Greetings Casper!
I'm a little unclear as to what your goals are. Are you looking to try and stage manage as your full time job or are you just looking to stay in the non-union, more community theatre, world of stage management?
I live in Orange County, CA and in my experience of non-union (paying very little if at all) theatre there are a lot of opportunities here for stage managers, hardly dependent on your experience. Many places would be overjoyed to have a complete newbie walk thru their doors saying they want to stage manage, let alone have someone with experience make the same request. And there are plenty of these quasi-community theatres to keep a casual stage manager quite busy. Of course, this is not the type of gig that you would make your living on. These schedules run around people's daytime job hours and perform mostly on weekends.
If you're looking to relocate though, I'd imagine you're probably looking to make your living at stage managing at some point. If that's the case, I personally don't think I would spend my time trying to get more experience in non-union theatre before making the leap to paying theatre. If you feel you don't have a lot of experience, I would try to get a paying internship at a regional theatre, if you can afford it. That way, you're learning and getting experience on a professional level as well as making contacts along the way. Starting out like this is often a great way to work your way up in a theatre, and in my experience a theatre is often more likely to promote from within to fill vacancies than hire in a non-union, unknown stage manager.
Of course, it is all dependent on your ability to be able to take a very low paying internship as your full time job for a while and still be able to survive! A fella has got to eat after all
Others may not agree with me, but I would not consider going to college to pursue a theatre degree at this stage in your life. I do think higher education is important, but I do not think having a degree in theatre or in another discipline is a prerequisite for being able to be hired as a stage manager. I think college theatre programs give you two very important things: experience and contacts. If you're motivated, you can get enough experience on your own thru community theatre. If you're able to arrange an internship, you can get both experience and more valuable contacts thru that. It would be the better option to try to figure out how to live very cheaply for a couple of seasons while you pay your dues at a professional theatre than go into debt for a couple of years as a full time student.
Just my opinion of course!
