By E. Marie Sissle, Founder and Executive Producer, E. Marie Enterprises LLC. Written with the assistance of AI.
“Even the smallest dot can make a line if you draw enough of them. Then that line becomes a road.” — The Potato Lab
I have been thinking about this quote a lot lately.
It has stayed with me because this season of my life has been shaped by small decisions that are starting to show a clear direction. I am not talking about a finished destination or a dramatic turning point. I mean the steady kind of progress that comes from continuing to work, continuing to learn, and continuing to trust that small efforts matter.
That is what building a creative life has looked like for me. It has not been a highlight reel or one big breakthrough. It has been a long series of practical steps: showing up when I was tired, beginning again after disappointment, learning what I did not know, making difficult business decisions, caring for my family, and holding on to the work I felt called to do.
Over time, those steps began to connect.
The road was not always visible
Starting E. Marie Enterprises has required me to be honest about the difference between creating an idea and building an organization.
The idea is often the beautiful part. It is the vision of an elevated gathering where food, theatre, story, and community come together. It is imagining guests arriving with anticipation, settling into the room, and allowing themselves to be carried into an experience that feels personal and memorable.
The building is different.
Building means managing the budget, sending the follow-up email, tracking the unanswered message, reviewing the spreadsheet, talking with vendors, handling contracts, setting the schedule, solving the problem that appears two days before an event, and deciding to keep going when the results are not yet visible.
It is creative work, but it is also practical work.
There are moments when I have wondered whether I was moving forward at all. I would look at everything still left to do and question whether the small progress I had made could possibly be enough.
Then I would remember that a road is not created in one motion. It is created by continuing to place one step in front of the other.
E. Marie Enterprises is growing from a deep belief that gatherings can hold meaning. They can give people room to connect, to laugh, to listen, to remember, and to see one another differently. But meaningful experiences do not happen by accident. They require care, discipline, imagination, and a willingness to work behind the scenes long before anyone takes a seat.
That is the part of creative entrepreneurship people do not always see. Much of the work happens before the guests arrive and long before the event itself looks polished. It happens in planning, revision, problem-solving, and the decision to keep refining the vision until it can truly support the experience I want people to have.
Acting as a constant
Acting has been a constant in my life, not something I am coming back to after a long absence. What has remained true through the years is that an actor’s life is still demanding. It still asks for discipline, vulnerability, patience, and a willingness to keep going when the answer is not yet clear.
Becoming an actor has never been only about learning lines or stepping into a costume. It means auditioning and waiting. It means preparing for an opportunity and not knowing how it will turn out. It means walking into a room full of talented people and trusting that your voice, your choices, and your presence belong there. It also means living with long stretches of uncertainty, because not every project moves forward, not every callback comes, and not every effort leads where you hoped it would.
That reality has shaped me as much as any role has. It has taught me how to stay steady, how to listen carefully, and how to keep working without needing immediate validation. It has also sharpened the way I think as a producer. Because I understand the actor’s side of the room, I think differently about how stories are built, how performers are supported, and how an audience experiences what happens on stage.
I am building on decades of life, work, motherhood, faith, and acting. All of it informs the way I lead E. Marie Enterprises. The creative side of the work matters deeply to me, but so does the structure around it. Producing requires imagination, but it also requires responsibility. It asks me to think about the full experience, from what the audience feels in the room to what the team needs behind the scenes in order to do their best work.
Learning how to build well
This season has also led me to the LEAP program through the Jim Moran Entrepreneur Program at Florida State University.
I am attending because I want to build E. Marie Enterprises on a strong foundation.
Creative vision matters. So does structure.
A company rooted in storytelling still needs thoughtful planning, sound systems, financial understanding, clear goals, and the discipline to make decisions that support long-term growth. The LEAP program has given me space to learn, ask better questions, examine the business from different angles, and connect with other people who are also building something meaningful.
There is humility in being a student again.
I have entered rooms where I did not have every answer. I have listened, taken notes, reconsidered assumptions, and allowed myself to learn without needing to appear finished.
That has been important for me.
As a creative person, I am comfortable imagining what could be. As an executive producer and entrepreneur, I am learning to give that imagination a dependable framework. The goal is not to make the work less soulful. The goal is to make it sustainable enough to continue serving people.
That experience has reminded me that building well requires both vision and discipline. It has also given me a clearer sense of how I want E. Marie Enterprises to grow in the years ahead.
What the dots are becoming
When I look at the work ahead, I know there is still a great deal to do. There will be more planning meetings, rehearsals, auditions, lessons, conversations, and late nights. There will be details that no audience ever sees, and there will be decisions that require me to be imaginative and practical at the same time.
There will also be the moments that remind me why the work matters: a guest leaning forward during a scene, a table sharing a meal, a performer discovering something new in a character, or a community gathering in one room and allowing a story to unfold among them.
That is the road I am building.
Not only a company, but a creative home for meaningful experiences. A place where theatre can meet hospitality, where culture and story can sit at the same table, and where people can feel that their presence matters.
On November 12 and 13, 2026, that road leads to Always Room at the Top, our dinner theatre production at Hotel Duval in Tallahassee.
The evening will begin with dinner and the atmosphere of a selected night out, and as the lights shift, the story will take shape around guests, drawing them into a world of ambition, secrets, relationships, and betrayal.
The production is a suspense mystery, but beneath the mystery are questions I understand well: What are we willing to risk for success? What does loyalty cost? What happens when ambition begins to compete with our better instincts?
Guests can learn more about the production through the E. Marie Enterprises dinner theatre page and purchase tickets for Always Room at the Top.
I am looking forward to standing in that room again, not because the journey has been easy, but because it has been real. Every delayed dream, practical responsibility, uncertain beginning, and small act of faith has brought me closer to this moment. The line is still being drawn, but I can see the road more clearly now, and I know that even the smallest dot counts.