Friday, January 22, 2010
The Steppenwolf Apprentice Experience
Steppenwolf Theatre Company Blog: "I moved to Chicago this past August to begin my yearlong apprenticeship at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. I am halfway through my apprenticeship and I’ve got a few numbers for you."
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It's rather funny to read this, because down to the last letter this sounds like a blog post I would have written during my experience as a stage management intern over this past summer. More than anything about the stage manager's position in the company, I think I learned two much more key things. Firstly, when you have a dedicated cast and crew, a show can be produced extremely quickly (nothing like high school's three-month musical ordeal) and that I tend to be, like Karyn, more of a quiet listener who loves to hear others tell stories of their experiences. It's something to work on, because most social situations need a dialogue going, but it's the self-awareness of it that was so important to gain from the experience. As I move from an internship position to actually having my own theatre to stage manage at camp this summer, it will be a very interesting situation when I step into the leadership role and conduct operations for 12 weeks of kid's shows.
I was feeling happy to read this Karyn's report. I totally received her excitement as if it were mine, because the joy of working for the live stage can not be described with words.
Speaking of the job of stage managers, from my experiences of working with them for professional musical productions, I remember that I was completely amazed by the professionalism of a certain team of stage management. They were greater communicators than anybody else with generosity, friendliness and preciseness. They handles every issues around the rehearsal room and stage with a variety of section with patient.
Not to mention their work of taking care of times, actors, props...I mean, everything happening on stage, the personality supported by their communication skills makes them "professional".
I felt instinctively, "this is an ultimate management job."
I really wish there were more opportunities like this across all the disciplines of our industry. I don't think that an apprenticeship can really be replaced, especially when you're first starting out, because it gives you a very long period of time to be in a learning environment and it helps you to really grasp what you're doing instead of working for a few months and having to look for work again. I find that the top companies are the ones that share this sentiment and can actually sustain such a program. I think it's truly an invaluable experience, which is clear from this blog entry. The fact of the matter is that a lot of our jobs depend solely on experience and doing many many shows. Unfortunately, this opportunity is not offered as much as it used to be. Maybe it'll make a comeback.
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