Behind the Curtain at Arizona Theatre Company with Mollie Heil

• 🎙️ Mollie Heil discusses becoming ATC’s 2026–27 Resident Artist, the first stage manager selected in the program’s three years.
• 📝 Calling a show means coordinating lighting, sound and moving scenery from a cue-filled script, while maintaining the production after the director leaves.
• 📍 A Webster University internship brought Heil to ATC in 2018. She returned to Tucson after graduating in 2020, despite theater closures.
• 🚋 Heil’s stage management assignment follows the production from Tucson to Tempe, with time in each theater to adjust the show to its space.
• 📝 Little Shop of Horrors brings plant puppets, a traveling cast and a full production to remount; Heil describes learning its operation in Salt Lake City.
• 🎙️ Opening nights and student talkbacks give Heil new opportunities to connect audiences with the people and processes behind ATC productions.

At the Temple of Music and Art in downtown Tucson, the audience sees the actors, scenery and lighting. Mollie Heil helps those elements arrive together, on cue. As a stage manager, she measures a successful performance partly by how little the audience notices her. Behind that quiet presence is a job that stretches from rehearsal schedules and costume fittings to the final moments before curtain.

In Episode 402 of Life Along the Streetcar, Tom Heath talks with Heil about that work and her appointment as Arizona Theatre Company’s Resident Artist for the 2026–27 season. Their conversation opens a planned series about the people who bring ATC productions to life. It also follows a personal decision: after an internship introduced her to Tucson, Heil chose to build her life here, even when the pandemic had closed theaters.

Stage Management at the Temple of Music and Art

During a performance, Heil works from a control booth with a script containing lighting and sound cues. Moving scenery may require a spoken instruction or a cue light. Calling the show means coordinating those moments so that the production unfolds as intended. Before audiences arrive, her responsibilities include distributing schedules, getting actors to costume fittings and helping translate the designers’ and director’s ideas into the physical production.

That responsibility continues after opening night, when the director moves on to another show. The stage manager keeps the production running as it was established. Heil explains that the director returns for the move to Tempe, while her own assignment follows the production between cities. Her description gives theatergoers a clearer picture of the continuing work behind a show they might experience only once.

The last five minutes before curtain bring that responsibility into focus. Heil announces the remaining time, heads to the booth and readies her script before calling places at about two minutes. Missing shoes, a broken zipper or a delay in the lobby can change the evening’s rhythm. She describes calm as part of the job: even when the same show repeats, the people making it happen need someone steady when an unexpected problem appears.

From Living Room Plays to a Theater Career in Tucson

Heil’s introduction to stage management began with the practical business of being the oldest of four children. She organized siblings in living room plays and grew up attending touring productions in Chicago. After her family moved to Colorado, her father’s involvement in summer stock brought her closer to backstage life. Her mother taught her organization and Excel, skills that fit naturally with the work she would eventually pursue.

In high school, Heil recognized that a theater career could involve many jobs beyond performing. She sought a BFA specifically in stage management and chose Webster University in St. Louis. A required internship semester brought her to ATC in 2018. The company’s flexibility suited the fall placement she wanted, and the visit became more than a temporary assignment: she could imagine making Tucson home.

She returned in 2020 after graduating, working at the container store while theaters were closed. ATC later honored a production assistant contract she had signed before the pandemic, bringing her back when it reopened in 2021. Her account also makes clear that theater employment remains show by show. Finding a company where she feels at home matters personally, while living locally gives both Heil and ATC practical reasons to keep working together.

Little Shop of Horrors and ATC’s Resident Artist Role

For the 2026–27 season, Heil says she will stage manage Little Shop of Horrors and serve as assistant stage manager on August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean. Little Shop brings a particular set of coordination demands through its plant puppets. The production is coming from Pioneer Theater in Salt Lake City, and Heil describes plans to travel there to learn its cues, puppet details and backstage operation before the Arizona remount.

The cast, set, costumes, puppets and props will come to Arizona, but the receiving team still has to fit the show into its space and rehearse the adjustments. Heil anticipates about a week of technical rehearsal, followed later by another adjustment period in Tempe. Her experience ranges from a summer production of Carousel with a 17-piece orchestra and more than 20 cast members to ATC’s two-person production of The Roommate. Each scale brings different demands.

The Resident Artist appointment adds a public dimension to work usually done out of sight. Heil identifies herself as the first stage manager selected in the program’s three years. Alongside her production assignments, she expects to attend every opening night and lead talkbacks, primarily following student matinees. Those conversations give young audience members a chance to ask how a show is made and meet an artist whose contribution may otherwise remain invisible from their seats.

Conclusion

Listen to Tom Heath’s full conversation with Mollie Heil for a closer look at the cues, preparation and working relationships behind an ATC performance. Her story connects the activity backstage at the Temple of Music and Art with the choice to make Tucson home.

Editorial note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity while preserving its substantive content and original sequence.

Introducing ATC’s Resident Artist

Editorial note: The supplied public guest label is Behind the Curtain. Mollie Heil and Arizona Theatre Company follow the spellings confirmed in the episode description.

Tom Heath: Welcome back to another episode of Life Along the Streetcar. We now move into our 400s, on our march to 500, and we like to talk about the things happening in our urban core from A Mountain to the U of A, and all stops in between on the streetcar route. This week, we are going to go behind the curtain at Arizona Theatre Company. This is going to be a first in a series, hopefully, of conversations with the people who bring ATC’s productions to life. As these new productions are coming on stage, we’re going to meet with artists in different roles and discover how their work comes together on stage at the Temple of Music and Art here in downtown Tucson. We’re going to start today with someone very special, the one I think probably keeps everything moving. It’s the stage manager, Mollie Heil, who I think joined in 2018. We’re going to talk about this, but she has recently been named the Resident Artist for the 2026–27 season. My name is Tom Heath. I welcome you, and Mollie, welcome to Life Along the Streetcar.

Behind the Curtain: Thank you for having me.

Tom Heath: Let’s start with this title now. All of a sudden, you’re the Resident Artist. I kind of feel like you get to walk in differently, and you get to wear the sunglasses inside, and people hand you coffee when you walk in. Is that what this is for you?

Behind the Curtain: Well, we’ll see. Probably not, but it feels that way for sure. It feels very special, and I’m honored to have been chosen this year.

Behind the Curtain: This is only the third year with having a Resident Artist at ATC, so I feel very lucky to be the first stage manager. It’s going to be very exciting.

Tom Heath: You started, I think, as an intern, right?

Behind the Curtain: Yes.

Tom Heath: So you interned, you’ve worked several seasons. What’s different about a Resident Artist versus what you’ve been doing?

Behind the Curtain: That’s a great question, because I have been around for six consecutive seasons, and I typically do at least two shows every season. In terms of the shows and the work as a stage manager, I will be doing the same kind of thing. I’ll be doing two shows. I’ll be stage managing Little Shop of Horrors, and then I will be the assistant stage manager on August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean. But the Resident Artist position gives me more forward-facing opportunities to meet folks in the community. I will be at every opening night, even if it’s not a show that I’m stage managing. I will lead talkbacks throughout the season and help ATC get the word out and be a forward face for the organization, which is great.

Tom Heath: So talkbacks: I was told not to speak during the performances, but we’re allowed to do that?

Behind the Curtain: It’ll be primarily the student matinees. When the show is over, we have the students stick around to ask questions and learn more about the process, and we’ll have a moderator for those. I’ll be there for those, and if there are any additional ones that aren’t for the students, then I’ll be there as well.

A Family Introduction to Theater

Tom Heath: I want to get into your role a little bit, and I do probably the least amount of research I can do to be at all comprehensible in these interviews. I didn’t read a whole page of your website. I just read a line that says at three years old, you were going to be a stage manager. Let’s go back to being three years old. How did you know? What does this look like?

Behind the Curtain: I am the oldest of four children. I grew up kind of stage managing my siblings and putting on plays in the living room, being the older sister who was telling my brothers and my sister where to go and what to do and when to go to bed, helping my mom and having all the fun. We were lucky to be exposed to the theater very early on. I grew up in Chicago for the first 11 years of my life, so we were able to see the touring shows in Chicago. I just always loved the sense of community, even when I was in the audience. It was so fun for me. When I was in elementary school and we were doing some plays here and there, just silly, basic things that elementary schoolers do, I felt like that was where I was having the most fun. I really didn’t dive deep into professional theater until I was in high school. I kind of lost it for a little bit in middle school. I was very sporty as a kid.

Behind the Curtain: I really wanted to do all the athletics, and theater wasn’t the cool thing to do growing up. Shocker. But that didn’t matter. My dad was always very involved. He wanted to be an actor, and he ended up a Presbyterian minister. I grew up watching him almost on stage every week. Then when we moved to Colorado, he joined the local summer stock theater.

Tom Heath: Okay, so he got to be on the stage.

Behind the Curtain: He did, yeah. That was when I really started to feel like, okay, I feel at home in the theater. He would take me to check his props and do all this. I became an usher when I was like 13, and I just felt like that was where I was having the best time. My siblings all ended up as performers, so they needed someone to be the stage manager. My mom is very much the type A stage manager. She taught me how to be organized and use Excel and do all of those behind-the-scenes things. It was really fun growing up and being exposed to the theater. Once I got into high school, I realized that you don’t have to be a performer. You can do all these other jobs that help and are necessary to make the show happen.

Tom Heath: Are your siblings still performing?

Behind the Curtain: Yeah, my sister is an actress. She lives in Manhattan, and she went to NYU and studied musical theater. My brothers are more in the music scene. They like to play their music and have a band and do all that. They’re still all performing.

Webster University, an ATC Internship and a Return to Tucson

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Tom Heath: Your sister goes to NYU, which, I think, has a lot of acting talent through that program, if I remember correctly. But if you’re doing other parts of the theater, if you’re a stage manager or in other areas, are there schools that specialize in that? Did you go to a school specifically for that?

Behind the Curtain: Yeah, I did. That was part of my shift in high school. When I decided I really wanted to pursue this as a career, I had to figure out which theater schools offered the BFA in stage management. That was my goal, to get that specialized degree. I looked at NYU, I looked at some other schools in New York City, and New York City wasn’t really calling me. I kind of wanted to go back to the Midwest. Having grown up in Chicago, I felt really at home in St. Louis. There was a great conservatory in St. Louis called Webster University, and they had the BFA in stage management. I ended up going there, and I loved my four years at Webster. That was actually how I ended up in Tucson, because I had to take an internship semester. That internship was at Arizona Theatre Company.

Tom Heath: Okay, so you graduated then around 2018, ’20?

Behind the Curtain: 2020.

Tom Heath: Oh, good time. Let’s jump right into this.

Behind the Curtain: Yes. I did my internship in 2018 out here pre-COVID, and I did a lot of summer stock work pre-COVID. But then in 2020, I graduated and moved back to Tucson, even though theater was not open. I did my stint here working at the container store.

Behind the Curtain: But I knew that I wanted to come back because I loved Tucson, and I really loved Arizona Theatre Company.

Tom Heath: We’ll be back to our conversation with Mollie Heil in just a moment. First, I’m putting on my mortgage hat for a quick word from our sponsor, the Heath team at Nova Home Loans. When you watch a great theater production, there’s always a stage manager behind the scenes who keeps the people, timing and details working together. Buying a home takes a similar coordination. I’m Tom Heath with Nova Home Loans. With close to 30 years in mortgage lending, I help guide you through the financing process. When something unexpected happens, preparation and experience help keep the show moving. Your home loan deserves a strong supporting cast. Find yours at theheathteam.com.

Tom Heath: So 2018, that was your first exposure. How did you pick that as an internship?

Behind the Curtain: My professors really encouraged us to go outside of St. Louis. We had a lot of local connections through school that were amazing, like the Muny and the Repertory Theater of St. Louis and all these amazing places in town. For the internships, they really encouraged us to go not only out of St. Louis, but typically out of Missouri. Having my family in Colorado, I wanted to go back to the West Coast and be kind of in the Southwest, in the desert. I wanted the good green chilies and all the good food. It ended up that Arizona Theatre Company had the timeline that I was looking for.

Working Show by Show and Finding a Local Home

Behind the Curtain: I wanted to be out here for the fall, but not for the whole year, and they were flexible with that schedule. It just magically came together, and I fell in love with Tucson. That was my first time here.

Tom Heath: Okay. So you get out here for the internship and decide, when you graduate, you’re going to make your way back.

Behind the Curtain: Yeah.

Tom Heath: Okay.

Behind the Curtain: I really wanted to come back. I could see myself living here, and pre-COVID, before the pandemic even hit, I had a contract to come back to Arizona Theatre Company.

Tom Heath: Oh, okay.

Behind the Curtain: I actually had signed a production assistant job with ATC, and then the pandemic hit. They honored it just a year later once they reopened in 2021.

Tom Heath: In your last five or so years you’ve been doing these performances, how does it work? Are you paid for the year? Are you paid for the performance? Does it vary?

Behind the Curtain: It is all now under a union contract. The Actors’ Equity Association, they are the union that oversees the stage managers and the actors. When I came back, I was still non-union, and I think it was a weekly rate, but it was kind of based on the Actors’ Equity rates and rules. I did the one year non-union, and then I came back the second year, and I was a member of Actors’ Equity at that point.

Tom Heath: I guess what I’m trying to think about from a planning standpoint: okay, I’m going to move to Tucson.

Tom Heath: Do they say, okay, you’re going to be with a theater company, we’ve got a five-year contract with you, or is it based upon—

Behind the Curtain: No, it’s show by show.

Tom Heath: So that’s kind of a big risk then to come to Arizona.

Behind the Curtain: Yeah.

Tom Heath: And you’re like, okay, I got work for the next six to eight weeks.

Behind the Curtain: Yes.

Tom Heath: Let’s make a go of it.

Behind the Curtain: Yes. But that’s the life. Wherever you are in the theater industry, if you’re an actor or a stage manager, or even a designer, you book a show, and then when that show is done, you hope that you have another one.

Tom Heath: Wow. That’s kind of stressful, I guess.

Behind the Curtain: Yeah. But that’s why it’s great to find a company like ATC that you feel like you’re at home, because I feel like I want to stay, and I want to do the next show with them. If I’m available, and if they want me to stick around, then it makes sense. It’s helpful to be local as well. A lot of theaters bring people in from New York and LA and other places. But if I live here, then that’s all the more reason to work for them consistently, which is great. It helps them, and it helps me. That’s part of the Resident Artist gig as well. They are highlighting local folks.

Tom Heath: You mentioned you’re signing up for a couple of shows. As a Resident Artist, you’ve got a little bit more stability, because you know kind of what your year looks like. Not that you’ve had any sort of issues, but at least now you’ve got some stability for a period of time.

Behind the Curtain: Yes.

Calling the Show and Maintaining the Director’s Vision

Editorial note: An unclear ASR fragment immediately before the explanation of LORT is omitted; no missing wording has been reconstructed.

Behind the Curtain: Yes.

Tom Heath: I really want to get into Little Shop of Horrors, because that’s what’s coming up next here, and that’s going to be you as the stage manager. But from an outside perspective, as someone who might go to the theater and see the performance, what are you doing?

Behind the Curtain: That’s a good question, because I always tell people, if you don’t see me, then everything’s going well. If I have to come on stage, or if my voice has to come on the god mic, then something has gone awry. My goal is always to be back there in the shadows and not someone that you notice, because you’re here to see the show. You’re not here to see the stage manager. When I’m stage managing a show, I’m in the control booth, and I have my script. My script has all of the lighting cues, all of the sound cues. If there’s any moving scenery, I will cue that, whether it’s verbal or with what we call a cue light. It’s my own delicate balance of calling the show, is what we call it. That’s during the performances. But I’m the one who is sending out the schedules, making sure the actors are going to their costume fittings, making sure that the designers’ visions are translated correctly in the physicalities of the show, and making sure that the director’s vision is produced and brought to life the way that it should be.

Tom Heath: Some of the things you’re talking about, I would assume, would fall under the director’s purview, but not necessarily.

Tom Heath: Like with the costume design.

Behind the Curtain: It’s similar. We work together in the sense that I’m helping bring it to life, and they have the vision. They are the ones who say, this is what I want it to look like, this is what I want the staging to be. Then after opening, the director leaves. The director leaves to go on to their next show. So the stage manager is—

Tom Heath: Did not know that.

Behind the Curtain: Yeah, the stage manager is kind of the one who then has to keep everything running the way that it is supposed to.

Tom Heath: When you’re doing Tucson and then Tempe, the show opens here, and then you move up to Tempe. When you go to Tempe, is the director coming back for that?

Behind the Curtain: Yes.

Tom Heath: Okay.

Behind the Curtain: LORT is the League of Resident Theaters. It’s a regional theater organization.

Tom Heath: When Matt August was on, he gave us a good explanation for that. If you want to know more about LORT theaters, head over to lifealongstreetcar.org and put in Matt August or LORT, and you’ll get the interview that we did with him. We kind of went through that. So, Little Shop of Horrors. I’ve heard of this. It’s a little thing, right? You got something going on with that coming up here. Tell us about this. It’s going to be exciting for you. This is going to be a very interesting piece when you’re working with an actor that’s a plant.

Behind the Curtain: Yes. I am lucky because I’ve done the show before. I did it 10 years ago, so it’s been a while, but it is just so fun.

Bringing Little Shop of Horrors to Arizona

Editorial note: The opening sentence about puppetry is incomplete in the supplied captions and is retained without supplying missing words.

Behind the Curtain: The puppetry that’s involved in this show is really, really—different plant puppets through the whole show. It’s coming to us from Pioneer Theater in Salt Lake City. I will actually be flying to Salt Lake this next week to go learn the show and learn about all the intricacies with the puppets, how to call the show and how to run it backstage. That’ll be very fun. It’s a fun show.

Tom Heath: I think Arizona Theatre Company tends to do a lot of their own performances, but this one’s coming from somewhere else. Is it bringing a cast and crew with them?

Behind the Curtain: It’s bringing the cast. The cast will come, all of the set, the costumes, the puppets, everything, the props. Those will all come down to Arizona. But then we will be tasked with remounting it and fitting it into our space and re-rehearsing. We’ll have about a week of technical rehearsal where we put it back up on its feet and make any necessary adjustments. The director will come with that.

Tom Heath: Is a week normal?

Behind the Curtain: For tech, yeah. About a week or a little more than a week is typical for tech. It is about a week to a week and a half of tech. If we were starting the show at our theater, we would do a week of tech and then a week of preview performances. But since they are running it in Salt Lake and they will have done probably close to 20 performances up there, it will be a little quicker for us.

Tom Heath: Got it. And then it’ll go from here up to Tempe?

Behind the Curtain: Yes.

Five Minutes to Curtain

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Behind the Curtain: Then we do the same thing in Tempe, where we have about a week to adjust it.

Tom Heath: You’ll go up. So you’re not stage manager in Tucson, you’re stage manager for the production.

Behind the Curtain: For the production.

Tom Heath: And wherever ATC is doing that, you’re going to go up there. Okay.

Behind the Curtain: Yes.

Tom Heath: All right. This is the question I got to ask, because we talked before we got on the air that one of my favorite movies, which I was very surprised by, was called Noises Off. It’s a very funny look at a cast and a crew that just sort of goes off the rails at some point for lots of reasons. It’s very funny. I got to know: five minutes before the performance, there’s got to be a thousand things going on. What is that energy like? What’s going on when you know that curtain’s going to be going up in five minutes?

Behind the Curtain: Oh, it’s the best. I am the one who has to tell everybody that we have five minutes until the show. Typically, my five minutes is going to the page microphone and saying, hey, everyone, we have five minutes. Once I do that, I compose myself. If I have to go up to the booth at the Temple in Tucson, it’s way up in the top of the theater.

Tom Heath: I didn’t realize you had a booth.

Behind the Curtain: Yeah. I have to hike up a bunch of stairs, or if I’m running late, I’ll take the elevator, then settle myself and make sure I’m on the front page of my script. At about two minutes before the show, I’ll call places, and then hopefully everyone’s on time.

Behind the Curtain: Sometimes you have that unexpected: someone’s shoes are missing, or a zipper breaks, or maybe the front of house is running behind and there’s a long line at the bar. It’s always different. It’s always very exciting to know that we do the same thing every day. We do the same show, and at the same time, it’s always different. There’s always something happening that could throw someone off. But that’s why, being a stage manager, you have to be the glue, and you have to be that calm presence for your entire company.

Tom Heath: We’ll wrap up our interview with Mollie Heil in just a moment. First, I’m stepping into my other role for a quick word from our sponsor, the Heath team at Nova Home Loans. In theater, opening night is a big moment. Every detail takes tremendous preparation, and a successful run requires ongoing support. Buying a home is similar. Closing day takes a tremendous amount of preparation, but it’s really just the beginning. I’m Tom Heath with Nova Home Loans. For close to 30 years, I’ve helped people finance their homes. My team prepares you for the big day. And when your plans change down the road, I’m here to help you explore your options. From opening night to your next act, visit theheathteam.com.

Tom Heath: Things in Arizona Theatre Company tend to be more intimate. It’s a smaller, very condensed group.

Large Casts, Intimate Productions and the Coming Season

Editorial note: Schedule statements reflect the interview. Heil expresses uncertainty about the Tucson closing date and her attendance at The Play That Goes Wrong opening night.

Tom Heath: I guess it is a smaller performance, but you’ve done larger performances, larger productions. Are there more challenges when you’ve got more people, or are there more challenges when you have fewer options? How does that work, or is it just completely different?

Behind the Curtain: It’s completely different, but it’s quite exciting when you have a show with 50 people who are showing up every day. I just did a production of Carousel this summer where—

Tom Heath: Oh, a musical.

Behind the Curtain: Yeah.

Tom Heath: Yeah, okay.

Behind the Curtain: We had a 17-piece orchestra, and that’s just the orchestra. We had a 20-plus cast, and then it’s, I can’t start the show without the cello. I can’t start the show without the harpist. There’s that level of excitement when you’re working on a bigger show. But the show that I did at ATC in the spring, The Roommate, that was a cast of two people. That brings its own challenges.

Tom Heath: No harpist, no cello?

Behind the Curtain: No, no.

Tom Heath: We’re going to be wrapping up here, but let’s finish up with the season. So Little Shop in Tucson?

Behind the Curtain: Yes. Little Shop opens December 3rd. That’s our opening night. We have a couple previews before that. Then I believe we close on the 21st.

Tom Heath: Close in Tucson, but then it goes up to Tempe.

Behind the Curtain: Yep. We go up to Tempe after the holidays, so we’ll be in Tempe in January.

Tom Heath: And then after that, the play that goes—what is it?

Behind the Curtain: The Play That Goes Wrong.

Tom Heath: Yeah, which sounds like a Noises Off kind of thing where things are happening.

Behind the Curtain: Yeah.

Making Tucson Home and Closing Credits

Tom Heath: You’re not the stage manager for that because you’re going to be up in Phoenix, right?

Behind the Curtain: I’ll be with Little Shop still during the beginning of Play That Goes Wrong. But I’ll come back to Tucson once we close Little Shop. Then I should be able, I think, to make it to the opening night of Play That Goes Wrong.

Tom Heath: Yeah.

Behind the Curtain: And then Gem of the Ocean after that.

Tom Heath: All right. That’s what’s coming up here. Our goal is to bring in different team members, performers. I guess you’re all artists, and some are actors, some are in lighting and sound, and someone tells them what to do and brings it all together. That’s Mollie Heil. Stay tuned. We’re hoping to get out different parts so you can see this whole behind the scenes of Arizona Theatre Company, as well as talk about the upcoming performances. Little Shop of Horrors is just a classic. It’s one of those movies—I saw it as a movie and then saw it as a play, and both are fantastic. But the play brings a certain power to it that you lose in the movie, I think. I’m kind of excited to see it on stage again here in Tucson. Mollie, welcome back to Tucson. I’m glad you chose to make it here as a home, and it seems like it’s working out well for you and for ATC.

Behind the Curtain: Yes, I’m just so lucky. I’m lucky to be in a town and with a theater company that I just adore. Every day, it doesn’t even feel like I’m going to work.

Behind the Curtain: It just feels like I’m blessed to have the life that I have and have the company and the people around me that I do. So thank you.

Tom Heath: And thank you for watching another episode here of Life Along the Streetcar as we cover the cool things happening within the urban core from A Mountain to the U of A. A huge shout out to James Portis. He is our executive producer. Our music is brought to you by Ryan Hood, as they allow us to use their song Dillinger Days. I got to tell you, after almost 10 years at this point, I still love that song. Every week here, it’s fantastic. My name is Tom Heath. I have the privilege of being your host. I invite you to tune in every Sunday for another episode of Life Along the Streetcar. Until next time, stay curious, Tucson.