When Conducting An Interview, Always Use Multiple Tape Recorders

Sound: "Side to Side" by Blackalicious (feat. Lateef & Pigeon John)

Today I had the great pleasure of interviewing Taylor Mac, an amazing person, theater artist, and the mastermind behind The Lily's Revenge, the show that I'm dramaturging for the A.R.T.  I had a company tape recorder with which to record the interview, and, after multiple tests, I called up Taylor (he's currently in New York), and hit "record."  We spent forty-five minutes talking about Taylor's life, his work as an artist, his philosophy, and, of course, Lily.  It was the ideal interview experience.

Unbeknownst to me, the tape recorder decided not to cooperate.

I discovered this when I went to listen to and transcribe the tapes and discovered that, after one ringtone, the tape completely cut out.  And so I did what any person would do: I freaked out.

The completed, edited, print-ready interview had a 4:00pm deadline, and it was already 10:00am.  Obviously, I needed to figure out how to fix this, and I need to figure out how to fix this NOW.  Fortunately, I had another tape recorder (which I might have borrowed from someone - a parent, a professor, I'm not sure.  Sorry, original owner, it's mine now).  I grabbed it, tested it, said a little prayer, and called Taylor back to explain what had happened and beg him to do another interview.  He graciously agreed, and I made my deadline with some time to spare.

In the future, though, I'm using at least two tape recorders to record every interview.