Beth and Leslie Forrester run two of the organizations that hold up the arts in Springfield. They also, personally, clean up the messes.

Leslie is the Executive Director of the Springfield Regional Arts Council, twelve and a half years into this go-around, and in the second episode of OFF BOOK WITH BETH the two of them get into what the job actually is when nobody's watching. Rivets that won't come out of a theatre seat. A little girl in the bathroom during a show. Trash on Walnut Street after a festival, a thunderstorm at 4:30 on a Sunday, and a dozen people packed into Leslie's car waiting out the lightning.

"It's not our city that tells us what our culture is. We build our culture together."

OFF BOOK WITH BETH is a production of Springfield Little Theatre at the historic Landers Theatre in Springfield, Missouri. Learn more at springfieldlittletheatre.org.

In the first episode of OFF BOOK WITH BETH, Executive Director Beth Domann and Springfield Little Theatre Board President Seth Swafford get into what actually happens around a show at the Landers. The 1978 bugle still sitting in Beth's office, and what it has to do with ARSENIC & OLD LACE. The night Sven the reindeer lost his head mid-performance. The Dorothy who had no bucket and announced "I splash you" anyway. The 174 people who auditioned for LES MISÉRABLES, and the 42 who got in. Eight weeks of four-hour rehearsals; every one of them volunteered. And why ticket sales cover only 44% of what it costs to keep the curtain rising.

Plus a black dress, donated to our costume shop after Seth's mother died, that he watched walk across the Landers stage two seasons later.

OFF BOOK WITH BETH is a production of Springfield Little Theatre at the historic Landers Theatre in Springfield, Missouri. Learn more at springfieldlittletheatre.org.

Springfield Little Theatre has been putting on shows since 1934, and Executive Director Beth Domann has stories to tell!

OFF BOOK WITH BETH is where the stories that never made it into a program finally get told — what actually goes into a show, what famously went wrong, and why a town this size has, in Beth's words, a freaky vortex of talent.

Join us for new episodes monthly. Episode 1, featuring Springfield Little Theatre Board President Seth Swafford, arrives Monday, August 24.

OFF BOOK WITH BETH is a production of Springfield Little Theatre at the historic Landers Theatre in Springfield, Missouri. Learn more at springfieldlittletheatre.org.

OFF BOOK WITH BETH is a production of Springfield Little Theatre at the historic Landers Theatre in Springfield, Missouri. Learn more at springfieldlittletheatre.org.