Basically, i'm lost. I am currently enrolled in high school, and want to have a career in Audio Engineering and possibly sound design for
IATSE local 1. Any advice? I have designed 17 education shows ranging from musicals to strait plays. I am really looking for a future in Musical
theatre, and Broadway national tours. I worked on part of a non-union tour for
Ring of Fire:The Tribute to Johnny Cash, as an A3. I have been an A2 for several regional productions as well Assistant A1 to many
regional theatre Equity productions. What sound I do regarding a career in national tours? HOw would I get and
IATSE card/get signed on with an company?
Whew, that's a big question! Fortunately, you still have a long, long time before you need to figure a lot of this out - although it's good that you're thinking about it now. First of all, getting into Local One is really, really hard. In general, the way you get into the local is by earning at least $30,000 on Local One calls for three consecutive years, and then they can offer you a card. For that to happen, you basically need to be good enough at your job that the bosses are willing to displace a union guy to hire you. It's definitely not easy. One other way to join Local One is to take their Apprentice Exam, which is offered every 3-4 years, and if you score in the top 40 of test-takers, you'll eventually be offered an Apprenticeship where you work for half the rate of everyone else for 2 years, learning your craft, and when you get out of that two-year apprenticeship, you're holding a Local One card.
However, keep in mind that a Local One card isn't the only way to be successful. Many of the technicians working on Broadway are not members of Local One, and probably never will be - and designers aren't really even
IATSE members (they technically are in
IATSE (USA) Local 829, but most people tend to think of USA as a separate union, despite it's
IATSE name). I don't know enough about this to speak at length about it, but basically every
stagehand on a broadway show is hired either by the
House or by the Show.
House staff are the Local One members, and are there when a show rents out the
theatre. They work on whatever show happens to be in that
theatre at the time, and they're beholden to the
theatre owners (Nederlanders, Schuberts, Jujamcyn). The
house requires that a show hire these stagehands, regardless of if they are needed for the show or not. As a result, it is not uncommon for a
house carpenter or
house electrician to show up to work and just sit for the length of the show, while picking up a paycheck. It is also not unheard of, though this is somewhat controversial, for
House staff to show up at their
theatre at 6:30, check to make sure everything looks good, then walk across the street to work a
Pink Contract on another show at the same time.
The Show staff is hired by the Producers to work on a specific show, independent of what
theatre the show goes into, and these are hired under what is commonly called a "
Pink Contract". For example, whenever an open-ended show moves theatres, the
Pink Contract crew goes with the show, while the
House Crew stays at the
theatre, and a new
House Crew at the new
theatre will take over their responsibilities. These stagehands get hired when the show opens and lose their job when the show closes, and they are beholden to the Producers. Many of these stagehands are not actually Local One members, but they are members of other
IATSE locals.
For
theatre tours, it's not really necessary to have an
IATSE card when you start out, and by the time you get to the better tours where you do need one, you'll have one. Most entry-level touring jobs frequently hire non-union stagehands, and if the tour is or turns into a union tour, the non-union guys will just
pick up ACT cards - basically like an
IATSE card that doesn't have any connection to a specific local, allowing you to tour. Some old, hardened stagehands look down on the ACT card ("Anyone Can Tour"), but it is a route that many take when starting their careers. One progression that I've heard of many people doing is to start touring with companies like NETworks and Troika and move your way up until you're touring with the 1st Nationals, which are usually PE'd/PS'd and designed by the same guys who did the Broadway versions of those shows. Then you just keep impressing those bosses until you decide to
settle down in New York, and hopefully they like you enough to start giving you jobs on the Broadway shows.
Also, keep in mind that union isn't the only way to go, either. There are plenty of highly successful stagehands who are not
IATSE members who work in non-union venues. Las Vegas is one city that I know of that has a strong showing of both Union and Non-Union venues, and some would tell you that the non-union venues are actually slightly nicer to work for and pay slightly better. Even New York has TONS of non-union action, and I have many non-union friends in New York who are always working and make similar money to their
IATSE counterparts.
Do you plan to go to college? Many people would disagree with me, but as a
current college student and
IATSE member, I definitely think it's worth it. You don't need to go to a fancy expensive four-year private school, just somewhere to make connections. While I've of course learned a lot at my school, the two biggest things I've gained are the ability to take risks and make huge mistakes without tanking my career, and gaining access to an enormous
network of alumni who I can
call and meet and get jobs from. If you choose not to go to college, you just need to find somewhere to work to
build up some credentials before you'll be able to jump into an entry-level touring job. It's hard to say without knowing what
level of
regional theatre you were working at, but chances are you'll need to
build up some more resume credits before a larger touring company will look at you seriously.
Well, it looks like I just rambled here for a
bit. I hope some of this helps you out. Good luck!