How Summer Theatre Comes Together, Part 2

I start to find the Design/Technical side for the summer at the same time in February as the acting auditions. There is something like a jobs fair at each audition I attend. Designers arrive at the Tibbits table with portfolios of their work--pictures, prompt books, technical drawings, renderings--hoping to impress the theatre representative. (Sometimes this is me, sometimes the Technical Director, if I have one in place that early in the season.) I also do a tremendous amount of our technical hiring from backstagejobs.com where countless behind the scenes jobs are listed for theatres across the country.

This year we have a very high return rate on the technical side. I think this speaks well for what we do here. It is an exhausting, sometimes thankless job. But we had a great team last summer and have only built on our strengths for this one. Lex vanBlommstein and Em Rossi, both in the process of getting their Master's degree with the Hillberry, are back with us. I know they were instrumental in talking up the Tibbits there, so we have three others from that program working here this summer.

The Design/Tech staff has all been here a week. The set is already being built. The Technical Director feels they are a couple of days ahead of schedule for Little Women and it has been given to the Scenic Artist to paint. The Costume Department is deep in research and showing renderings of the various ideas to be approved by the Director. The Properties Department is making massive lists and doing their own research of the Civil War era. Lighting is reconditioning lights and hanging them in a rep plot-- that is where the basic hang will be used all summer with variations for each show.

We have also been rehearsing Grace and Glorie and The House and Pooh Corner. By the end of the day we will be rehearsing three shows in three spaces around town. I will post this now, for it's time to greet the vast majority of actors who are arriving for Little Women. By the end of this week the first two productions will be open. That fact can still amaze me.