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The Art of the Technical Director

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The Art of the Technical Director University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2014 The Art of the Technical Director Victoria Oakes University of Central Florida Part of the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Oakes, Victoria, "The Art of the Technical Director" (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 4796. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/4796 THE ART OF THE TECHNICAL DIRECTOR by VICTORIA OAKES B.A. College of Charleston, 1993 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Theatre in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term 2014 © 2014 Victoria Oakes ii ABSTRACT The theatrical scenic design process does not end at a picture on paper or with the presentation of a scale model. The design must be translated to the stage. There are a myriad of questions to be answered and decisions regarding construction style, process, material choices, structure, safety, etc. that must be made in order to fully realize the design. In a common, contemporary American production hierarchy, the person that is most often responsible for this translation process is the technical director. Often, the technical director is stereotyped as solely a craftsman or a technician following a set of pre-established directions and not as an artist in his own right. Even I, as a technical director, am guilty of promoting this stereotype for the majority of my theatrical career. However, through reflection on my professional experiences in combination with my education and research over the last two and a half years, I began to recognize the art inherent in the field of technical direction. I have gained a greater appreciation for and understanding of the importance of the artistic contributions made by every participant in a theatrical production. The practice and research based journey chronicled in this document serves to move beyond stereotypes and expose the technical director as a conscientious, collaborative theatre maker and artist. iii For my father…finally. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A sincere thanks goes to my family, friends, and thesis committee for your patience and support. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER TWO: THE TECHNICAL DIRECTOR ..................................................................... 8 What is a Technical Director?..................................................................................................... 8 The Technical Director/ Scenic Designer Relationship ............................................................ 12 The Evolution of the Technical Director .................................................................................. 14 CHAPTER THREE: THE THEATRE ARTIST .......................................................................... 18 The Collaborative Art ............................................................................................................... 18 What is an Artist?...................................................................................................................... 21 Arts and Crafts .......................................................................................................................... 25 Leadership in Collaboration ...................................................................................................... 28 CHAPTER FOUR: TECHNICAL DIRECTOR AS ARTIST ..................................................... 30 The Eye of an Artist .................................................................................................................. 30 Analog World Versus the Digital World .................................................................................. 32 Education and Training ............................................................................................................. 36 CHAPTER FIVE: PRACTICING THE ART.............................................................................. 41 Less Ego, More Collaboration .................................................................................................. 41 Summer 2012 ............................................................................................................................ 46 Summer 2013 ............................................................................................................................ 57 CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 63 APPENDIX A: 2012 PROCESS JOURNAL ............................................................................... 66 vi APPENDIX B: 2013 PROCESS JOURNAL ............................................................................... 83 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 117 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CPS: Community Performance Series at the State University of New York, Potsdam PM: Production Manager SM: Stage Manager SUNY: State University of New York TD: Technical Director WZZT: Radio station in musical Hairspray viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION The journey to the creation of this document has been a long and twisted road. When I returned to graduate school just over two years ago, I never would have predicted that the subject of my thesis would have anything to do with the world of technical direction. Being a technical director was a part of me that I thought I had abandoned years ago. I honestly did not think there was a way to go back nor did I think I had any desire to return to the field. Its funny how life tumbles along and we end up in the exact place we did not think possible. I spent the better part of the last twenty-five years of my life working in the theatre. Until recently, the majority of my work experiences have been in the fields of technical direction and production management. During the bulk of this time, I never considered myself to be an artist. I worked in theatre production departments as a technician. I was part of a team and a process. But, in my mind, my contribution was not artistic. It was very practical. I facilitated the construction of scenery, managed budgets, crews and calendars. However, in the last few years, I quite hesitantly began to stick my toes in the waters of design. These explorations into what I readily accepted as the artistic side of the theatrical process in combination with countless hours of self-reflection and research, forced me to begin to acknowledge my potential role as an artist in the world of technical direction as well. At the same time, I was becoming more and more curious as to why I was so drawn to theatrical work yet had remained so reluctant to call myself an artist for the majority of my career. Did I miss something in my education and training? Was I accepting and even perhaps fostering a perceived stereotype of a technical director? A student studying theatre history and theory is likely to encounter a bounty of information regarding the evolution of the text of plays, acting technique, theatre architecture 1 and the elements of design. What that student is less likely to stumble across is a vast quantity of theoretical and historical writings focused on the practices or processes employed by the theatrical technical director or the art of creating the actual scenery. There are several very practical how-to manuals that have been written in the last few decades. These books tend to discuss basic theatrical construction techniques, hardware and tools of the trade. This, of course, is all very relevant and useful information but, for me, something is missing from these resources. What is missing is the ‘art.’ Where are the chapters and essays on the art of the technical direction? Where are the articles on the role of collaboration in the scene shop? Where is the acknowledgement of the existence of a creative element in the field of technical direction? In the semi-early stages of research for this paper, I was handed a copy of an article titled ‘A New Kind of Conversation’: Michael Chekhov’s ‘Turn to the Crafts’ written by Tom Cornford. While the article itself is primarily focused on Chekhov’s acting techniques and the actor as artist, it inspired me to do further research into the Arts and Crafts movement, which, in turn, helped open my eyes to my own definition of art and artist. The shadowy veils of confusion were lifted away and I found a new clarity about my own role as a theatre artist through the writings of artists and theorists of the Arts and Crafts movement. The words that had previously escaped me finally started to land on the page. I found validation for my own disjointed thoughts. I was an artist. I had always been an artist. Even more importantly, I finally realized the art was just as important as the ever-evolving technology in the world
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