The writing is fluid and filled with humor, the descriptions allow for clear and powerful images, and the author does an incredible job of exploring the dark despair that stole into his soul many times…Lewis Kempfer’s writing is filled with wisdom and insight, a story that is shared with unusual honesty and a voice that is irresistible. Official Review — Reader’s Favorite 2020 International Book Contest — Silver Medal winner for Autobiography
The author shares his storied rough-and-tumble life, and smartly invites the reader into his world via sensory experiences like stomach churning and spinning. All realism is intact. Very well done. I enjoyed author’s instinct to not over-describe… Here again is an example of how the author writes such good descriptions concisely that dialogue is not necessary. Well done. — Judge’s Critique, Writer’s Digest 2020 Self-Published eBook Contest
Debuted as a #1 New Release on Amazon!
Ten-hut! Listen up new recruits! It’s time to suit up, ship out, and start your self-publishing mission.
Maneuvering the minefield of self-publishing can be overwhelming. Getting the information you need is far from simple. Is hiring a cover designer worth it? Which trim size to choose?
Ten-hut! Listen up new recruits! It’s time to suit up, ship out, and start your self-publishing mission.
Author Lewis Kempfer’s journey through self-publishing was just that—a battlefield. The process was confusing and tedious, and the books that claimed to “teach” the self-publishing process were vague and as dry as yesterday’s chicken in the mess hall. Once he won the self-publishing war, he knew he could develop a better way to show authors the process. Hence, the book began to write itself.
Written in the motivational style only a fictitious drill instructor can deliver, Basic Training for the Self-Publishing Battlefields, is an overview for new authors who want to get their books into readers’ hands. It won’t be easy, but you can do it with this old staff sergeant’s instructions — and they won’t bore the camo pants off you. Offering an aerial view of the self-publishing process, the sergeant covers the following topics:
Work smart, not hard, with Basic Training for the Self-Publishing Battlefields, a quick read that takes your book from manuscript to shelves.
At ease, soldier!
“A Good Simple Field Guide For Self-publishing”
Basic Training for the Self-Publishing Battlefields written by Lewis Kempfer is a must read for writers who are thinking about self-publishing. Kempfer goes through things that one should consider when wanting to self-publish a novel. Kempfer also adds his sense of humor when it comes to a serious topic like this one. Although Kempfer doesn’t go deep into details, he gives readers enough so that they are equipped to research on their own. From grammar, editing styles, and just trying to boost one’s confidence, Kempfer tells it like it is, which is very refreshing. Not to mention I like the fact that each chapter is named after military phrases and slang. Being someone who has family that has either retired and still in the military, this tickled me. There were also things that I never knew about the military until I read this book. Overall I enjoyed reading this book that, to me, makes self-publishing look like it can be done. I recommend to those who are looking into self-publishing and even those who are just interested in learning more about self-publishing without having to read a 500 page instruction books on how to self-publish. I rate this book a 5 out of 5 stars. —
Octavia, reviewer
Recipient of 6 Awards
Most start-ups struggle to thrive.
But here’s how one small theater company turned obstacles into a rousing success.
A dilapidated boiler room filled with debris and four theater friends looking for a home for their newly created theater company. What could go wrong? Better still, what could go right?
The intriguing story of Nashville’s Scrappy Little Theater That Could, 120 Seats in a Boiler Room: The Creation of a Courageous Professional Theater, retells the tumultuous journey of the award-winning Boiler Room Theatre from conception to closure. This hybrid memoir journeys with readers, show by show, through the company’s first five burgeoning years as well as offering valuable “Hot Tips” for new and seasoned theater owners and managers alike to boost their expertise. BRT’s boldest undertakings are retold with a renewed spirit by seven-time award-winning author and co-founder Lewis Kempfer. Readers also enjoy unique perspectives from a wide assortment of guest authors who enrich the company’s history with their own accounts, spotlighting the local treasure the Boiler Room Theatre evolved to be. An inspiring reflection on hardship, determination, and triumph, 120 Seats in a Boiler Room provides a vibrant portrait of how four visionary co-founders transformed a decades-old boiler room at The Factory at Franklin in Tennessee into a beloved, theatrical beacon.
An all-in-one entertainment archive, delightful how-to guide, and heartwarming memoir spanning the history of the Boiler Room Theatre from birth to final curtain call.
The Best Book You Will Ever Read About the Smallest Big-Time Theater That Ever Was
“How in the world is the Boiler Room going to pull it off?”
It was a question posed by an arts critic for a small-town newspaper about a full, mainstage production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast hoisted upon a stage measuring just shy of twenty-eight feet wide and sixteen feet deep with no allowance for wings. It is the same question that, at least for this reader, propels Lewis Kempfer’s engaging memoir, 120 Seats in a Boiler Room: The Creation of a Courageous Professional Theater, from beginning to end.
“120 Seats” tells the story of a theater company that, like a flock of pigeons shooed from some grander roost, took up residence in the boiler room of an old factory in Franklin, Tennessee. It is the story of enormous risk and satisfying payoff and the impermanence of all things. It is the story of a building and an unlikely tenant.
The Factory at Franklin, “one of the first old-warehouse-turned-entertainment-and-dining destinations from when the fad was taking off across the country,” offered an assemblage of quirky shops and restaurants but was looking for someone to provide an option for live entertainment. Kempfer and his courageous (some would say slightly crazy) colleagues just happened to be looking for a place to host an independent theater company. It is at this intersection of agendas that The Boiler Room Theater (BRT) was born and that the destiny of Kempfer and his co-owners and collaborators began to unfurl for all Tennessean theatergoers to witness.
Destiny, it turns out, comes in all shapes, sizes, and smells. Building 6 of the Factory at Franklin, which had decades earlier served as the actual boiler room for an oven factory, was very small, crumbling with age, coated with layers of pigeon poop, and packed the stench of 80-year-old rotting hay. This review will not remotely do justice to the condition in which Kempfer et al discovered BRT’s future home. I will not make any such attempt. “Vomit-worthy” is one description that stuck with me. “Thoroughly disgusting,” Kempfer describes. “We left knowing the monthly rent would be $3,000. That was a lot of money for a broken-down, biohazard of a building.”
And yet – and this is the real triumph of both BRT’s founders and of the book in which Kempfer documents this bold performing arts experiment – they somehow found a way to make it work. Not make it work as in built something barely passable as live entertainment, but, rather, make it work as in built and sustained an enterprise that by almost any measure reasonably in keeping with most independent arts ventures, was a resounding success. BRT’s run lasted 13 years, during which the exceedingly talented, ragtag group of performers, designers, technicians, and everyone that I am unintentionally omitting, mounted ninety-six full mainstage productions, not including benefit shows and performances for children. The productions were not of the dinner theater or a-little-something-we-put-together-in-the-back-yard variety. “Sweeney Todd.” “Grease.” “Little Shop of Horrors.” “Chicago.” “Anything Goes.” “Man of La Mancha.” “Jesus Christ Superstar.” “Rent.” “Fiddler on the Roof.” “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.” For thirteen nail-biting seasons, BRT went boldly into the heart of big-time Broadway fare. Indeed, emblematic of this fearless, go-big-or-go-home ethic, was Kempfer’s unwavering insistence that the very first season of BRT’s existence include “A Chorus Line” on the roster. Think about that for a second. The first season. The season in which the theater-going public will form a first impression about whether you are worth the cost of admission. “A Chorus Line,” on a stage twenty-eight feet wide and sixteen feet deep. What?
120 Seats in a Boiler Room tells the story of how the BRT crew pulled it off, night after night, again and again and again. In Kempfer’s memory and gift for setting a scene, the reliving of those shows is loving, nostalgic, harrowing and often very funny. Although 120 Seats is thoroughly personal, Kempfer does not pull any self-critical punches: he is honest about the shows that flopped, the wrong decisions, and the harsh reviews, all of which make the underlying triumph of BRT all the more impressive. From the physical redesign of Building 6 into an actual functioning theater (the tiny room once defined by a crumbling brick half-wall and a lean-to that had decades earlier been used to store hay and coal became, somehow, a box office, a lobby, guest restrooms and a concession counter); to the face-palming, laugh-out-loud audition disasters; to the drama and gallows humor inherent in mounting any live performance without sufficient finances, preparation time, or even a full cast (let alone in well known, larger-than-life musicals like “Chicago,” “Sweeney Todd,” and “A Chorus Line”); to the often heartwarming, sometimes bittersweet, sometimes tragic stories of individual performers looking to BRT as their big chance to shine, 120 Seats in a Boiler Room aims for a wide sampling of the BRT experience and succeeds. For readers who may be considering starting down this fearsome path on their own, Kempfer has interspersed his narrative with both helpful hints (“Be ready for anything. Absolutely anything.”) and pitfalls to avoid (“The old adage ‘It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission’ rarely applies when dealing with licensing companies.”)
Everything, even the good things, eventually come to an end. BRT was no exception and Kempfer’s account of the end is disarmingly emotional and authentic, leaving the reader with a fond echo of what had once been.
In reading 120 Seats in a Boiler Room, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Alan Parker’s exceptional 1991 film, “The Commitments,” about an unlikely Rhythm and Blues band cobbled together from the bleak, working-class streets of Dublin’s Northside. What each of the Commitments brought to the band was certainly more than just a little desperation, but also courage, their own inner sense of soul, and an unwillingness to let the low odds of success dissuade them from taking the stage. And for a time, however brief, they were brilliant, and they impacted the lives of everyone who paid what they could scrape together to hear them play. Kempfer’s 120 Seats in a Boiler Room convinces me that BRT’s 13-season run was much the same.
Lewis Kempfer has written 120 Seats in a Boiler Room like a man who knows he was part of something special. It is Kempfer’s emotional fidelity to that experience – its highs and lows, its drama and its comedy – and his gift for bringing those heady years back to life, that makes “120 Seats in a Boiler Room” an enjoyable and satisfying read. —
Owen Thomas, reviewer
No Waiting. No Guff. Great read!
“Waiting for Guffman” this is not! Instead it’s a fascinating and detailed account of the most impossible of tasks — successfully launching a creative startup that lasts when most theater companies fail within a year or two due to bad strategy, in-fighting, lack of resources, and general malaise. Kempfer skillfully guides the reader through the myriad trials and tribulations he and his co-founders face to pull off complex and entertaining productions in the heart of Tennessee. If you’re a fan of theater and the blood, sweat, and tears involved in building something marvelous from the ground up (literally), then this book is for you!
Chris Flynn, reviewer
Recipient of 7 Awards
Lewis Kempfer nearly destroyed himself searching for something that would make him happy. His battle with self-hatred began with physical and psychological abuse from the trusted male adults in his life and continued into adulthood when the church rejected him for being gay. Traumatized and suicidal, his only salvation came from getting himself on stage. Moving from city to city in search of fame and love, he lands in the dog-eat-dog-world of Hollywood showbiz.
But a terrifying diagnosis casts a dark shadow on a promising Tinseltown career, and he falls into a downward spiral of dangerous liaisons and addiction. It will take a near-death overdose in his blackest hour to find strength from the last place he ever expected. Kempfer’s memoir is a raw, rapid-fire account of one man’s frightening journey to self-acceptance. From dicey sex clubs to notorious motels, Lewis holds nothing back in this bittersweet tell-all. His emotional tale of love, loss, and redemption will move anyone who’s ever felt alienated or outcast. It is a shockingly candid true-life story. If you like authentic narratives, stories of triumph, and surmounting the challenges of being LGBTQ, then you’ll be enthralled by Kempfer’s riveting memoir.
The writing is fluid and filled with humor, the descriptions allow for clear and powerful images, and the author does an incredible job of exploring the dark despair that stole into his soul many times…Lewis Kempfer’s writing is filled with wisdom and insight, a story that is shared with unusual honesty and a voice that is irresistible. Official Review — Reader’s Favorite 2020 International Book Contest — Silver Medal winner for Autobiography
The author shares his storied rough-and-tumble life, and smartly invites the reader into his world via sensory experiences like stomach churning and spinning. All realism is intact. Very well done. I enjoyed author’s instinct to not over-describe… Here again is an example of how the author writes such good descriptions concisely that dialogue is not necessary. Well done. — Judge’s Critique, Writer’s Digest 2020 Self-Published eBook Contest
A candid, bare-it-all, and highly engrossing memoir. Kempfer’s confession is well-written, lucid, and utterly candid… The book explores difficult themes…which make it an uncomfortable, dark read, but Kempfer’s uncensored voyage into his own consciousness as a sex and drug addict, is extremely absorbing and hard to put down. With its authentic narrative and moving prose written with utter honesty, the book offers the story of a man who is deeply flawed and extremely vulnerable, yet he makes readers root for him. —The Prairies Book Review
Lewis Kempfer is an award-winning author and entertainment arts jack-of-all trades from Denver. He co-founded the Boiler Room Theatre in Nashville in 2000, where his design work eventually landed him a dream job with the Walt Disney Company in Los Angeles. His 2019 literary debut of Don’t Mind Me, I’m Just Having a Bad Life: A Memoir earned seven awards, including First Place for LGBTQ Biographies in the 2022 BookFest Awards and the 2021 Independent Author Network Book of the Year Award for LGBTQ. His follow-up hybrid memoir/historical account of his theater, 120 Seats in a Boiler Room: The Creation of a Courageous Professional Theater, which was published in 2022 has to-date won five awards including a 2023 Gold Medalist Category Award from eLit Book Awards and two silver-medal awards from The BookFest’s Spring 2023 competition for which his book cover appeared in a winners’ video montage in Times Square in New York City. He is currently working on his first novel, a psychological thriller.
You can find Lewis’ books online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
As a result of winning Silver Awards in two highly competitive business categories, I received the honor of having 120 Seats in a Boiler Room in the Times Square Salute to The BookFest Award Winners Billboard Video Montage. It was featured with the covers of eight other top-winning books and played 50 times on June 20, 2023.
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