If It Happens; Indie Production and The Graveyard of Creativity

If It Happens

Indie Productions and the Graveyard of Creativity

My one rep max at Krka Falls, Croatia 2019

I was telling a colleague about an exciting concert idea I had, and he responded with:
“If it happens.”

He’s incredibly sweet and absolutely didn’t mean to hurt my feelings — but oof. It stung. There’s something about that phrase that feels like a tiny shove back into reality. I’ve produced four recitals and three operas in my lifetime, and if I had even a modest abundance of cash, I would produce constantly. My brain is a nonstop hamster wheel of ideas. But money and time? Fleeting. Laughably fleeting.

Because I don’t have the capital, the cycle goes like this:
I get excited → I get embarrassed I can’t afford it → the idea dies → I mourn for a few days → and finally, I lay it to rest in my ever-growing graveyard of creativity.

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The Delulu Chronicles

Post Performance of Lucia Di Lammermoor with Southern Ontario Lyric Opera 2025. 

People love to imagine the singer pipeline as linear and logical:

1. Get your degrees

2. Build your social media presence

3. Wait for role offers to slide gracefully into your inbox

                                                        Right?

                                                    Not even close.

The real skill you need as a singer isn’t perfect passaggio — it’s the hustle.
It’s networking. Showing up. Following up. Surviving rejection.

And yes, there are a few singers (and singer-adjacent dreamers) who believe an agent will one day tap them on the shoulder and say, “Hi queen, I’ll collect all the jobbies for you.”
But those individuals suffer from a tragic condition known as The Delulus.

In reality:

• You can audition, but companies might have cast before they even hear you.

• You can coach, but refinement doesn’t guarantee work.

• You can hustle for months and still book nothing simply because the universe is in a mood.

And that’s why so many singers end up self-producing.
Not because they’re dying to become part-time arts administrators, grant writers, marketing teams, or set designers — but because if they don’t produce something themselves, they might do nothing at all. The opportunities don’t come often enough, or consistently enough, to sustain an artist’s sense of momentum or purpose.

So after a long day of rejection emails and emotional CPR, someone inevitably says:

“Let’s just produce our own show.”

And suddenly the group chat is vibrating with ideas, rep lists, venue links, rental quotes, and delusional optimism. For a moment, it feels possible.

Until, of course, real life — rent, groceries, transit passes, the cost of breathing in Toronto — reminds you that your dreams have a price tag.

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Producing: A Love Story… and Also Torture

Canadian War Memorial in Nijmegen, Netherlands. 2024

I have produced. And I can say with my whole chest:
it’s not just a labor of love —
it’s also torture.

You begin with the first hurdle: figuring out who you can trust.

When I first started producing, a seasoned colleague gave me a warning I dismissed as bitterness. She said:

“Buckle up. Your friends might seem eager and excited, but once the actual work appears, you’re about to learn how lazy and unpassionate they truly are.”

Productions have a way of revealing people. I’ve watched projects that started with excitement and big group chats slowly unravel — friendships strained, bank accounts drained, and entire plans collapsing under the weight of conflicting schedules, unchecked egos, financial strain, and the pure chaotic entropy that seems to follow any group of artists trying to Make Something Happen. It never starts that way, but it happens more often than anyone likes to admit. 

When it DOES Happen...

There’s a strange, stubborn hope baked into making art. Not optimism—artists are rarely optimistic. It’s more like an inner engine that refuses to shut off. You can be exhausted, broke, disillusioned, and still find yourself humming a melody while washing dishes, or scribbling staging ideas on the back of a receipt. You tell yourself it’s stupid, impossible, impractical… and then you keep doing it anyway.

Because when something does happen—when one of the ideas crawls out of the graveyard and stands up—it feels like a small miracle. A defiant, shimmering “yes” in a world full of “no.” And for a moment, all the abandoned drafts, failed budgets, cancelled rehearsals, and dead projects feel like they were leading here. To this one thing that managed to survive.

Artists keep going not because it’s easy, or affordable, or sensible—but because the alternative feels worse. Not making anything is the one outcome we can’t live with. So we bargain with the universe, we steal time from sleep, we turn corners into rehearsal spaces, we create tiny pockets of possibility in a life that rarely gives us room.

And if it happens—if even one project crawls its way into the light—it feeds every future hope. It keeps us trying again. It keeps us believing that the next idea might be the one that doesn’t die.