Let’s turn “can we do this?” into “look what we did”
You and your team have big dreams and bigger ambitions. We provide tailored consulting and mentoring to help your team grow producing confidence, capacity and capability while delivering your project.
We de-risk the unknown, so you deliver the extraordinary
You’re stepping up your producing game. You have a bigger project than you’ve done before, you’re working in a new art form or touring a new location.
You’ve got all the ambition but there’s a lot of unknowns and that is frankly, terrifying. You need a safety blanket, strategist and cheerleader in one neat package, so you’re going to team up with us and we’ll help you every step of the way.
We’ll create a strategy for you, then hold your hand, mentor your team and help you execute until you are confident to proceed on your own.
We’ll use our extensive expertise and network to remove all the obstacles that arise and prevent problems you didn’t even know existed so your team not only develops the skills to execute in the future, they have a positive and successful experience levelling up.
How will we get this done?
We are masters of the impossible
We have made the impossible into reality. Move people across a closed national border during the Covid-19 Pandemic? Led a team to sell a million tickets at Edinburgh Fringe? Make juggling cool? Hang 2.7 tonnes of ice off a crane and put a woman atop it for 10 hours? We’ve done it. We love going bravely into the unknown, drawing a map and shining a light for others to follow.
We are unflappable
We literally gave a masterclass for producers on how to deal with a crisis (delivered remotely from a theatre dressing room whilst dealing with a crisis!). We have dealt with an arrest, injury five minutes before curtain, fire in a venue, violence towards company, debilitating illness on tour, artists getting lost in regional China and a hurricane heading towards our theatre. We’ve done a full venue renovation in 48 hours, re-negotiated a ‘done deal’ to the tune of half a million dollars and come out smiling. When things go wrong (and don’t they always), we bring the calm, focussed problem-solving so you can keep your cool. Can you put a price on peace of mind?
We know the work behind The Work
We’ve produced:
for subsidised organisations and commercial operations
in Australia and overseas
in remote locations and the busiest metropolises
for audiences of 35 to 50,000
made our cases to councils, boards, civilian town halls, federal government and secret services
for global celebrities and emerging artists
in every continent except Antarctica (but there’s still time) and our global network is extensive
Lauren Eisinger has worked as a Producer and Festival Programmer in the UK, USA and across Australia and produced work with artists from every continent except Antarctica.
At the helm of Parrot Ox she has presented work with Sydney Opera House, Carriageworks, La Jolla Playhouse (San Diego), Steppenwolf (Chicago), Chamaleon (Berlin) and Hunan Art Theatre (China).
She has been International Development Manager for Circa Contemporary Circus, worked for Underbelly, programming 600 shows a year into their festivals across the UK and worked for Sydney Festival under three different Artistic Directors.
Lauren teaches business at at the National Institute of Circus Arts. She has run masterclasses for established producers through MICC (Montreal Complement Cirque) in Montreal and Theatre Network Australia’s Independent Producer Initiative and worked with in-house producing teams at Upswing in the UK and Performing Lines in Australia to develop greater capacity and confidence.
She is a current candidate for the Executive Masters of Business Administration in Cultural Leadership through the Royal Academy of the Arts in London and Maastricht University in The Netherlands.
Who am I to tell you about your art?
What does this look like in practise?
Every project and organisation is different, so we can use a combination of strategy, mentoring and workshops to achieve our goals.
Strategy
You’re navigating uncharted waters and you need a a map.
We are producers who specialise in turning the impossible into reality.
You’re asking “what do we do now?” We’ll create a playbook for you, anticipate problems that might arise and pre-game solutions so you feel empowered to make bold decisions with confidence.
We will make a plan that you can follow to get from where you are, to where you want to be, with clear instructions you can implement yourself.
Exhale, drop your shoulders away from your ears, you’ve got this and we’ve got you.
Mentoring
There’s no learning as effective as doing the job, but the stakes are high, the resources tight and you need assurance the job will be done well.
How can we reconcile the need for learning and the simultaneous need for excellence?
Once we have a strategy to follow, we can coach and mentor your team as they execute the plan, trouble shooting problems as they arise and working through practical solutions.
We’ll use our expertise and network to remove all the obstacles that arise and prevent problems you didn’t even know existed so your team not only develops the skills to execute in the future, they have a positive and successful experience levelling up.
Workshops
We are passionate about empowering you with the knowledge that enables you to have the agency, understanding and confidence to make powerful decisions.
We can deliver 1 hour or 2 hour workshops online or in person. We can tailor topics to your needs. Some past examples include:
- a playbook for dealing with a crisis
- a human-centred approach to negotiation
- the global market for contemporary circus
- understanding contracts and copyright
- private investment models and moving work from the independent to the main stage
Workshops can be a great way to provide the context, skills and knowledge necessary to execute other areas of your project, or combine experiential learning with more formal learning methodologies.
