Crysta May Powell and Nathan Balser, Department of Dance
Introduction
Everyone has those moments in life when everything seems a bit surreal.
For me, one such moment was that moment I was standing in front of the stage door of the Lyric Theatre about to go shadow the stage manager for On the Town. Broadway had always been this impossible dream in my mind and here I was about to enter that world first hand. It was something that I never dreamed that I’d be able to do while I was at college and I was so excited to learn and go from this experience.
Stage Managers are a not so well known but a crucial part of the theatrical world. They are responsible for organization, communication, and encouraging collaboration for a production. They create the production schedule, organize meetings, send out reports, handle emergencies, and are responsible for the daily running of the show. During my time at BYU, I have taken classes in every area of technical theatre and I have been a part of the stage management team for over thirty-seven productions. I have had the honor and privilege of working and learning from the amazing faculty and staff of the College of Fine Arts and Communications as I’ve worked on my goal of becoming a professional stage manager.
The next step in learning how to become a professional stage manager is to learn from those who are the best in the field. Broadway is the theatrical center of the United States and the stage managers that work on Broadway are the best of the best. Through my ORCA grant, I was able to travel to New York and was able to have some amazing shadowing experiences and was able to talk to professionals on how they got to where they are. Being able to shadow these professionals and getting their advice about my next step through was monumental for my future career.
Methodology
In preparation for my trip, my mentor, Nathan Balser, and I worked on reaching out Broadway professionals as well as starting to expand my contact pool. I participated in ACTF (American College Theatre Festival) and won the National Stage Management Fellowship for our region. Through this I met Peter Lawrence. Peter is a well-known working professional stage manager who has worked on numerous Broadway productions as well as prestigious regional theatres. Peter also recently published a book on stage managing commercial theatre that is beginning to be used as a textbook and I was able to meet with him and discuss his methodologies with him. For my senior stage management project, I worked as the production stage manager on the U.S. premiere of The Count of Monte Cristo. This was an amazing opportunity for our university and theatre program. To work on a U.S. premiere as a college student was a rare and amazing experience. I worked personally with professionals such as Frank Wildhorn and Jack Murphy and they gave me additional connections as well as a glimpse into the world of New York theatre.
As a Broadway performer himself, Nathan has been a part of the New York theatre scene for many years. Nathan knows what it takes to make it in the theatre world and he has always been there to give me much needed advice and criticism throughout my BYU career. Nathan was the first person that helped me believe that I could actually do this and he has encouraged me to go all the way and reach for the stars.
Results
While I was in New York, I was able to shadow and visit with many different professional stage managers. I got to meet with Clifford Schwartz who is the production stage manager on Aladdin on Broadway right now as well as a production supervisor for Disney on Broadway. I went to the Disney offices and we were able to sit down and chat. I asked him questions about stage managing on Broadway and what he looked for when he was hiring a production assistant. He talked to me about theatre in NYC and get me advice on my resume. When I left he told me to keep in contact. He said that contacts were everything in this field. He is someone that I had continued to email and talk to and am grateful that I’m able to have such a great contact.
Another experience was when I went and shadowed the stage manager of On the Town. I had the opportunity to go backstage of the lyric theatre with Scott Rowan and watch him call a show. He gave me a tour of the venue and talked to me about the routine of stage managing a Broadway show. These are just a couple of examples of the people I was able to talk to and the hands on learning experiences I was able to have. These were things that helped further my education and things that I never could’ve learned in a classroom at BYU.
Discussion
One of the great things that came out of this trip was all of the knowledge that I was able to bring back to BYU and my fellow stage management students. There haven’t been any recent graduates from the BYU stage management program that have moved out to NYC to pursue a career in commercial theatre so there isn’t a lot of knowledge of how to pursue a career out there. With what I learned out in NYC, I was able to come back and teach some classes and share my knowledge with other stage management students. It was exciting to be able to share what I learned about how to get a job, how to make connections, and some of the basics of what it takes to stage manage a commercial show.
Conclusion
Everyone has those moments in life when everything seems a bit surreal.
I’m living one such moment right now.
I am writing this report from my new apartment in New York. Because of this ORCA grant I was able to make enough connections and gain some great future job skills and I was able to make the move to NYC where I’m pursuing job opportunities in stage management. Many of these opportunities came because of this ORCA grant that I was so blessed to receive. I look back on this trip and the experiences I had and know that there is no way I’d be where I am now without it. I know that without this ORCA grant and everything I learned I wouldn’t have been able to have the courage and skills I needed to be able to follow my dreams.