women who can “choose the works that get staged.” 

When women select plays for productions that include “well-rounded” female characters, a “clearer, more accurate view of the world” emerges before theatergoers, she says. These are “plays where women are central characters and are not relegated to minor roles or love interests.” Although much progress has been made toward centering women in theater, “the ratio is still heavily tilted towards works by men, about men, and directed by men,” she says. 

Aubrey Seader co-founded Off Night Productions to give more leadership roles in theater to female and nonbinary artists. She is an actor, singer, and arts researcher, who began producing and directing theater in 2015. She co-produced the Ivy Tech Storytelling Series with Paul Daily and “The Hijabi Diaries” podcast with Anna Maidi. | Courtesy photo

Aubrey Seader is an actor, singer, and arts researcher, who has been performing for over a decade. With a B.F.A. in acting from Rutgers University and an M.A. in arts and cultural management from King’s College London, she began producing and directing theater and radio in 2015. In 2017 and 2018, she co-produced the Ivy Tech Storytelling Series with Paul Daily, founding dean of Ivy Tech’s School of Fine Arts. From 2015 through 2019, she co-produced The Hijabi Diaries podcast with Anna Maidi, coordinator of education at the Islamic Center of Bloomington.

After fundraising for Off Night and hiring designers, stage managers, and a director for Proof, Seader will play the lead role of Catherine.

She says, “Having a theater company that is led by two women and dedicated to giving more female and nonbinary artists the chance to take leadership roles in theater design, production, and directing will create a more diverse selection of theater for local audiences and visitors.”

Off Night Productions also enables artists who work in the service industry to attend shows at the beginning of the week: Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday evenings. Seader was a server for years after she earned her acting degree. Because she found that Thursday through Sunday afternoon server shifts were busiest, she did not want to turn them down to attend shows whose run times conflicted with her work schedule. 

She says, “I want artists in Bloomington to be able to make money on the most lucrative nights of the week and come see our shows. I also want any actors who are currently working in the service industry to know that there is a local company that’s set up to accommodate their schedule.”

She hopes Off Night’s scheduling will also allow theatergoers to see shows whose run times would not overlap with those of other cultural events. “It also brings more income to local arts venues by helping them fill their rental space on off nights,” she says. Proof will be Off Night’s first experiment with this theater schedule. 

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From designers to choreographers, directors to stage managers, builders to truck drivers, the crew was almost exclusively men. But I brazenly drove that truck and built things. —Melinda Seader

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Seader selected Proof for Off Night’s first production because many people are already familiar with the award-winning play that is often assigned in acting classes and that was made into a film starring Anthony Hopkins and Gwyneth Paltrow. Seader says Proof “explores some really beautiful and complex characters and their relationships.” Its themes are sexism, stigma, loneliness, love, and “the devotion we give to both the people we love and the skills and passions that makes us feel fulfilled,” she says. Because these themes “resonated” with her, she wanted to share them with her community. 

Persuading that community to see the value of a new company and its ability to “add something” to community life can be challenging, she says. “When it comes to the arts, of course it’s still possible to add value, but you’ve got really great competition for people’s time and investment!” That is why Seader is grateful that her community enabled Off Night to reach its fundraising goal for Proof. “We are happy that they see the value in what we are doing, and we’re excited to deliver a quality show.”

Off Night’s Proof is unique because the majority of its production staff are women, or woman-identified. Production meetings were particularly unique. Staff would bring to the table experiences of felt exclusion and depreciation that recalled those of Catherine in the play, and quickly provided mutual affirmation. Seader says, “It proves once again that the people in the room — designing, directing, and producing a show — always affect the way the story is told.”

Excited about working with them, Seader praises actors Steve Scott (Robert), Valerie C. Kilmer (Claire), and Theo Merback-Crome (Hal). “Each of these actors is so talented, and I feel so grateful that each of them agreed to do this show with us. I can’t think of better artists to bring these characters to life.”

Cassie Hakken is directing Off Night’s first show, “Proof.” She is marketing director at Constellation Stage and Screen and has worked with several theater groups in town, including Jewish Theatre of Bloomington, IU Opera and Ballet Theater, and Stages Bloomington. | Photo by Alex Kumar

Originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan, Constellation’s Marketing Director Cassie Hakken resides in Bloomington with her husband Ben Jackson. Hakken was the marketing manager of Cardinal Stage and the managing director of the Jewish Theatre of Bloomington. While studying for a B.S. in business management and a B.A. in theatre and drama at Indiana University, she produced and directed For the Living, a one-night performance of short sci-fi plays. As a stagehand for Opera and Ballet Theater at the IU Jacobs School of Music, she worked on numerous operas, musicals, and ballets, including Dialogues of the Carmelites and Giulio Cesare. She has also stage-managed productions for IU Theatre, Stages Bloomington, and the Jewish Theatre of Bloomington and directed independent projects.

Hakken says she is thrilled to return to directing and is honored to collaborate with Off Night for their inaugural show.

Because the Seaders are established in the Bloomington theater community, Hakken has known them for years through her involvement with Cardinal Stage. Last year, she and Aubrey Seader discussed the possibility of pursuing additional artistic opportunities. “I loved the idea,” Hakken says, when Seader mentioned the idea of starting up a women-led theater company. Several months later, Seader asked her if she would be interested in directing for Off Night.

Hakken says, “For a long time, I was focused on getting the skills and experience to become an arts administrator, and it’s been lovely to have enough bandwidth to get back into the artistic side of things as a director.”

For Hakken, the most enjoyable aspect of directing Proof is working with an “incredible” team. “We have such smart actors in the rehearsal room, and it’s incredible to help them shape their characters and performances,” she says.

The most challenging aspect of the experience for her could be doing justice to Auburn’s “magnificent” play. “The show deals with a few heavy topics, like mental health, and we need to ensure we’re telling the story in an authentic and accurate way.”

Valerie C. Kilmer began acting in her first year of elementary school and has since trained at The Groundlings School in Los Angeles and worked as a teaching artist with Disney Musicals in Schools and LA’s Inner City Shakespeare Ensemble. Recently she played Gwendolen in Constellation’s “The Importance of Being Earnest.” | Courtesy photo

Bloomington resident Valerie C. Kilmer trained at The Groundlings School in Los Angeles. She was a teaching artist with Disney Musicals in Schools, Playhouse Square, LA’s Inner City Shakespeare Ensemble, and Greater Cleveland Aquarium and has performed with over seven theater companies in Cleveland. Her most recent roles are Emma in IU’s On the Line and Gwendolen in Constellation’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

Kilmer began acting in her first year of elementary school when she was cast as a member of Munchkinland’s Lollipop Guild in The Wizard of Oz. After graduating from high school, she joined a traveling improv group and started working with local theater companies wherever she resided.

After seeing Kilmer in a Constellation production, Aubrey Seader invited her to audition for Proof. Having landed the part of Claire, Kilmer says, “I am very excited about what’s to come for this new company — they’re starting strong with this well-written play.”

For Kilmer, Claire is a “pragmatic and inquisitive” sister who “wants the best” for Catherine despite their mutual estrangement over the years.

Kilmer says, “As a person, I am not nearly as extroverted and direct as Claire is, but she and I both strive to find a reason for everything and to build a life with intention and care. One thing’s for sure, I would be intimidated to come across Claire on a bad day.”

While Kilmer admits that actors face numerous challenges to achieve work/life balance, she calls the rehearsal room the space where they “feel the most grounded, playful, and human.”

Stage Manager Sareek Hosein (left) and Director Cassie Hakken are pictured before an early blocking rehearsal in June. | Photo courtesy of Off Night Productions

Kilmer considers herself fortunate to have the flexibility with school and work that enables her to prioritize theater opportunities. “It’s worth getting behind on laundry when you know the time is being spent creating good theater with good people for a good crowd.”

For Kilmer, the most enjoyable aspect of acting is the formation of relationships with other actors and theater artists, who have been “the most talented, hilarious, and generous people,” she says. “Performing is certainly a rush, but the process of building a world and telling a story with a group of creative thinkers is the yummiest part.”

Kilmer advises emerging actors to practice wholistic self-care. “Engage in practices that support your ability to meet the emotional, mental, and physical challenges of acting,” she says. “Eat well, sleep well, and move often. Whatever that means for you. Acting is fun stuff, let it be enjoyable and sustainable for your whole being.”

Steve Scott is a retired educator with a B.A. in journalism and English.

In 2012, Eric Anderson, a director for Monroe County Civic Theater (MCCT), invited Scott to perform a monologue for the musical Working. Scott says, “It went really well, and that sort of kicked off my career.”

Scott went on to play Larry, with Aubrey Seader as Susan, in the 2016 Bloomington Playwrights Project’s Thirty Day Mourning Period. After that, Seader invited him to perform a dramatic reading for the Ivy Tech Storytelling Series, and more recently, she offered him the part of Robert for Proof. “I’d read the play in 2017 and thought it possibly the best script I’d ever encountered,” says Scott.

Steve Scott, who plays Robert in “Proof,” is a retired educator who has acted in productions by Monroe County Civic Theater, Bloomington Playwrights Project, and the Ivy Tech Storytelling Series. | Courtesy photo

When Scott was a martial arts instructor from 1991 through 2020, he had large blocks of time to rehearse for plays. But his schedule became challenging after he switched jobs, and he started working as a full-time paraprofessional educator at Jackson Creek Middle School. He says: “Those two years were also my busiest insofar as theater, and I had four or five productions that I cracked out. It was extremely difficult doing those shows while working a job.” Now retired from those jobs, he enjoys focusing on his acting career.

About his role in Proof, Scott says, “I’ll be honest, I am nothing like Robert. I’m terrible at math and somewhat intimidated by it.” Even so, he speculates that if Robert were an actual real-life person, they might enjoy discussing literature over coffee. “He loves hanging out in bookstores, and so do I,” he says.

Scott’s favorite roles are characters who are “complex, edgy, and intense.” But he also enjoys taking on lighter comedic roles. He likes to see if he can “disappear” into the character, he says. “I’ve had friends and family say there have been roles where they didn’t detect a trace of me. It was as if I was someone else. To me that’s a win.”

Scott also enjoys acting because it enables him to meet other actors, as well as directors and tech specialists, who are “extraordinarily talented.” While Aubrey Seader and Valerie C. Kilmer have appeared in other shows with him, Theo Merback-Crome “is proving a delight,” he says. “I can’t wait to get on stage with him.” Scott is also “immensely impressed” with Cassie Hakken as director of Proof, saying, “She’s doing a fantastic job.”

Scott advises emerging actors to start exploring roles by getting on stage, or in front of a microphone, as much as possible. He says, “I cut my teeth in civic theater. It was a great vehicle for testing myself. And if an actor has desire, MCCT will be glad to have them.” He also advises actors to keep auditioning till they land a role. And when that happens, “no matter how small, squeeze everything you can out of it.”

It might be easier to do just that in Bloomington — ace auditions and land roles — now that Off Night Productions gives women and nonbinary theater artists an additional outlet for their talents, and artists who work in the service industry a more accommodating theatergoing schedule.