Author Topic: Hello from the SoCal area!!  (Read 2428 times)

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karin

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Hello from the SoCal area!!
« on: Jan 03, 2017, 11:31 pm »
Hi! My name is Karin and I've been a lurker on this forum for a little over a year now but I finally decided to make an account!

I'm a junior in a SoCal high school, and I'm aspiring to become a stage manager in the future. Sadly, my school is not an arts school and just an ordinary public school, but thankfully our school has a strong theatre class (I would think, especially for a small public). I've been an SM and ASM for our school shows, and have done deck crew work for the times I was not SM/ASM.

Since it is my junior year, I have begun to look at universities to further my future career as a SM, and my main focuses are on UCs. If anyone has any information on the best UCs for stage management, I'd love to hear anything, pros and cons! (Especially info on UCLA, UCSD, Berkeley, and even USC :) )

I'd also love to make friends on here, and hear some non-college related advice or information that could help me out as a future stage manager!
Thanks for reading and I hope you have a fantastic rest of the day!

ErgoCue

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Re: Hello from the SoCal area!!
« Reply #1 on: Jan 04, 2017, 06:17 pm »
Hi Karin,

Welcome to the forum!  Glad to have you aboard.  I work in San Diego, so I have worked at La Jolla Playhouse (LJP), which is on the UCSD campus.  What I can tell you is that they heavily favor their graduate stage management program.  As an undergrad, you would have ample opportunity to be an ASM or a PA on the school productions, but the PSM/SM positions would go to the grad students.  You could also apply to LJP to be an intern on their productions, but a summer show would be best as their schedules have day time rehearsals and would conflict with classes. 

If you wanted to PSM/SM at UCSD, you might have to work on the purely student productions.  So, what I can tell you is that you will get some experience, but probably not the whole package.  I know that UC Irvine also has a grad SM program, so you may run into a similar situation there.  For my two cents, I went to a small liberal arts school and was able to SM most of the shows.  It was such good experience to learn the ropes of running a production without the pressure of it being professional.  At UCSD, you wouldn't really get a chance to PSM until you were out of school.  That being said, the productions are top notch and you would get to work with a great group of people that will become life-long contacts.

karin

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Re: Hello from the SoCal area!!
« Reply #2 on: Jan 21, 2017, 02:09 am »
Hi ErgoCue! Thank you for your reply :)
I have heard about the emphasis on the grad program, so it really is a factor that I think about on how well it would work for me :0

 

riotous