[SML] College to High School

[Jon Ares]

On Sat, Apr 16, 2016 at 8:24 AM, PJ Veltri via Stagecraft
<stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:
> As someone that works as a TD+Designer+Venue manager+Production support for
> every event in the school district with 2 high schools and 3 middle schools
> all with auditoriums, I think that the one thing that I have to add to this
> conversation is the following:
>
> In college every single person that will be working on the show has a base
> knowledge of theatre and directing. They understand to an extent what doing
> something means, and they are there because it is their full time job (at
> least for the faculty) to be teaching people about theatre. Where I work, at
> least, all of the directors are not totally versed in what it means to
> direct a show, nor do they understand that when they ask for something it
> could either be the easiest thing in the world or nearly impossible, even
> though it seems to be so easy to them.
>
> That being said, from my college days, I know that the budgets for (nearly)
> all of my shows rival those of the local universities and our facilities and
> equipment are just as impressive, if not more. It's also nice that I have a
> staff of 5 or 6 full part-time alumni that mostly understand what we do.

PJ beat me to it..... I'm nodding my head in agreement with everything
everyone has already written, but I was going to comment on exactly
what PJ said - sometimes you have to play as much "Producer" and
"Director" with inside and outside groups that have no idea what
they're doing.

If you're going to a high school that already has the TD/PM/Facilities
Person(s) job in place, that means they have determined there's a
need.  If it's a school or district that has never had this position,
but somehow it was deemed important enough to create, then you have to
do a good job of making everyone feel good about the decision....
people skills, skillful use of your admin/supervisors to your
advantage, etc.... they won't understand what you do, so it will be
your task to appear necessary.  :)  Keep a positive attitude - don't
give away your labors, or promise the impossible, but rather than
saying "No, we can't do that," or "No, that's unsafe," help them find
a solution that doesn't incorporate the negative words.  I had a
superintendent that didn't like "negative" signs, like "No
skateboarding," or "No food or drink" - but rather tasked everyone
(curricularly, and co-curricularly) to turn it around and offer a
positive instruction: "Please keep food and drink in the lobby," and
such. At first, I thought that kind of stuff was corny, but it's much
more effective, and makes me look like a much more positive person as
well.  :)

Keep the sarcasm out of the job as well....  :)


-- 
Jon Ares
www.arescreative.com
http://backstagethreads.com