I've just been contacted by my alma matter and asked to come and guest lecture. They are a BFA acting program and BA theatre program with only ONE first year tech theatre course (there are no upper level tech options unless you do directed studies, which I did). I am being given 1 hour with the 25 students in the class, of which there is maybe one who is interested in stage management. Any suggestions on what topics I should attempt to cover? It feels like such a huge thing to condense my entire career down to an hour....
Lois: I've given a guest lecture on Stage Management at a local university 3 times - and I'm about to do it again next week. The class I speak to is a Production Management class which is comprised of technical theater and acting students, with roughly 12-15 students in the class. The professor for the class brings in several guest lecturers during this class, ranging from AEA actors, USA designers, directors, tradesmen and myself. His hope is to give the students an overview of each of these areas of theatrical focus (from those actually doing the jobs in the outside world), and to encourage his students to pursue these jobs, and to show that it is possible to make a living in this field.
After my first lecture, I learned that this short time to speak about what I do is more about answering the questions that seem most important to the students. These students have been "taught" the very basics of Stage Management and have the assignment of creating a production book. They understand that SMs call cues, write rehearsal reports, run understudy rehearsals, etc. So it isn't necessary to waste your time on those items (though it would be good to check with the professor to see what has been covered in the class already). What I've learned is important to the students are these main items:
1. How did you get started?
2. Did you feel that an education in Stage Management was necessary? (BA vs MFA)
3. Do you find it difficult to manage your family with your job?
4. What is your favorite style to call (dance, musical, etc) and why?
There are a few other hot topics (the class I speak to is required to write 3 questions for me before I arrive, and I review every student's list of questions before I start the lecture), though I can't recall them right now. If you want, I can send you my lecture plan when I get to work on Monday.
I usually call ballet, but I have a variety of styles under my belt. I tend to bring with me a few of my best examples of each style to pass around for the students to look at during my lecture, along with some of my best production books and electronic calling scripts. I tell them (in my opinion) that there is no right or wrong way to make their calling script or book, but I tell them what I've learned makes things easier and what has proved to be difficult (for me). I also stress to them what I consider makes a good stage manager - as I always need some "text book" style items so that the professor can give a quiz on my lecture later. (I have a series called "The 4 P's of Stage Management", as well as a few other things.)
I'm sure others on here may have completely different opinions than I do with regards to guest lecturing, but I've found that this format, with this small size class works well for the time allotted. I also plug the internship program at my ballet company, as well as a few other local theater companies, in the hopes that some of these kids will latch on and get some real hands on experience. And I always make sure to leave time for questions. Each time, I adjust my lecture slightly based on the questions I receive the year prior, and of course, I always have new books and scripts to share, as I am continually tweaking my own style.
I hope this helped, or at least gave you some ideas for your lecture. If you have any other questions, please let me know.
-Les
Topic: Teaching Stage Management (Read 4812 times)
Dec 19, 2005, 04:51 pm