Friday, December 03, 2021
How Theatre Training Works in Football!
Dramatics Magazine Online: My early theatre training and experience gave me the groundwork for the adventures I’ve had. My entertainment career has been a wild roller coaster ride of travel, working with amazing actors, directors, designers, and technicians, and more.
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7 comments:
Michael Shann seems to have a really cool variety of live entertainment experiences. It makes me think of how when I'm at home and my parents see an awards show or a half time show, or really anything live, they'll shout out: hey! They've probably got a stage manager working this! It makes me happy because it such a pure excitement for me and what I love to do. I remember exclaiming right along with them that I would love to do it too. Maybe because it's the end of the semester or maybe because we are still very much in a pandemic, but I feel like some of this spirit that Michael Shann appears to have had his whole life for this industry has been lost for us a bit. I don't think I'm speaking just for myself when I say there's some inspiration lacking. I know in my heart I love what I study, but I want to be reminded of it more often.
Y'know, while some people may scoff at a theatre degree and call it functionally useless, I always held the opinion that training in theatre gives you a lot of respect for your fellow coworkers, for the production process (whether that be in entertainment or otherwise), and the work ethic to have things done on time. The TD at my old school always used to say that no matter what job you're doing, if you have a theatre person working it you bet they'll get it done. Whether that's completely true or not is up for debate, but I think the sentiment still stands that people who work in theatre can be some of the hardest working people you've ever met (as I'm sure everyone at this school knows:) ). At the end of the day, we love what we do, and we're willing to work hard at it, because the end product is worth it.
Hehe, football and theater. I love this :) I should try and connect with Michael Shann, he has done two things that I have thought about doing myself! The Superbowl and the Olympic games have been events that have been on my mind for the past few years. I highly agree that theater degrees are always a good one to have. It doesn’t matter where you want to end up, you will always learn transferable skills for the work you do in theater. As college goes, I’ve been trying many different things and seeing what I like, dislike, love, and really dislike. I’ve found that I love theater but the hours in which theaters operate really don’t love me… No matter what entertainment vector you go into there will be outrageous schedules and hours but I think that you have to be within an industry that holds similar values to your own and contribute to supporting ideas and communities that you connect with (aka the sports industry for me because it promotes active lifestyles) I’m just kinda rambling about sports and theater at this point but I really enjoy seeing articles that show that you don’t need to always go into the theater if you are getting a theater degree. There are options and endless amounts of opportunities
There is absolutely something to be said about the kind of person that has done theatre, there is just something about the way that they think and communicate that is different than anyone else. I'm sure the many people who have graduated from this program that go on to other industries can also attest to that fact, and just how useful their training was. Even for me, two summers ago I was working with drones and incorporating some of the rigging and lighting hardware we are all familiar with into the landing gear and payload structure of a project. Beyond that though, the interpersonal skills and creativity that comes with this training is highly sought after because it is so hard to teach. But here? That's our life. I think the football and broader sporting events scene is a great path for some of us to take. I know a few folks that work at Tait even got the chance to work on the halftime show last year. These skills and qualities that we find in the theatre world can go a long way outside of it.
Did...did I miss something when I read this article? I am a little confused about where the football aspect of the article is supposed to be. Talk about yet another article with a super misleading title. This article seemed superficial at best, and I spent a bit looking for a second page or if my link broke. However, the article does bring up a good point, a point that we don’t talk about enough in our stage management education: our skills are transferable into areas that you wouldn’t normally think of. A lot of times I’ve heard people talk about how we can use our skill on different types or shows and events, but no one ever talks about sports, tech, or other fields in heavy detail. It would have been nice to actually read about how Stage Management skills can be used in theater besides thinking about the obvious though. Guess I will have to go do my own research
This headline implied to me that they were doing theater training for football players which is not the case. I have heard stories in the past about ballet training specifically for football players to keep them light on their feet. This article is really about how the entertainment industry can be frustratingly run by “who you know.” It can be a good feeling when you have a contact and land something interesting because of who you know but then you realize that’s a really bad system and makes it difficult to be a part of. It’s funny that the writer noted he started theater in Highschool and then connected the dots to eventually producing both the closing ceremonies for the Olympic games as well as a Super Bowl halftime show. The jump from highschool to DIsney seems like the important part and I’m sure that time at Disney is the thing that brought him to the caliber and gave him all of those contacts.
I’ve been in a trench of thinking about what I want my life to end up looking like, what I envision myself doing with the training that I’m getting at this school, and I’m still unsure, which frankly is both okay, normal and to be expected with where I am in life right now. Part of that is wondering if i’d like to do more installation work separate from theatre, very unbounded from traditional building and audience interaction that comes back to the question of what theatre actually is. And this article kinda touches on that point, where those skills are absolutely transferable, involve a lot of the same components when I am producing work, both those physical skills that I’m getting such a variety of opportunities to work with here on various projects with weird materials. I intend to push myself to do this more, get on different projects, and try new things.
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