What does being Technical Director mean

I was hoping for people’s input as to what the formal duties of a technical director are. I am currently the technical director of my High School theatre, and let’s juts say a precedent has not been set as the duties as a technical director. I would like to say we try and structure ourselves as close to a well organized theatre company that still focuses of education. Primarily I help designers bring their ideas to life. Also I keep safety concerns in my mind and bring them up. I’m hoping for ideas about organizing and creating schedules. Also, what’s supposed to be talked about at a tech meeting. Ours always seem to be designers and crew leaders talking about what they’ve done, but that doesn’t seem productive and something that needs to get done.

Thanks for the knowledge,
Russell

You can find some decent job descriptions for technical directors out there. AACT (aact.org) has one; another good idea is to look at job postings on OffstageJobs and other sources and see what descriptions are put up. I say this partly because TD'ing at a high school or small college can be very different that TD'ing in other circumstances (regional theater, summerstock, touring, production shop), but it's good to develop an understanding of what the job may mean to others.

At it's most basic, the TD oversees the entire technical process. Oftentimes the real hard work is integrating a director's vision with the actual capacities of production -- especially underlooked areas like wing space or quick change booths. How much is hands-on very much depends on your ability to build a crew underneath you -- at which point your work is less hands-on and more supervisory. But if you don't have an ME or a scenic charge (...or if school policies prevent a student from acting in that capacity...) you may need to take on that work yourself.

Regarding production meetings, it's probably best to have a purely social meet-and-greet early on, to get the social agenda out of the way. It's important! but shouldn't dominate later meetings. Then, be precise with what topics come up during the production meetings, get the necessary business dealt with, and move decisively to the next topic. It sounds like your team is still looking to establish bona fides, when they can be more focused on the needs of the production.

theatricalmatt said:

At it's most basic, the TD oversees the entire technical process.

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One thing I see happening more and more is that a TD is treated as a Master Carpenter over a General Technician.
I have seen so many TD positions that is looking for someone to build out the set, and go to a few meetings and maybe interface with sound and lights. But their primary positions is they are expected to build the set.

To me a TD is the one who organizes and ensures the entire technical process. In general they shouldn't be the only one with their hands in any single piece, but their hands should be all over everything.

As a non-carpenter but very technical person I don't fit in to a TD position that has to act as the Master Carp also. I can (and have) supervised carpenters doing everything from CAD, Rough, and Finish as well as work with Video, Lighting, Audio, Show Control, Automation, ect. I may not know everything about all disciplines but I know who to ask (here is a great start!) and I make sure to hire people in their disciplines who I can rely on.

AS mentioned the TD can really involve different things and aspects of the production depending on the size, type and various other aspects of a particular "company".

Generally, the TD is the person UNDER the Production Manager or insert-here who is generally in charge of the production as a whole. If there is a Production Manager or not will change the duties quite a lot, as well as other roles. As mentioned in some places the TD doubles as head carpenter. Where in a large theatre like one I work in the TD is in charge of the head carpenter. However, generates the working drawings does costing and more or less takes what the designers give them and make everything actionable and pass along that information to the heads of the various departments (if they exist). Is the design able to be "on budget", okay how can we change it? Dealing with the designers, director and heads of departments. Scheduling Crews.

I've been TD in a small community theatre, high school, drama festivals, music festivals, and a large community theatre for instance and all have been drastically different.

For instance, for a music festival, I take the information received from the artistic team (Artistic Director and staff) such as riders and stage plots and proposed performance schedules; Is the schedule proposed by the AD do-able? If so I can then further by then scheduling my people (lighting, audio, stagehands and stage managers), if not I suggest changes. Looking at the riders, what do I need? Do I need to say "hey we can't do that" and prompt the Artistic team to re-negotiate details with the management of the artists? Do I need to order more backline? Do I have BUDGET for that backline? I look at everything for all the stages and make sure it's in order in regard to the staging, lighting and audio. Make sure they are crewed, and work with various companies who will be supplying everything. Do I need to bring in a forklift? Schedule assembly and tear down of EVERYTHING in my department. Thankfully I don't supply all the tents and smaller stages, thats our site carpentry team, but I need to coordinate with them to make sure everything is right. Also need to coordinate with the head electrician (not the lighting people but the actual electricians) and make sure there is enough power everywhere for everything, that there is site-lighting for when I turn out the stage lights and for us to see for teardown.
The list goes on and on.

The important thing is to assess what areas you'll have responsibility for. Safety and Budget are the name of the game. The largest elephant in the room for me as a TD is that I am "the guy" when it comes to safety.
Is it built to code? Is it strong enough for what we are putting it though?
Is it SAFE?
Is there enough manpower to do it in the time allotted SAFELY?

Once told to me:

Producer: "Kid, yer the TD on this theatrical extravaganza, do you know what that means?"
Slightly-less-Ancient Engineer: "Sure, its..."
Producer: "Kid, you have ALL of the responsibility for everything in this show outside of what the actors are doing. And no power to effectively do anything about the stuff you are responsible for. So, see me when they tell you "no"."


Said to me by the same Producer later in the same show (now old enough to be in the Home For The Theatrically Bewildered):
"Kid, Lead People and Manage Things. Anytime you are Managing People you are already treading water"
So, hanging over my desk (and every desk since that show) is:

In many high school / Community theater the TD is what has been described here already. Generally in the HS, CT world that person is also largely tasked with setup for or expected to be hands on managing all the technical departments and keeping them from working in a void. Even in high schools that have well developed programs we don't place the entirety of the "TD" responsibility on a student though we will grant them the title but much like @Ancient Engineer mentioned not give them any of the power The Adults or other technical professionals brought in, we title as "Managers/Mentors" and generally assist and take on the responsibility of determining lx/sound rentals and working with the various technical departments (since this generally requires knowledge and diverse experience most students don't have ), and let the the Student TD (STD? 0.0 ) head and manage a number of the the specific projects.

TD does sometimes lean more heavily to Master Carpenter, depending on the organization and size. Some times the TD is literally the person building the set, hanging and programming lights, setting SFX and running the show. in the Professional realm thought with lots of manpower the TD is a very specific position as noted in the links above.

From where I sit things get a bit interesting. We have had 5 TD’s before hiring a full time one where I work. All of the previous ones were a couple years out of grad school TD MFA programs. One was a rigger, two had some rigging skills. All had basic lighting knowledge, none had anything more then very basic sound skills. All had basic costume skills. They were all carpenters however, and they could use a cad program. So I must ask the question, what is a TD supposed to know? It seems to me that we are educating carpenters who draft, having them take a course in each of the other disciplines, have them build a couple shows, teach a lab section in the shop and send them into the wild as a TD. It also seems to me that the tradition of having the carpenter be the TD is outdated. In my mind the TD should be the one person who understands how all of the technical elements work together. In the old days it made sense to have the carp be the TD because the set drove the show. Today that isn’t always the case or the set is just a frame for the lighting or video. With all the tech in theater maybe it’s time to teach our TDs more broadly.

Just my two cents.

At the two High schools where I worked as a TD, my duties were to manage the various production crews. I manage a Stage Crew, Lighting Crew, Sound Crew and Costume Crew. I assign Student leaders for these crews, and give them assignments and work with them so that they get the jobs done. I do design the sets, but I train students and get input from the students to build the shows. I assign a Stage Manager to run the shows, and train them so that they eventually can be handed the reigns when the curtain goes up. For me, a TD has to be knowledgable in all technical aspects of the space so that they can train the students to do the work.
I answer to the Director and work with the adult Musical Director, Costume Designer and Choreographer to make sure that students are learning and having a good experience and to problem solve along the way. Once the show starts, I sit in the lobby and watch and wait for strike.

SHCP said:

I sit in the lobby and watch and wait for strike.

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I was on my first European tour at the first "real" stop. The wheels of the first case, off of the first truck, hit the deck and the lead says: "Ok, is it strike yet?".

Put simply, the person everyone blames / cries / asks for help when everything goes wrong

Getting no accolades when everything goes right, but being blamed for when things go wrong...even when the actors change things at the last second without telling you!

I fit in the Master Carpenter category. I work at a small children’s musical theater. I know which end of a fixture the light comes out of and which end of the mic to yell into but my roll is to translate the director’s vision into plywood and 2 by 4’s. And I usually run props. I don’t paint if it’s more complicated than a 9” paint roller. Only person working for me is the Mrs and that’s only if I ask nicely or look too stressed