Remodeling | Management: I love theater. The magic that happens when one sees a performance is often inspiring, intoxicating, and thought-provoking.
The work a director and the actors do to bring the play to life seems simple when looking at it from the outside, but it is, like many things, quite complicated. Several things need to happen to make the relationship work.
9 comments:
I think that the author makes some good suggestions but they are not always true. I'm sure that often these points result in a good team but there will be situations where it does not. Every team is different and a good leader has to adjust their behavior to suit the needs of the team. That being said there is something about the collaborative nature of theater that really brings out good teamwork in people. I have noticed that in group projects for the School of Drama everyone always puts in their fair share of the work and projects get done efficiently and well. When I work on projects for Tepper despite how they tell you in every class teamwork is the most important thing, group projects for business classes often happen last minute. It may be a time management issue but that also might be one of the most important aspects of being a good team member.
There are pros and cons to what this author has to say about working together, and trust in the theater. In an ideal world, yes, all that he has to say would work to our benefits forcing us to collaborate in a positive way, pushing the production and everyone working on it further.
However, an ideal world doesn't really exist, and Murphy's law usually comes into play just when we don't need it.
Beginning a process with open communication, showing that you care about the people you work with is very important. It opens up people's eyes to the fact that we are more than mere "theatre people", just here to work on a job. We are real people too, with background stories, families and other passions.
I can say first hand, after working retail for about a year, that a lot of this information does relate to other arenas outside of theatre. Working for with manager, and assistant managers in a retail setting allowed me to experience different types of leadership. I agree that those leaders who allow you to make decisions, coach, and work alongside you have the best teams. There is a reason why stores, and productions alike, with good collaboration see such success. Leaders in those situations ask, don't tell.
It's a pretty simple idea to approach a manager-employee environment like a director, but also pretty creative and effective. I think that there is definitely a lot to learn from the way that directors interact with their performers. Working with actors can be very nerve wracking, as with directing there is a heightened sense of how what you're saying is affecting the actors/performers thoughts and energy. Why does that heightened sense disappear when we take management and direction out of the context of performance and entertainment? It's a pretty similar premise, as a manager in any kind of situation you often provide some kind of direction to other collaborators or employees. It's also helpful on the other side of things, as the employee or just someone lower in the hierarchy in general. How does an actor respond to a directors guidance? I think that the idea of being very much open and trusting of what the director has to say is a valuable idea that could certainly be applied to the workplace.
I agree with the above comments: there really is no way to 'lead', though there are methods you can use that are universal for bonding a team together. However, theatre education can become a jumping board for a student to rise up in almost any management-centric, problem-solving job. A costume designer once told me that her husband, a theatre director, decided to quit the entertainment world for some time. He got a job as an assistant to a low professional business-person, and within two years had risen up all the way to the manager of the sector he'd been assisting in. Though the tips this article suggests might not be applicable for all leaders or teams, it's helpful to remember that theatre in general teaches everyone how to problem-solve, manage an intense situation, and get along with difficult personalities. I feel as if, when I graduate, I'll have as many skills as any business major, and that if it comes down to competition between me and another non-arts graduate, we'd be on an even plane.
I definitely agree that trust is one of the most important things in any work setting. This is particularly true for the stage manager and assistant stage manager partnership. If there is no trust between the two then the stage manager second guesses what their assistant does and then the assistant stage manager feels like their being judged for their work because they don’t know why the stage manager is breathing down their neck. The opposite of that would be that the trust helps each of them work together but still have their own work styles. The stage manager will know that all backstage work is taken care of because they know the assistant stage manager will take care of it while the assistant will feel freer to plan the work backstage because they don’t feel the pressure to go through the stage manager at every step. Trust is one of the best foundations to have for any setting.
I agree that trusty is a very important aspect, if not the most important aspect of a group dynamic. A leader needs to be a person that those who he/she is leading can trust to help them and lead them in a good direction. The article brought up something that many people forget about when trying to establish trust and that is that, trust takes time to form. While this is true, it doesn't mean that trust is too hard to establish either. Like the article said, just by asking a few simply question people can get to know one another. Another point of the article I completely agree with is that a leader should be willing to listen to the ideas and suggestions of those which they lead. yes, the director is the director and has the final say, but the director shouldn't be a dictator. They should listen to how the group members feel and show them that their perspective matters. That can not only lead to some awesome collaboration, but it will definitely build trust.
Theatre directors encompass many skills that are essential to leading a team. A company is one big team with the director as the leader. There are many people that go into creating a production, but the director is at the head of it all making the calls. A director needs to do a lot of preparation work before rehearsals start and even before design meetings. They need a very strong understanding of the play and their vision in order to inform everyone else on how they can work best for the production. A good director knows what they want, but is flexible if everything is not possible. If the director is unsure of what to do then the actors and designers will be even more confused. The director needs to be able to gain respect from the people they are working with. Earning their trust is extremely important as well because the rest of the team needs to have faith in the director that what they are trying to create is possible and will look good.
As someone who's gained a lot of my leadership experience from working in theater, many of these tips seem like natural and obvious things that team leaders should do, and are obvious things that leaders in training should strive towards. However, this article proves that these things are not done in a lot of workplaces, and that things such as building trust and having a clear vision are not always prioritized by business owners and people outside of theater. Theater is a truly collaborative workplace that requires use of these tactics in order to put on a successful production, but other work environments are not nearly as collaborative because they often can still achieve some success without as much collaboration. This article proves that other work environments can have successful and collaborative atmospheres by looking towards theater, one of the most collaborative industries out there.
Allowing those working with you to make choices is an extremely important. During my junior and senior year in high school, the new drama teacher that stepped in overtook everything - every decision she made was not discussed or negotiable once they were made. Sets had to be exactly the way she wanted, there was minimal communication or negotiation, and she even pulled crew members off of a show to let some acting students curious about backstage try it out. As a result, students weren’t happy and the productions were not enjoyable anymore. If she even made an effort to communicate and listen to other people’s opinions, things would’ve been completely different.
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