What inspired you to get into technical theatre?

[chausman]

I wasn't casted, however.

Channeling Derek here,

Don't feel too bad, hardly anyone is casted. Only cast.

I've seen the"I did act, but realized how much better tech is" story on here multiple times. That makes me happy!

[Tex]

I've seen the"I did act, but realized how much better tech is" story on here multiple times. That makes me happy!

Not jumping on you here, but the two are not mutually exclusive. It's not a competition; it's a collaboration.

[natebish]

when i was in 7th grade a friend of mine's older brother was the TD of a local theatre, he had conscripted his brother (my friend) to help him hang lights, and so my friend called me and asked me to come and help so he had someone other than his brother to talk to. so his brother quicly gave me the basics of striking/hanging lights and i was off.

then in the summer before 9th grade i started to work light calls at a community theatre, and the reason that they let me work there as a minor (something against their policy) was because the guy who i had worked for/been trained by had worked there when he was my age and so they have come to respect him alot. (proof that it is who you know as much as what you know) and from there i got to know alot of designers and a couple who i worked with on several ocasions called me into other theatres to work for them.

it was on one of these calls that i met another designer who was co-designing but he always uses a youth crew. the theatre was using a ETC Express 125 and that being the board i'm best on i made a really good impression on him as a programmer and i have been working on his crew as a general technician and programmer. through his crew i have gotten to work in all sorts of theatres, including one PAC were we were working with 20+ mac 550's on a HOG 1k (that was an insane venue!). and now i know i won't leave the booth any time soon.

[StewTech]

Well, I have been in theatre since I was born.

When I was a baby, I was forced to play 'baby Jesus' in the Christmas show at the church where my father was a pastor. As I grew older, I graduate to angel, wiseman, and Joseph.

When my family moved to the big OH, I got involved in community theatre. When I got a little older, I started a puppet ministry at a local church. As it grew, I wanted to learn how to make it appear to have higher production values, so I began to add in lots of technical gear.

When I got into middle school, I did a few plays. My freshman year of HS, I noticed they were struggling to keep the fall show going, so I volunteered to help.

The organizer of the concert put me back stage and had me run the show.

I had to learn on the fly, and became a very authoritative freshman.

Once that was complete, I discovered how much I liked being in charge, so I SM a few more shows. In the spring of my freshman year, they needed someone to run followspot for prom, and since I was the only Freshie in the theatre area, I was volunteered. I really like it, and did spot for a few shows.

In the summer, I was asked to help clean up the theatre, and I agreed. I learned so much about rigging, and lighting, and I fell in love with it.
The next year I SM the fall show again, and the Fall Play, and I kept going with it.

At this point, I've become an assistant to the Auditorium Manager, because I'm in the theatre for every show, HS or rented out, and I know more about the theatre than anyone, excluding the AM.

I've just kept up with it, and I'm battling between going to college to major in a technical theatre area, or an onstage theatre area.

[Clairabelle]

I was a runner and ensemble fore several shows prior to 8th grade. In the beginning of 8th grade I was handed a script and told "You will be the Stage Manager," by my theatre teachers. I met some great upperclassmen that taught me everything I know. I have since worked in area theatres and do several shows a year at my highschool.

[chausman]

Not jumping on you here, but the two are not mutually exclusive. It's not a competition; it's a collaboration.

Better as in the one that I would like to to do. But yes, it IS a collaboration!

But, tech can give you the opportunity to be more creative in difficult situations.

[DuckJordan]

Better as in the one that I would like to to do. But yes, it IS a collaboration!

But, tech [I]can[I/] give you the opportunity to be more creative in difficult situations.

Then you have never worked with a director who likes to toss a script out the window. Again not jumping on anyone but it should be said again Actors have the same amount of work we do its just different and generally less structured. While we have more structured guidelines to attend to.

[MarshallPope]

Also, we generally don't have to think of something to talk about for a couple of minutes when someone's quick change goes horribly wrong.

[Tex]

Also, we generally don't have to think of something to talk about for a couple of minutes when someone's quick change goes horribly wrong.

LOL! A buddy of mine and I had to re-write a scene on the fly when an actress didn't make an entrance. She never did show up, but we got all her lines in!

[gcpsoundlight]

I First got involved through my younger brother, who was in a kids drama group at the time, and they needed someone to help with sound. Went in knowing nothing, and ended up managing radio mics. Did a few shows through scouts, and the local amateur theatre companies, and I am now head lighting designer for the company I started with, plus I am now studying to make it into a career.

I guess I really didn't have a choice, as Both my parents are musicians, and so it was either music or something to do with the entertainment industry.

[strandcentury]

School! Like most people :P

I have been to two secondary schools in Vancouver, BC, both having really nice lighting configuration. Taking drama in grade 8 and being offered to perform, I refused the offer because of stage fright and ended up running lights instead. I was not part of their lighting crew at first but I was offered the position as board op. Suddenly I was in love :P, the first time I used their Strand MX 24 desk and 24 CD80 dimmers and I could not get enough. My next year I joined up lighting crew and was hanging Lekolites on the catwalks / attics in no time! and later in the year ended up being the assistant student leader and designing some of the shows.

Later on at my new school after I transferred in grade 10 to another high school. Their lighting configuration was quite poor and consisted of one Strand Mantrix IIS that had a broken crossfader (we would make bets on the probability of the slider going haywire :-) / 12CH CD80 for their rehearsal studio. Later another department head from my other high school switched posts and ended up at my new school the next year. In my grade 11 year we went through a major electrics upgrade in both their main theater and rehearsal studio. Under my direction, a DMX retrofitted CD80 and ETC SmartPacks / SmartFades found their way into both venues. Since then I have been using the equipment to my advantage since I am the main designer for all shows but also enjoy transferring the knowledge like I currently am in my senior year to other students.

[lightingfreak]

Being a bad actor. LOL

Actually at the beginning of middle school I started designing lighting for my school and a couple months later got an internship.

[Batwoman]

*pokes head in and looks around*

Not sure how much I'll be hanging around these forums in general, probably whenever my TD calls me with a question I can't answer. lol

Anyway... how did I get into this?

weeeeellll... it all started one dark and stormy night....


oh wait, wrong story.



ok seriously, I was a choir geek in high school, as well as in drama club, in fact I had no clue we even had a tech booth at my high school (and considering the fact that it turns 100 in a couple years says a lot, I graduated 20 years ago). It wasn't until recently when I (re)connected with a guy that went to high school with my sister who was on A/V that I learned that there was indeed a tech booth and that it was above the stage.

SO.... fast forward about 11 years after graduation, I was church shopping and had decided to shut my sister up (she had been pestering me to check out her church, for months at this point) and went to her church. They were meeting in the local high school's gym at the time so there wasn't much to do with lights, except plug them in and go sit down. I started going there in April of '02 and by December I was on the stage team.

A couple years later when we moved into our building, I was still on stage team but I went to the lighting training just so I knew how to turn the (express 48/96) board on while we were doing set changes. I still don't know how it happened but I was some how drafted onto the light team, which was just two of us.

There was a point in time when I was the only person doing lights for a good year, then some time after that we finally got more people and are now on a four team rotation. I'm on one team officially and on another team in the interim while they're finding folks to do lights and camera, which I do both, at the same time. We're now using an Ion board and as much as I have learned to do with it, there is still a carp load of stuff I don't know how to do. Which brings me here, to find out how to do something.

For the record, my original college major was computer graphics, but sadly, I didn't get too far into it before I transferred from college #1 to college #2, which eventually turned into 4 total but that's another story.

[gumboot]

When I was 12 in 2008 my Mum took me to go see the professional show of Phantom of the Opera that was in town. As soon as the Overture started and the fireworks in the Chandelier started I thought "Hell yeah, I wanna be involved in this some day." That was the night I resolved to be involved in the technical side of theatre one day, but I still didn't know enough to decide on a discipline.

The next year I started higschool and I did stage-handing for our production of 'Dreamgirls'. We only put on a big show bi-anually, so it was this year that we did our next one; West Side Story. I had previously operated the lights for a music evening and quite enjoyed it and my teacher asked me if I wanted to do lights for WSS. You bet I did. Went from there really. Though I haven't done much since.

[jlusardi]

I've been in the cast of eight different shows and I love every second of being on stage. However, during Beauty and the Beast, which was a year and a half ago (my freshman year of HS) I began helping with things like painting. Then last spring during Guys and Dolls, I really began to learn a lot of different crew jobs. Whether it was putting wheels on sets, putting together a flat, designing The Hot Box Sign, painting, and the list goes on and on. It was then that I realized how much I loved technical theater and I think it had to a lot to with the people I learned from.
I then proceeded to help with musicals at our elementary schools, dance recitals, graduations. Currently I am working on crew for our school's fall play.

[Jimbo]

Like many others, theatre managed to weasel its way into my life because of a girl. When it came time for me to decide what I wanted to go to school for, I, like many others, was not entirely sure what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I knew I liked physics, psychology, engineering, architecture, photography and film so I reasoned that I could do a little bit of everything if I decided to continue with technical theatre. Now I have my degree, work all the time and make very little money, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. Who wants a desk job anyway?

[nesscar]

It all started with a conversation over lunch back in the seventh grade. "Hey, how about the Drama Club? We can do lights and stuff." I then did lights for out middle school's production of Barbecuing Hamlet. Now, 120 shows later, I'm glad I made that decision way back when.

[Leapoffaith28]

Hmmm...Lets see...I was a middle school kid and we had an orientation meet for a summer program at a local high school, and when I walked in the first thing I could notice were the massive, exposed catwalks with who knows how many lights hanging above my head. I couldn't concentrate on a single word, and when I eventually got into the summer program lo and behold a high school techie was teaching tech as an elective and I signed up as fast as I could. Over the course of the summer, I met my counterpart, a girl who could dance with all the grace in the world. We ended up going to high school together, the same high school where the summer program was held, and I signed up for a tech class there too and she went into acting. Like many before me, I was taken in by a departing senior who taught me all about...well everything. We have too few techies for us to "specialize", so I learned lights and sound and set building, but since someone else was all crazy over lightboard I went deeply into sound, and here I am. And the girl? Still around/ =P

[Zelma]

In 1978 I had a small role in a play and it gave me plenty of time to observe what the stage manager was doing. I said to myself, "I can do that." I stage managed the very next show and fell in love with it.

[katharine]

I saw a poster asking for people to help paint sets in 10th grade. I like painting. I went, I had fun, they liked me, and then they told me I could get paid for it.

[Clarkwg3]

I started my Theatre career as a stagehand for my local Beloit Janesville Symphonic Orchestra(BJSO) 3 years ago. At the end of the school year the BJSO plays a the local High School Theater for the area 5th Graders. I asked the student Sound Op if the Theater was looking for help, lol. The reply was something like: "Our current Tech Director builds our set and kinda helps sound. What do you know in the realm of Sound N' lights?" Now I realize just how big of a hole I found my self in, cause my response was something like: "well, I put on a Christmas light show that runs up the power bill $200.00. and I can fluently operate a PV12 after resetting it up." Now I'm the "Tech Director of A/V and Technology" overseeing, teaching, maintaining our Lighting, sound, video, and fly systems. Oh and still working on repairing the the mountain of cabling I took out of service my first year as a volunteer. During my 2nd year I was asked to be a 'Field Marshall' for the local Film Festival. That had lead into some interesting places, and many jobs updating systems in local business for the film festival.

[patlienemann]

I started in music in high school and gradually moved over after being in the Pit for a few musicals. The creative side of me has always loved the creation of things and how every little detail works, especially in the arts. When my high school asked for people to join stagecraft class I figured what the heck. Turned out to be the best experience of my life because it introduced me to the whole technical side of theatre... a world I had never imagined was more than two people sitting at a light board. The things that people can create through a world of imagination in the mind is just amazing.

[Darby]

My first view of theater was during middle school, watching my older sister act in productions. When I got into high school I was in several shows my freshman year but was not quite fitting in. I started working tech on various middle school and rental group productions. Throughout my last 3 years of high school I switched to doing only technical theater, mostly stage managing. It also helped that my mom was my school's set designer and prop manager and both of my grandfather's worked technical theater at some point in their lives, so I guess I was doomed to work tech theater... Personally I am very happy that I made the switch from acting (which I enjoyed but was not very not good at) to Technical Theater which is much more my type of work.

[Lyons]

I always like sharing this story.

I'll make it short. I was acting/singing in middle/high school. When I was 15 or 16 I got kicked out of the HS performance of Mame or something due missing a before school rehearsal for whatever reason. The director made "an example of me". So I asked the "TD" if I could do sound or something. I haven't left the board for the stage since. That was 11 years ago and prior to collage for Sound Design.

Funny how that works.

[bobcatarts]

When I was growing up, my family worked in radio and TV broadcast; I started learning to operate all kinds of recording and AV equipment as soon as I could read and understand the numbers on them. My sister, eight years my senior, was already doing theatre after school before studying and pursuing broadcast, and I followed her footsteps through junior and high school. You could say it's a family tradition, I just wound up pursuing it professionally.

I've worked on just about every production that came my way throughout school and started getting paid for production my freshmen year of high school, and have been training and chasing it ever since.

Theatre design gives me the biggest challenges and opportunities. Somewhere between art and science, I am forced to constantly learn everything about everything (from organic chemistry to electrical and mechanical engineering to physics, astronomy, anatomy, acoustics... even the culinary arts) and then apply that learning to creatively solve problems. It also lets me be infinitely creative, giving me a safe and contained environment to "play god" by constructing -and then destroying- entire worlds and all the lives within.

No other vocation does all this - and I've tried a few- and quickly grown to dislike doing anything else. I'm utterly unemployable outside an Arts context. It's how I survive, how I keep (functionally) sane, and how I leave the world a better place one story and lesson at a time. Just wish it paid better, but I didn't go in to it for the money.

You could say, rather, the Arts chose me, and design/tech is where I can serve her the best. So I do; everything but costumes and makeup.

[chieftfac]

The wild backstage parties, the sex, drugs, and rock & roll, but mostly for the hallucinogenic effect of smelling burning electrical wires and overheated amps.

Am I going to get in trouble for this post???

"Stay in school kids!!!!" and remember ".. Children, Dugs are bad, m'..k..."

Edit... I am so going to h*^l for this....

[chausman]

Edit... I am so going to hell for this....

Yup.

Remember, "family" site.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Pugs]

Both my sisters did it in highschool i just followed when i was un able to join any of the branches of the ADF (Austraila Defense Forces Army, Navy & Airforce) did all the major productions in hgih school was pulled out of other classes to help set up any traveling shows.

[JonasA]

My very first tech moment was when I auditioned for the local Scout cover band; I was 12 and my voice was breaking and I didn't know any rock songs anyway, but they took pity on me and suggested I do lighting. I seem to remember the band spent most of the next few months plunged into abject darkness, and are still thankful that I eventually took up sax.

At school, I joined Tech Crew because one of the older students who I thought was amazing suggested I did. I still remember my first night on desk - school concert, which I left early to get to rehearsals for another much bigger community show. And I guess that was it... I remember looking at all the older students who stage managed and did lighting design and thinking they were infinitely cool. Five years later, I've just handed on the reins as Crew Manager and Stage Manager to a girl who I taught to use a followspot at 12. In the interim, I've read books, seen over 100 shows, trained kids, been trained, learnt lots, found out I don't know much, done things better, done things worse... you get the idea.

I don't know when I decided I wanted to do this professionally, but it was probably the moment when I stood on the stage of the State Theatre (Melbourne, Australia) and looked out over the 3,000 seats there and into the cavernous flyspace and a tech next to me said "It's like heaven, isn't it?". I love the adrenalin thrill of making shows happen: To me, performing is lovely, but it's something else to create the show from nothing and help it grow and emerge. I'm just hoping I still feel that way in a few years/decades...

Since then, I've just gotten more and more obsessed. My mother is horrified at my boundless enthusiasm. Ah well... She'll live. :D

PS: I'm hoping one day I'll look on this thread and see "Some senior call Jonas at my high school said I should join and I didn't really have any friends or fit in so I did and it turns out it's great" - it's been the story of so many of the students I've trained over the past few years, and they've all been brilliant. Can't say how much I've loved watching them all fall in love with technical theatre as well as grow into amazing people.

[kenact]

Always been a techie. When I directed my first play, it was either hire a sound, set & lighting person out of my $0 budget, or learn how to do it all myself. As a singer all my life and a guitarist since 1967, sound was no mystery and having accumulated enough power tools to take down a small house, carpentry didn't scare me either. My biggest learning curve was lighting, and finding the stones to climb 40 feet in the air on a ladder to handle something too hot to touch with your bare hands.

My first foray into lighting was on an E-Lite 2x24 board in a 166 seat theater. Now I want to "replace" the E-Lite with a laptop to run all my sound & light cues and not have to worry about stuck faders and noisy pots.

[CJWahl]

Got interested in technical theater when I started college. Had a choice between regular PE classes, or dance, so I got involved in dance. My dance instructors found out that I knew how to sew and build things, and it was all over. I spent most of my spare time the first two years of college sewing ballet costumes. From there, I transferred to another college where I could major in costume design and technical theater. My oldest child cut her teeth on thread spools in the costume shop, where I was doing my senior internship as assistant costume shop supervisor.

Then I went back to college in the mid '80s and got a teaching degree, so I could afford to live, while creating costumes and doing custom sewing on the side. I'm now at a high school with an awesome auditorium, which just needs some TLC. My background may not be in lighting and sound, but I do have some students with lighting and sound experience, who are willing to teach their teacher about the electronics.

This leap back into technical theater was unexpected, but I find it an exciting change from teaching in the classroom.

[leastlikely]

tl;dr: I was super involved in theatre in high school and mildly involved in college, but it was a really long process to figure out what I wanted to be doing. The single event that truly got me into what I do now was this random Fringe show I did for a friend-of-a-friend.

The whole story:
In high school my friend and I tried out for a play. From then on I was hooked and worked on every play in my high school career except one, in addition to taking several classes (no tech classes, but acting and IB theatre) and being the president of the Thespian troupe my senior year. Mostly I acted, but I did some costume crew, and some props design and run crew, and then I did AD and ASM, which I liked more than anything I had done before. My school theatre department had an "exec board" with a TD, ME, PM, and theatre manager. Rumor was that I was going to get the theatre manager position... but then it went to a student who was a year younger than me (which, looking back, makes sense - this is the person who keeps the schedule for all rentals for the theatre space... give it to someone and let them keep it for a while [wait a second... why was that a responsibility that was given to a student?!]) and I was pretty upset because I was sure that if I had more tech experience I would have gotten the position. I acted in the first two shows in 12th grade but for the final show that year I decided to SM it - I've never told anybody this but the actual reason I chose not to audition for it was that she wanted British dialects (I think there were something like 7 different dialects in that play, it was ridiculous) but I knew I wasn't going to be able to pull it off and didn't want to make a fool of myself so I decided to try stage management instead.

Went to college, auditioned for something, realized I sucked. But at the same time I was also doing some scenic painting and some light hangs to help out a professor (and to get extra credit). She mentioned to me that one of the student-directed shows needed a stagehand, so I did it. Had a couple more crew gigs throughout college, but I was only a theatre minor so I didn't have the practicum obligations that majors did, and naturally the spots went to majors first.

Four years out of high school, a friend from high school contacted me. "I'm starting a summer camp theatre program. We're doing a full production. Will you be my stage manager?" So I did it, and then after that I didn't do any theatre for another three years. The same friend contacted me saying "I have a friend who's doing a Fringe show and she needs an SM and I already gave her your info." So I did that show, and at the Fringe bar I met an artistic director who invited me to work with him and I've been working professionally (in stage management) nonstop for the two years since then.