College Minor in Technical Theatre?

NewChris

Active Member
I am currently a sophomore in high school as president of the tech crew. I really enjoy doing sound for shows. I am planning on going to college for engineering, probably electric. I am thinking about maybe minoring in technical theatre. Is this a good idea? What colleges offer technical theatre on the east coast?
 
I can't tell you immediately which schools on the east coast are good to look at but I would be happy to give my input when I get back from USITT on Monday. I can tell you that if you work hard to network right and make some friends (including people on this forum) that degree pair can do you well. I am in a very similar boat except my school doesn't have a technical theatre minor (only the major) and I am studying Computer Science. There are lots of companies that manufacture theatre equipment and employ electrical engineers and computer scientists. I recently wrote a post here telling of some of these people I was able to network with this week at USITT thanks to CB's conference giveaway. Many of these companies have paid internship programs. I know that both I and MNicolai have (or will have this summer) had internships at ETC (a big lighting manufacturer if you don't know) but I doubt that we are the only ones on this forum who have had manufacturing internships.

As many people will attest, it is a lot easier to pay rent as an engineer than is is as a sound designer. It's not impossible, but its not a simple feat and there isn't a one size fits all formula. Mitch Hefter (engineer at Phillips Lighting) who earned the USITT lifetime membership award this week got his degree in electrical engineering and minored in technically theatre. He is very involved in the theatre industry.

I guess what this post really boils down to is that your pairing of EE and tech theatre is a great combo. If you network right you could end up meeting some great people and working in the industry you love.

And imidiate tip? Read this forum and participate where you can. It's a great place to start and it helped me with getting my internship this summer.
 
It depends what you want to do, wich you dont know when your in HS. Im 30 and there are people im around who still dont know what they want to do.

Do you want to be an FOH engineer? Do system design?

Then get the electrical engineering degree, classes in acoustics, music theory and learn how to play an instrument.

Dont waste your time on a theatre degree, espescially in the audio world.

Do you want to be a designer in the theatrical sense? Your really going to do a lot of post production audio work. Basically studio work.

If that is the case look at schools with theatre programs that do big musicals and big shows, I would do what i said before but sub the enginering degree for a theatre degree and take the engineering classes and all the other stuff I me tioned, in my opinion go to school in California. That is where that industry is. After being done with school look at working post production on film, commercials, video games etc. A friend of mine interviewed at Cal Arts a few years ago and all their grads from the theatre department go into those industries in california after graduation.

Begin to research how diverse "audio" is in the entertainment industry is. As well looking at all the different avenues you could go. Look into non traditional avenues for education like Stage Craft Institue of Las Vegas or dare I say it the dreded Full Sail.

I would also recomend trying to contact people in the industry who are working in theatrs , studios , production houses etc to talk to them about their background.


Keep in mind and audio designer needs to understand ectrical theory and acoustics and all that stuff as well all the artsy stuff is important when making aesthetic decisions when doing their audio design for Hair Spray.

The FOH engineer as well needs to know all that stuf if him/her is mixing Linkin Park.
 
I agree with chawalang. My post was looking more at being an electrical engineer as you said that would be your major. If you want to manufacture and design theatre equipment the EE/theatre path is a good one. I can't speak for working as a technition or designer in the industry though, I don't have experience in that and the path I'm on right now doesn't appear to lead that way.
 
It depends what you want to do, wich you dont know when your in HS. Im 30 and there are people im around who still dont know what they want to do.

Do you want to be an FOH engineer? Do system design?

Then get the electrical engineering degree, classes in acoustics, music theory and learn how to play an instrument.

Dont waste your time on a theatre degree, especially in the audio world.

I really don;t know what i want to do yet. I want to try to keep doing technical theatre but maybe just community. I have looked at acoustics and thought it looked interesting. I already play an instrument. That could be really cool to do system design. I definitely will look to see if the colleges i look at have acoustic classes.
 
I had an MIT EE come through as a FOH engineer for a Jazz act the other day. He found he liked the jazz lifestyle more then the engineering lifestyle... however he does not make EE money doing the jazz thing... but he is happy.

All it takes to be successful in this industry is a good work ethic, good people skills, and excellent reasoning skills. Whatever schooling you need to get you there is your deal, but that is the nuts and bolts of it.

Most of the guys who do the EE or mechanicl thing and still want to keep their hands dirty end up working for the Taits and VER's of the world. If I could do it all over again I would probably have gone to school for mechanical engineering and camped out in front of Tait's headquarters until they let me in.

If you want to be a boot on the ground guy, then your engineering degree will help but it won't entitle you to engineer pay... it could just make your more competitive then the next guy.
 
I can't speak for getting into Tait but I know that one of VER's guys is on the PLASA Control Protocols Working Group and if you can meet him (or any number of other engineers from different companies) at a convention like USITT it might be a little easier than camping. You would have to show that you are interested in the industry and that you either have or are working towards obtaining the necessary knowledge to be an engineer. Companies like VER, ETC, Doug Fleenor Design, etc. can't hire enough engineers with theatre backgrounds to fill their staff and there for have to expose a lot of new hires to the technology for the first time. This process can be slow, and time is money.

You can't go wrong with the EE degree w/ a minor in technical theatre because If you wan't to be an electrical engineer and still work in the industry you will be able to find the jobs. Or if, like the FOH engineer @Footer talked about, you would rather be a designer / technician you can. However if you think you might pick that second rout I would be careful about picking a lavish and expensive school to go to. College loans aren't cheap, however, I'm not done with that part of the process yet so I can't really tell you how people pay for them.

Also keep in mind you have at least 2 years to decide. You should be thinking about it now but stress out about it like you have to sign your life away tomorrow.
 

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