Production Ensemble: Praxis II

Catalog description

Current topic description: This seminar course is made up of the four to seven students each semester who serve as production team leads for the semester-long theater production. Each student will work in a practicum fashion as the leader of a theatrical production department (depending on the needs of a specific production, that will potentially include stage management, sound, electrics, carpentry, technical direction, stage properties, projections, and more). Students will gather weekly with the instructors to go over readings and conduct shared critiques, as well as to discuss the practical, day-to-day concerns of each of their departments. The class will also read about and examine the deeper overall concerns of production and personnel management and the ways that theater makers collaborate to integrate production elements into a fully realized work of art. Students will gain high-level professional management skills as they plan and execute the steps necessary to fulfill the needs of their individual departments; learn to delegate work to and manage the student technicians who work under them; communicate regularly with professional directors, designers, and consultants from positions of real authority; and work collaboratively with their fellow production leads, including their instructors. They will work closely with a variety of professional theater makers, including their professors and artist consultants from outside the college.