New Band Teacher Thrown into teaching Technical Theatre

[LightStud]

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Stage Lighting*



*in One Easy Website

The Lighting Library Caution, there are certain inaccuracies, but perfectly acceptable for the High School level.

Teach SAFETY FIRST!

[Fireguy551]

Originally Posted by waynehoskins

Good point. Surely somebody's been doing this before now, in some capacity. Maybe figure out who that is, and get them in on it.

I am planning on getting the shop teacher to help him with the tool situation. Hopefully the director knows some tech theatre but considering she is an english teacher I am not hopeful.

[Van]

I'd be perfectly willing to quit my job and come teach right about now.....
No Seriously, tell him to get his butt on here. There are a lot of us willing to give guidance and support. I think the books outlined so far have been great, I'm a huge fan of Parker and Wolf's Scene design and stage lighting
That being said there is no way he's going to be 100% ready for teaching and performing Stagecraft it took me three months to put together a syllabus for a summer camp stagecraft class, 'course I'm not a teacher either. It may be cheesy, but he might want to either, put an ad on Craigs List to see if a local stagehand , or a Retired TD might be willing to come in and help continue his education after you've given him the initial info, you'd be amazed what some of us will do for a pizza.

[ruinexplorer]

Here's a site designed by a HS teacher: Stage Design & Technology Seminars, also the home of HSTech.org - Home. He has a lot of getting started type of advice. I agree that you should recommend CB since there is a lot of professional experience of all levels here with everyone willing to share. Also, with the great number of HS or recently graduated HS students on this forum, they will be able to advise on the ins and outs of their respective programs.

My biggest suggestion is to advise him what not to do, or at least avoid until he has proper training. What you don't know in theater can kill (or seriously injure) you or someone else. His administrators don't understand that (I won't go into my dislike for educational structure at this time). He can accomplish quite a lot without flying pieces or anything exceptionally dangerous.

Seriously, get him on this board and start asking questions!

Davin

[cdub260]

This situation reminds me of a something similar I encountered while working for a community college here in Southern California. Before I started there they had an Interior Design program which they cancelled. A tenured teacher in that program was transfered to the Theatre Department as the Technical Director/Stage Craft instructor. More than a decade later, she still holds this position. Fortunately for both her and her students she has an excellent resource in the department's Master Carpenter, an old friend of mine from my high school days.

I don't know if this is a viable solution in this situation, but if your friend could convince the powers that be at his school to hire a part time assistant with a background in technical theatre, it might solve at least some of the issues that result from his lack of knowledge.

[mixmaster]

My first theater instructor was a German teacher. He volunteered for the post when he heard they were going to assign a maintenance guy to it. At least he had some knowledge of theatre as an actor though. I doubt it's your job but is there a way you or someone can go there and work a couple of shows with him? All the books in the world don't help when there is 2.5K squealing in the house. At that point he will need a warm body and more experienced mind to help him though. Heck, even with experience in the industry, it was nice to have someone around who new the rigs my first week here.

[averyfrix]

hmmmmm

[tech2000]

It just seems like it would be a huge liability to have an untrained person (even though he is a teacher, in this case of band and now theater tech) to be running the theater and teaching the technical side of theater. If he doesn't have training in this area, its a lawsuit waiting to happen.

[ruinexplorer]

Originally Posted by tech2000

It just seems like it would be a huge liability to have an untrained person (even though he is a teacher, in this case of band and now theater tech) to be running the theater and teaching the technical side of theater. If he doesn't have training in this area, its a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Have him get a copy of this Welcome to Risk International Publishing, home of the Theater Health and Safety Book!.

[loki]

Someone said see if the students know what their on about, This is a good idea, i know at our school only the students know anything about sound and lighting (Me being sound Raktor being lighting) The teachers at our school know next to nothing (and what they know is normaly wrong, out of date or not the way we wanted to do things :P)

So yeh, the students can be a huge asset to him, you will probobly find some have decent (highschool standard) sound and lighting knowledge