14 Incite / Insight Member’ s Corner
Spring 2018
A
few days ago, my student ASM( assistant stage manager) started posting rehearsal reports to the department’ s tech group on social media. Rehearsal reports. Like the kind you see in a real theatre. I was thrilled beyond measure. I had vaguely asked for this for years, and it is awesome, because it means that we are all on the same page. It made me realize how far tech has come at my school. It then occurred to me that at Monday’ s first listenthrough of our spring musical, my stage managers, rather than I, had opened the meeting and run it.
For many years I didn’ t teach in my performance space. Like many theatre teachers, I worked out of a classroom and loaded shows in and out in as little as four days up to a maximum of two weeks. One would think that tech might not be attractive to theatre ASM students who didn’ t have ownership of a theatre space, but I continue to be blessed with a huge and active tech theatre community who run everything for the department, from auditions to strike. Sometimes they begin as technicians as a pathway to performance; other times they leave acting to become technicians. I credit department practices evolved through trial and error, rather than circumstances, for this happiest of situations. It’ s really paying off now that we have a new small blackbox theatre space with a scene and costume shop, as well as a prop inventory all run by students.
THINGS MY STUDENT TECHNICIANS DO:
• Create an entire rehearsal schedule from scratch
• Worry about student rehearsal conflicts( I am informed of absences by stage managers when class begins)
• Design the set
• Single-handedly pull and coordinate costumes for an entire ensemble
• Hire someone to make posters or programs
• Count and track rented scripts for musicals
• Run sound for rehearsal
• Schedule auditions
• Recruit technicians
• Hand-build props
• Design makeup
• Manage ticket sales
• Maintain all backstage discipline with regards to phones off, quiet and respectful behavior, etc.
• Maintain call times, time rehearsals or breaks
• Run fight calls or dance calls
• Handle interpersonal disputes between crew members
• Run strike
• Organize the official cast party Maintain a cleaning and
racking schedule for the costume and prop shop
Not having to do these things leaves me a bit freer to do what directors are supposed to do: create and maintain the artistic vision of a show.
WHAT TO DO TO MAKE IT EVENTUALLY POSSIBLE
1.
Teach the value of technical theatre. Reflect on anything that’ s glorifying“ Broadway” and“ Hollywood” and sending the message to students that if they’ re not onstage, they are less-than, and maybe stop doing that. Teach the principles of design in your intro classes. You can build white models with index cards and tape; you can create costume design projects for any play you want to teach; you can teach students to create a poster by showing them pictures of professional posters; you can build puppets from newspaper and paper bags. Google now has a set design program. Allow students in classes to direct or design as part of a project, and give them credit. Insisting that everyone act in everything all the time is not a realistic mirror of the business you are trying to teach.
Tech, Please: Creating a Thriving Technical Theatre Community At Your School
By Arcadia Conrad