Week 7 – Professionalism in Theater

July 18, 2017

This week was the Talley’s Folly opening and preview. Setting up food and preparing the preview event has been one of my biggest jobs since I arrived at CRT. Talley’s Folly marked my 5th preview and I was getting the hang of it. Since my supervisor that normally heads the setup had to be out for a week, I was the point of contact from then on for a lot of development tasks including set of for Talley’s Folly. It was hard because other people tried to get it done but weren’t sure how. So sometimes people were stepping on each other’s toes. But by the end we were able to get it set up and it was a success! After it was all over I realized that Talley’s Folly was my last preview reception for the summer.

Working in development I have been drafting grant applications, helping come up with donation campaigns, and processing incoming donations. This is very different than a lot of other work I have had to do because it is office work for the most part but a lot of it is creative idea generating. I may not work on the shows directly but I have to know enough about them to write about them in a grant application or brag about them to a sponsor. Although I am not working in the theater I can not imagine someone doing my job that has not worked in theater in some capacity because you have to understand a lot of how it works, what the company is capable of, and what they need.

Originally when I applied to be a Fellow at Creede, I had wanted to do stage management. Now I am glad that I didn’t because I am learning so many different skills in development and box office that will aid my career moving forward as that I can bring back to Cornell. I have been practicing and talking about improv techniques with the resident improv group Boomtown! I now have some new exercises and ways of doing an improv show to bring to Cornell’s group, The Freelance Cosmonauts. In addition, I  now have connections with Creede who could possibly video conference into one of our practices and give us advice. Which is super cool. I’ve also gained some insight into how a theater organization runs in the professional world and not just on a small college campus. I can bring this back to Student Theatre Council to try and make us more on par with larger theater groups. Overall I think I have gained a lot of really valuable experience at CRT that is definitely going to shape my career path moving forward.