Meet Melissa Chalsma | Artistic Director, Independent Shakespeare Co.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Melissa Chalsma and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Melissa, what habits do you feel helped you succeed?
One thing that has always been true of me is that I’m a good learner. I really enjoy the process of understanding my limitations and strategizing how to succeed anyway! I’m the youngest of four siblings, and all of them really modeled this behavior growing up. If any one of them couldn’t do something, they would figure out how to do it. So I kind of followed in their footsteps. Through my career, people have of the told me not to be so hard on myself, but I feel like that’s my superpower. Noticing what I could have done better and being bothered by it until I figure out a way to succeed.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Independent Shakespeare Co. was born over 20 years ago now, and if I’m being completely honest, it was formed because my husband and I were two mostly-out-of-work actors. We loved classical plays, we love theater, and started working with like-minded actors to produce these kind of bare-bones performances. What has propelled the company forward, though, is just a kind of stubbornness and a real drive to keep getting better. Whether it’s the work on stage, my capacity as an arts leader, or some a seemingly inconsequential administrative process, I just believe in constantly improvement, however incremental. Producing theater is hard. Not only the creative process, but also the process of getting together the funds and structures needed to put it up in front of audiences.

We’ve added to this that our big Los Angeles theater event, our summer Shakespeare festival in Griffith Park, is free. This is great, because we are able to welcome a really eclectic and lively crowd of Angelenos each season. But it also means that we have to make up that income somewhere else, so that we can pay everyone’s salaries and cover all the costs. Let’s just say, it keeps me nimble, balancing art and money! I think the thing that keeps me focussed is trying to always bear in mind why I am doing this work: to create a place for people to see the kind of art that makes them feel connected to their community and just generally more joyful.

One thing that’s been happening more recently, is we’ve got a lot more invested in producing new plays, and supporting artists creating their own original work. We do this in our indoor space, the Independent Studio. It’s fun to be kind of at both ends of the theater – producing unapologetically original classical work in the park, and also totally some pretty subversive new plays in our space, which is built out in an old factory floor.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
There are so many great places to eat in Los Angeles! You could spend a day eating your way up and down York Boulevard in Highland Park. Tacos Villa Corona in Atwater Village is delicious, and the perfect place to get a meal in on the way to explore Griffith Park if it’s an outdoor kind of day. The Craft and Folk Art Museum is a great place, and down the road from the La Brea Tar Pits which is really fun to take out-of-towners to. But my current go-to spot is the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City. It is just the most creative, surprising place to visit. I love everything about it.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I can never stop acknowledging the teachers I had at the Professional Theatre Training Program at the University of Delaware. Looking back, I really don’t understand how they took this awkward, neurotic 20-year-old seriously. But they did! It’s an extraordinary opportunity to have that kind of mentorship in one’s life, to be challenged and supported like that. I still hear their voices, and think about lessons I learned there. Susan, Katherine, Jewel, Leslie, and Sandy ….thank you for showing me a path.

Website: https://iscla.org

Instagram: @indyshakes

Facebook: @indyshakes

Image Credits
Kotaroh Zushi (the BW shot)
All others, Grettel Cortes