your first paid SM job

[loebtmc]

How did you get your break? Where did you start, professionally speaking, and how did it work out? Let's share some stories of starting out in the business, sharing how we started, the mistakes made as a new professional (union or non) SM, techniques you wish you'd been taught, etc -

[Scott (formerly Digga)]

My first paying gig was with Seaside Music Theatre as an ASM Intern.  A friend of mine from college was the ATD there and called to let me know they had a position open for that season and asked if I was interested.  Though I hadn't stage managed before, I said sure since I was about to graduate and had no job lined up yet.  I learned a lot that summer, nothing more pertinent than that I didn't know anything about Stage Managing and shouldn't presume to know more than people that have worked a lot longer than I had.

[missliz]

I was box office manager at the New London Barn Playhouse (summer stock). During the last show of the summer, their SM had to leave. The artistic director came and found me and said "So, I heard you've been a stage manager..." and that was that! It was Amadeus. I definitely had a lot to learn, but I had a very tolerant director who helped me a lot and really taught me how to be more professional. SMing student productions in college was fine, but this was how I learned how it worked in the real world.

[MatthewShiner]

My first paid SM gig was an Equity Waiver Theatre in LA - the Burbage Theater - it was a small ware house theater in West LA.  The show was called "Fun" - a four person little drama, that eventually got made into a movie - I came in for tech, and the show was reviewed well - we were Critics Choice in the LA Times right above Phantom of the Opera - I think the show ran for 18 months - I cam and went from the show - had to go back to school.  I did a few other shows there as well - but it was my start - the first time someone paid me to say "GO!"

[SLY]

First paid gig....kind of happened three fold.

Right after I graduated, I was hired by the college to take a trip to South Dakota to do a three week Chekov project as the stage manager. Then for two years I worked as the box office manager part time for the theater company at the college. How did I get the job?

As a student I envied to previous box office manager who was an older lady who had a sort of archaic way of running the box office. Everything was hand written. She had never turned on her macbook pro. I always told the artistic director that the day she retired, I wanted her job. I told him that multiple times for four years. The summer after I graduated he called to offer the SM job in South Dakota and the Box Office job at the theater. (I thought I had a clue as to what I was doing and didn't realize how much I did not know. But they were so gracious and taught me so much)

During this time I also worked as a training manager for a hotel five days a week and then three days a week I would work in the theater. What I really wanted was to SM though.

So I quite the hotel job and the box office job and had made plans to move to NY. I had an apartment lined up and a few interviews. Two weeks before I was to move a friend from the hotel who had his own theater company called me and said, "Didn't you quit to do theater full time because i need a Stage Manager tomorrow for a short festival!"

I went in not knowing what I was getting myself into. My college did not teach me half of the technical things I needed. I had never touched a light board. I didn't even know where the power switch was! We had only called the shows! So when I went in and the lighting designer started calling cues, I looked at her like she was crazy. I told them I had no clue what they were talking about. And so that taught me all they knew. The pay was tiny. I think I ended up spending more traveling there than they paid me.

But two days after I learned where that power button was I got an interview with Building Stage for their Noir show. (amazing, by the way). In the interview Blake Montgomery asked me if I knew how to operate a light board. I said yes. (I didn't tell him that I had only learned two days before) After a long interview I got the job. And during that show I learned how to work Qlabs and all sorts of other things...and after that the jobs started pouring in where now I find myself working with the one theater I had dreams about in undergrad. All my random connections and friends and last minute acquired skills paid off!

[Tempest]

ASMing the Blowing Rock Stage Company production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  The wife of the TD where I worked as a carpenter was the SM and discovered a few days into rehearsals that she needed an assistant.  This was the show wherein I learned that I do not want to work with large numbers of kids in a situation wherein there is not a good kid wrangler.  Because I don't wrangle.  I intimidate.

[K.Singleton]

My first paid job... well. Wasn't too long ago actually. About a year. This guy was starting his
own production company and was getting ready to put on a show that he had written. I was
looking for internships high and low for the summer, and someone suggested that I e-mail him.
He responded well and wanted to meet me. I was soo freakin nervous. I have barely done job
interviews and I was getting ready to interview as a Stage Manager. All the training I had was
the awesome people on here, 3 studio shows, 2 different versions of "Vagina Monologues" and
a class. I dressed in classic SM blacks, took a few copies of my resume, and a prompt book from
a previous show. The lunch went well, he told me about the show, I accepted. And it's all history
from there. I'm now his Resident Stage Manager, and getting well paid for each show I work for him.
:0) He treats me well and gives me free reign, even going as far as letting me do theatre for others,
as long as I come back. lol.

[jerseySM]

First paid theatre job at all was teaching an acting class, one for middle school kids and one for early high school aged. Since then, I've been paid more for Production Management than Stage Management, but this past spring I was an Assistant Stage Manager for a professional production and I did not realize it was a paid position until closing night. I got the job because one of my college professors (the head of the program for one of my majors) offered it to me. Very short but incredible experience! Loved it!