What Does Torrie Do All Day?

Our journey through the daily lives of SCT staff continues with a stalwart of the Marketing and Artistic staffs, Torrie McDonald.


Every time I tell someone my job title, Literary & Publications Manager, I get a pretty standard response, “Oh. Neat. So, what is that? What do you do?”

And every time I’m asked that, I realize that I do a lot of different things in places you might not expect to find me based on the job title, and I do a lot of stuff that may look like I’m not really doing anything. But definitely, there is no one average day.

For example, today I checked email and responded to inquiries from other theatres wanting to know about rights to shows we’ve done in the past; shows we haven’t done, but they think we did; and shows we haven’t done, they know we never did, but just want my help anyway. Then I responded to the playwrights who sent me emails and/or scripts to read, thanking them for their interest, but I’m sorry, SCT does not accept unsolicited manuscripts directly from playwrights. That part kind of sucks. It’s hard to say no, but if we said yes to everyone, I’d be buried under an even larger mountain of paper than the one growing in my office now. And some of the stuff that comes my way…well, let’s just say that a gritty, obscenity-laden script on the horrors of the Vietnam War is maybe not so appropriate for the 6-year-old set.

Then I sent an email to our web design/host company with some changes and fixes for our website. I hope they get done in time.

After that, I did some online research on animal rights for a talk I’m going to give our C.A.S.T class next week—for their fundraiser. They thought I’d just talk to them about marketing and posters, but since their efforts are going to support PAWS, and it’s a cause near and dear to me, I thought I’d do a little extra on this, whether they’re prepared for it or not.

Next, I tested the changes to our site that I had requested a few days ago, making tweaks and suggestions in hopes that they’ll get done in time.

Oh, then someone needed me to take a look at something they’re working on, so I can make edits and art direction suggestions.

While I’m at it, I wrote some copy for and designed a postcard to be mailed soon.

Then I avoided a couple of calls from sales people wanting to get me to use their print company. I’d love to take/have the time to talk with these folks and get a really juicy bidding war going, but no such luck. Instead, I have to (get to, really) read scripts. This is one of the absolute best parts of the job. Reading plays. The ones we know we’re going to produce I read and then write synopses, copy for the brochures, and curriculum connections to fit the themes (not all in one day, of course). Scripts that we may be interested in or received from someone we know, like an artistic director or literary manager, I read with a critical eye to see if I want to pass it along to Linda, our artistic director, for her to check out. She is the one who picks the plays we produce, but even my little part is so rewarding. Being able to read, evaluate, and suggest things to her and see the fruits of our labors on stage as the kids watch with rapt attention—I may not have a typical day, but I sure am lucky to have such atypical ones.


Torrie McDonald
Literary & Publications Manager


Check back soon for more of our "What Do People Do All Day? series.