Ken Davenport: I went to a high school musical recently.
And it was great! The kids were talented, the energy was electric, the whole thing reminded me exactly why I got into this business in the first place. But then I picked up the Playbill . . . and I noticed something.
I saw the future stars of Broadway.
I did not see the future staff of Broadway.
2 comments:
I find it interesting that this article focused on the theatre house roles and not so much the designers. I think it is fairly common to have student designers but I haven't seen student producers, press agents, company managers, treasurers, etc. in high schools. I feel like people are hesitant to let teenagers do some of those things, dealing with money or the public or whatever. And it's also probably not easy to recruit someone or find a student that wants to do it. But clearly those are valuable roles in the theatre. Stage management is something that a fair amount of students want to try out, and I feel like that would be an easy way to introduce them to some of these other management type roles. I'd be curious to see what some of those roles look like and how effectively they are managed by students. I honestly hadn't considered having a lot of these roles for high school productions.
In high school, we were lucky enough to have a theater teacher who encouraged student engagement with the non-acting side of things. Lisa Brackett is the reason I got into theater tech. My sophomore year I had a conversation with her where I asked her what the shows were going to be for next year and she said that she did not know because she was bouncing around a few ideas. She asked for my thoughts and the first thing I did was ask a bunch of questions about what she wanted from the show. The next year, even though I did audition for an acting role, she offered me a dramaturgical/assistant director position. I was encouraged to help with costumes and backstage with set changes. We also had a student stage manager for our shows. Lisa Brackett was a wonderful human being who encouraged students and knew that theater was not just about the actors. I like to think that she would be proud of what I am doing and that I am pursuing a career in theater tech. (She unfortunately passed away this past year.)
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