my high school needs more student techs!

in the high school i went to, we had two classes set aside for tech, about 12 in each class. They were the builders as well as a few occasional volunteer helpers. During runs though i don't think we ever had more than 10 Technicians a show.
 
Ask the art teacher(s) for recommendations of talented, dedicated students that are interested in 2-D and 3-D art.
 
Unfortunately we never had any tech classes. We never had an adult that knew anything to teach us. Luckily I had a good practical head and natural curiousness. I taught myself a lot and then got hired at the local arena as a tech. I also joined the local community theatre. Not a great way to learn a lot but it gave me a lot of confidence.
 
We've never had a huge problem at my school with getting techs, but sometimes there's a bit of a struggle at the start of the year. Quite often I'll go ask the music staff "Who are some good kids who are interested in theatre and like to help out?" and take it from there. Recruiting in pairs is also a big help; grab two best friends and not only will you have twice the crew, but you know that they'll get along and it gives them a bit of extra drive.

Quite often we 'adopt' Year 7/8 students (freshmen, for those in the US) who just don't fit in anywhere - no friends, no sport, no other clubs, whatever. As a result more than half the crew are a little socially awkward at times and can sometimes be a bit of a challenge, but they love that they have somewhere they can belong and they're always the hardest workers. (You also get a bit of a warm fuzzy feeling when they pick up some confidence and social skills and get out into the 'real world' more, because you know it's thanks to you)

Currently, my problem isn't getting techs, it's getting rid of the ones who are irresponsible/unreliable/unacceptably stupid...
 
Welcome to the site, stop by the new member board and introduce yourself.
 
Currently, my problem isn't getting techs, it's getting rid of the ones who are irresponsible/unreliable/unacceptably stupid...

Oh, this is the easy part. If you (will be using "you" for the department, not you specifically) have a formal policy on attendance/behavior that your technicians must abide by, then you can document the problems and limit their participation, sometimes to the point of them choosing not to want to participate. You can't outright ban them, but if you have excess technicians, then you can do auditions the same way that you do for the actors. You know that you need a certain amount of help, then that's what you go with. So sad that they didn't make the call. The difficult part will be during the build and install where definitive numbers of technicians are hard to tally. But, if they choose not to abide by the rules, and it is properly documented that they choose to not abide by those rules, then they can be prevented from the workspace. This will be part of the school's policy. Whomever is in charge of the program will be the one who will have to comply.
 
My high school did not have a tight-knit tech crew, as it sounds like other schools had/have. Instead, you signed up for crew during actor auditions. The director (and most likely the TD, as well) would go and select the crew from the forms they received. If you wanted, you could do both (audition and sign up for crew), and if you didn't get a part, you might just land up on crew. Yes, I suppose that might make the crew seem second-class, but I don't recall us ever being short on crew.

Set construction was a separate process (there was a sign-up form on the shop door, and we usually had adult volunteers come and help).
 
My high school did not have a tight-knit tech crew, as it sounds like other schools had/have. Instead, you signed up for crew during actor auditions. The director (and most likely the TD, as well) would go and select the crew from the forms they received. If you wanted, you could do both (audition and sign up for crew), and if you didn't get a part, you might just land up on crew. Yes, I suppose that might make the crew seem second-class, but I don't recall us ever being short on crew.
It has been some years but that was also how our high school seemed to operate. The approach was much more that of using the people already involved in theater for tech than of trying to get other students who might have some common interests involved in theater tech and there seemed to be no attempt to involve students active in classes or groups related to electronics, computers, shop, etc.
 
i saw somewhere that a school does a light show to music every year to draw in new people. if it is possible i would try that
 
This year my high school was going through the same thing. There are 7 of us (1 props, 1 props and rigging, 1 sound and rigging, 1 lights, 1 stage manager, 1 seamstress, and I kinda do everything but focus on sound) who really do tech for most of the productions. 5 of us our graduating this year so we all decided that we were going to find underclassmen to teach how to do our jobs so the legacy would continue.

You would be surprised how far facebook will get you. We invited 400 people who we thought would be interested in doing it on facebook and actually had about 85 people show up to it. We're only looking for 2 dozen or so we actually have options (yay!!). Alot of people probably would enjoy doing tech but don't have the oppurtunity to get started. We gave a quick tour of our various spaces

Another thing that really helps is our director requires all of the actors to come to a certain number of saturday work calls to build the sets. You don't always get the best carpenters but there's never a shortage of hands and things to get done (we often have the less capable people sorting screws...) You'd be surprised how much get's done on these days. It allows those of us with other jobs to focus on doing those while the set gets built.
Even with an 11 man cast and 5 people on tech we managed to build the set for our fall play in 4 weeks.
 
Bein g in the generation that moved out it is sad to look back and see my younger brother running stuff. Like said before ask the clubs around school my crew found a couple of people doing that. Also work on getting a teacher adviser, they teach the classes and see what students are good at. At my old High School our programming teacher would recruit kids right out of his class and basically give them A's to do Tech stuff.
 
Free pizza... To bad you cant get good pizza in Grand Rapids...

Yeah, but there's bad pizza everywhere, and what people think is good is only good to them until they've actually had good pizza. Even then there is always going to be a better pizza, you just have to find it.
 
I'm not sure you can get good pizza in Michigan. Except maybe Lansing.

All this talk of pizza is making me hungry, and there's no good pizza in grand rapids.:(

The only decent place in GR is Brick Road on Wealthy Street, right near that Ghetto Wealthy Market. The only real problem with it is the bread tastes like beer.
 
Yeah, but there's bad pizza everywhere, and what people think is good is only good to them until they've actually had good pizza. Even then there is always going to be a better pizza, you just have to find it.

Chicago is the only place with good pizza. New York is not terrible either. Never had a pizza I liked anywhere else. Sort of like hot dogs. The only kind of Hot Dog worth getting can be found pretty exclusively in Chicago for some reason. Also I used to live in GR, the pizza situation is desperate.
 
I'm not sure you can get good pizza in Michigan. Except maybe Lansing.

All this talk of pizza is making me hungry, and there's no good pizza in grand rapids.:(

DeLuca's then? My parents are from that area and I'm there about every other year or so and it is something they always get it seems.
 

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