Wagener is essentially third in command at PBD, and when Hayes and Beryl are traveling, she runs the day-to-day operations. She is the overall supervisor of all the front-of-house employees and also manages the master calendar. A big part of her job is problem solving/ prevention and troubleshooting, and she is the de facto HR person for the staff – which makes her psychology background a definite plus.
When she cast her lot with theatre, Wagener felt she needed further training and decided to go to grad school. But she was uncertain whether she wanted to pursue acting or stage management. Her mother was friends with Sherry Eaker, former editor-in-chief of
Backstage
, the entertainment industry magazine, and suggested that Lara seek out her advice. “So that’s what I did,” says Wagener. “She asked me, ‘Are you willing to starve to be on the stage?’ And I wasn’t. She said, ‘Well, there’s your answer because there are a lot of people who are.’" Wagener received an MFA in stage management from the University of Iowa.
Upon graduation she received two job offers. One was for a stage manager position in North Carolina with a semi-professional company. The other was for a stage management internship at Florida Stage. “The internship paid a stipend, barely enough to live on,” she says. But her professors told her that working for Florida Stage was a better career choice. She took the internship and became the assistant stage manager for Suzanne Clement Jones and James Danford, who would become invaluable additions to PBD after Florida Stage folded (Danford recently retired). Ironically, Jones did not initially want to hire her.
“Suzanne said to the production manager, ‘Why would I want an intern who has an MFA in stage management? What could I possibly teach her? This position is meant for someone to learn,’” Wagener was later told. “But he asked her to interview me anyway. She asked me why I wanted the internship, and I told her, ‘Most of my experiences are in the educational theater. I don’t have many professional credits. I think it would it be a good experience for me to work alongside two seasoned professionals, just to make sure that I'm on par with you and that I understand all the choices and decisions you make and why. I want to make sure I feel ready to step into the professional world.’ She thought that was a good reason and I was hired shortly thereafter.”
When the internship was coming to an end, Nan Barnett, Florida Stage’s managing director, asked her what she was going to do. She planned to start sending out resumes, and Barnett floated the idea of creating a job for her if nothing turned up. “I left her office to run an errand, and when I came back, she was running down the hall screaming my name,” says Wagener. “‘You’re never going to believe this, but Bill Hayes from Palm Beach Dramaworks just called me and said, ‘I need a stage manager. Someone who’s young but good, and that will be willing to work for a small company and help take us to the next level.’ I met with Bill and Sue Ellen within that week and I was quickly hired.”
At that time, the company was still at the 84-seat theatre on Banyan Boulevard, and for her first five years with the company Wagener was the resident stage manager – and only stage manager. “It was a huge learning curve for me, because in school there would be a crew of three or four, plus an assistant and the head stage manager,” she says. “I got to Dramaworks and I had no assistant. I had to figure out how to manage everything by myself – do all the cues, stay on book [in case the actors needed help with their lines], and track all the props. There were many nights that [production manager] Mike Amico and I were there until very late finishing up all the small details. It was tough, but we were never willing to compromise our professionalism or the quality of the work. No one in the company was. As time went on and the demands increased, we slowly started to add staff. It grew organically out of necessity.”
Wagener describes herself as “calm and objective,” qualities that serve her well in her current position and were equally advantageous as stage manager. “When there were problems that came up, I never panicked,” she says. “And, as you can imagine, there are always things that happen in live theatre, like the night the actors jumped an entire act and couldn’t find their way back.”