Tech Theater Class

[bhallerm]

OK, this is for HS and college tech directors as well as the pro's in the biz. I'm asking for a bit of guidance here. Bear with this...it might be a little long but I appreciate all the help in advance.

-Quick Background: Was hired as a HS tech director for a local private HS in August. Nice place, 600 seat proscenium theater, 22 line counterweight flyline system, Yamaha LS9-32 console, ProTools for recording (along with some of my toys) a solid collection of Colortran lekos, few S4's, Fresnels, pars, and two VariLite VL1000's all controlled by our wonderful paperweight, the Colortran Innovator 48/96.

My education is in Audio Engineering (A.A.S) and Music Education (B.M.Ed) and have taught previously, but in band settings. I was tapped to teach a tech theater class this year. This is a good thing. The challenge is that I am making the whole curriculum on short notice. The last class was taught by someone not real "technical" and from what I hear was centered more on costuming, set prep, acting,...not technical. There were some complaints about this since we also had an exploration of theater.

So, I'm going hardcore technical with it. I've separated the semester into three segments: Stage safety and rigging, Audio and lighting. I'm trying to balance how much info I lecture on and doing activities. I have the kids for a hour and twenty minutes three times a week. I have tons of knowledge on sound since I've been running a private business as a recording engineer for 5 years and a decent amount on light that I've learned quick, but I need to develop some good exercises or in class activities.

Here are the books that I'm referencing either from past education or recent reading:

-Stage Rigging Handbook: Jay Glerum
-Practical Guide to Stage Lighting: Steven L. Shelley
-Stage Lighting Design: Neil Fraser
-Live Sound Reinforcement: Scott Hunter Stark
-Modern Recording Techniques: David Miles Huber
-Backstage Handbook is floating around for reference

Any other good places to gain info?? I need help mostly in lighting, especially the "theoretical" or "design" side. The tech part of what light is what, how to assign things, how many lights can I use on this dimmer isn't hard. It's learning (and I know this is the hard part) a "style" of using the right light, color, gobo for certain scenes, etc.

I'll stop here and hopefully get a discussion on this. If you read through it all and are still awake....thank you.

BJH

[rochem]

Well, I'm not any of those things listed, but I'll try to give some idea of what I, as a high school student, would want to learn. I am in a unique situation at my school, as my TD knows little to nothing about lighting, so I am responsible for training lighting crews from scratch. Apparently, I may be helping my TD to teach lighting next year if we get a tech theatre class as planned.

For lighting, I am of the opinion that students should first be able to operate as a stage hand before doing anything else. So the first thing I teach is always an intro to instruments. I go into the theatre and show them the basics of each instrument - generally, just enough to make them proficient at focusing. After all that, I will give them an intro to the board. I always program the board before tech week, but I teach them enough so that I can call out changes during a tech rehearsal and they can do them. Over time, they gradually learn more about all this stuff, but I don't want to burn out anyone too quickly by telling them everything there is to know about an instrument or a board.

Now onto design. One thing you may find is that not everyone wants to be a designer. It takes time and creativity and dedication to do right, and I have worked with many students who just want to be electricians, and that's totally fine. But when teaching design, you shouldn't come from the standpoint of "when you need night, use R80 - when you need forest, use this gobo" and such. After briefly explaining the functions and properties of light, I will let them play around in a light lab in the theatre. I set up instruments in many positions (straight-in fronts, McCandless fronts, Box Booms, Tops, Backs, Hi Sides, Head Highs, Mids, Shins, Foot Lights, and whatever else I think of) all centered on a point as CS. I hang both Ellipsoidals and Fresnels in most of the positions as well. This first light lab is always done without color. I have someone stand on CS, and then each person plays around with each instrument on the board. This is a fun way to start design, and it gives them an awesome introduction to what positions will do what, so when I start talking about side light, they can visualize what it looks like. We do this for about a week usually, and by the end of the week they can create pretty convincing looks without color.

At a later time, we come back into the "light lab" for some work with color. I generally provide between 6-8 color choices, all cut and framed, and we try our best to regel as we go. Since we are only lighting one area, I can usually get at least 3 or 4 instruments hung which I can leave gelled, which cuts down on time needed to replace the gels. This session is really fun, and they end up creating some spectacular looks on stage. After a while of doing this, we take a break while I have them design a plot for lighting a specific scene (using only that one area), without restrictions on color. We come back in and the plot is set up for each student, and they design that mini-scene. It's recorded as a sub and photographed, and that's basically the "final project" for them. By this time, we are ready to start working on the school's next show, so they become electricians and board ops and such and we work on that. I'm the designer for our major school shows, but they will generally get to work any of the shows that rent out the space. From this point on, they generally get experience by working and following along as I design the show. This is where the reality sets in that you can't delegate 18 instruments to one single look in the show for most high school productions.

So in summary, the vast majority of this is hands-on work. There is a lot that can't be taught via practical experimentation, however, so we spend some time in a lecture situation (which is basically just us sitting in the theatre with me talking). If I were teaching a class on this, I would probably incorporate a little more "book work", but since this is all voluntary and there's no grade or anything, I have to keep it as interesting as possible while still teaching.

I'm not sure if this is anywhere near what you're looking for, but I hope it helps in some tiny way.

[derekleffew]

Originally Posted by bhallerm

...I need help mostly in lighting, especially the "theoretical" or "design" side. ...

A few texts come to mind. All of the below spend at least as much time on design as execution.

Hays, David. Light on the Subject, Stage Lighting for Directors and Actors and the Rest of Us. Limelight Editions, 1998.
Essig, Linda. Lighting and the Design Idea. Harcourt Brace, 1997.
Palmer, Richard H. The Lighting Art: The Aesthetics of Stage Lighting Design. Prentice-Hall, 1985.
Bellman, Willard F. Lighting the Stage, Art and Practice. Chandler Publishing Company, 1967.
McCandless, Stanley. A Method of Lighting the Stage. Theatre Arts Books, 1932.

I learned from the Bellman book.
Every lighting student should read McCandless, in its original form.
Essig's book is my favorite of the "modern" texts.

EDIT: Here is a syllabus for a course in stage lighting, granted for the college senior level, by Ass't. Prof. Larry Wild, of Northern State Univ., Aberdeen, SD. It concurs with much, if not all, of what rochem stated above.

[ruinexplorer]

So, am I correct in perusing your post that you will not be doing scenery in this class?

How advanced are your students?

For lighting, a good reference is Photometrics Handbook, 2nd Edition By Robert C. Mumm.

A necessity for safety is Practical Health & Safety Guidelines for School Theater Operations by Randall Davidson, 2005.

A good general text is Stagecraft 1 by William H. Lord, 1991.

Oh, I'll think of more when I get home, I'm sure.

[maccor]

BJH,
I teach three levels of tech theatre to high school students. That includes a Career Education (vocational) Entertainment Technology and Technical Theatre program...

I would also ask the question "How advanced are your students?".

For what equates to a Tech Theatre I class, I teach Stage Directions/Safety/Theatre terms, Basic Tools (power and hand), Building Materials, Hardware, how to read a scale rule/draw a basic floorplan/elevation, flats/platforming, a few scene painting techniques, introduction to stage make-up, basic electricity, Stage Lighting Instruments and how to hang/plug/basic focus, and parts of a Sound system and how to connect up a microphone/other input. That takes a 55 minute class every day for a semester. We don't use a textbook, and every lesson is project based, no powerpoints, and minimal lecturing/note taking.

Tech II would include similiar topics, but more in depth. We explore the design process and how it is used for scenic and lighting. More in-depth scene painting. Then programming our lighting console. We will introduce the concept of moving lights and dmx control. Parts of the sound console explored and effects. Students would design a set for a play with drawings. Again, we don't use a textbook, and every lesson is project based, no powerpoints, and minimal lecturing/note taking, and that is also a semester class.

It is not my goal to make students super techs in the class, but rather give them a fairly broad overview and hands on experience in the major areas of tech. I have talked to a few local university professors and they feel the material covered and experience provided is an ideal base of skills for the high school level.

We have a great arts center and a well equipped shop, so I can do project based learning instead of a text. It's more work to plan and prep, but I have found my students learn with much more excitement, and that perpetuates enrollment in the class and their involvement in our after school extra curricular program.

Feel free to PM me if want more details.

Mike

[Sayen]

That's a really good question, and I wonder about other schools frequently.

At my high school, we only have one section of technical theater, so I mix new students with old. The emphasis for me is proper use of equipment, and design is secondary. We are also the workforce for the school, so the bulk of class time is taken up by setting up for other events, rentals or otherwise. As far as how advanced, my students should be able to fit in professionally with any crew, and can run basic lighting and sound equipment. They understand how to read construction plans and plots, and generate basic versions of each. I am trying to add an emphasis on concert setups, since there are plenty of decent paying jobs for music groups in our area.

[maccor]

It is good to hear about what other schools do. Sometimes we get so caught up in our own world, we forget to explore what others are doing and that they might have some cool things to try...

I try to keep set-up of concerts and events to a minimum within the class. While they do provide good experience, I like to keep class seperate from the extra-curricular work. That way, I don't risk hearing about it from administration who might wonder why "class" time isn't being spent on instruction. The set-ups could be considered instruction, but it doesn't neccesarily fit into the curriculumn. And it doesn't seem we have enough time during the semester to do much more than we are already learning.


But, good to hear about what other schools do.

[Sayen]

My school is the other way around - in order to justify the existence of the technical theater class, we are expected do to all of the setup for events. When I have tried to minimize that to emphasize instruction I get called out on it.

[TheDonkey]

Yeah, for us, theater tech class is basically just Theater Cleanup crew, like in all seriousness, we have to clean up all the tools sheds/cage/everywhere after some otehr play that we had nothing to do with finishes and leaves a giant mess with.

Sure, sometimes we get the "priviledge" of painting the stage, and sure, I voluntarily partake in many of the schools theatrical style events, but the tech CLASS itself, is little about tech, and alot about "Go to the theater, do whatevever you want, learn something, oh, and make sure you clean up ___ this area before you go"

[derekleffew]

Originally Posted by Sayen

...in order to justify the existence of the technical theater class, we are expected do to all of the setup for events. ...

Well, that just seems wrong. I suppose the Auto Shop class (do schools still have Auto Shop?) has to repair the principal's car also?

OTOH, I suppose you're fortunate to even have a Technical Theatre class at the HS-level. Mine didn't, in the 1970s.