Opportunity

I’ve been taking an Arts and Stage Management course during this semester, taught by Dr. Erickson of the theatre department, and Tommy Wedge, who is a graduate student from South Dakota State University temporarily working with SVSU. Tommy and I worked together as on Hedda Gabler last winter – I was the stage manager and he was the dramaturg – and we have consistently kept in touch since, discussing our work in the theatre department and my work as a stage manager.

A week or so ago, Tommy asked me to stage manage his upcoming winter show, The Road to Mecca, and I’d told him I would need to work out my schedule and get back to him. He asked again after class today, voicing how excited he was to have the opportunity to work with me again as a stage manager.

I spoke with Dr. Erickson today, and we agreed that I should definitely take up Tommy’s offer, which would create the basis and coursework for an independent study on Advanced Problems in Stage Management. Dr. Erickson continued, saying that working on this show would benefit not only me, but Tommy as well.

I discussed in a previous entry that I was missing a way to measure my achievements and abilities in the SVSU theatre department. Although working on shows builds experience, it does not always offer the same benefits as an actual class would. As they are not stage managers themselves, the SVSU directors are often satisfied as long as work gets done in the end, rather than focusing on learning a professional process of stage management. If a task is incomplete, directors would complete it themselves before noting it as a flaw of the stage manager. Therefore feedback I receive from them does not always help me to analyze and improve my approach to stage management. It is encouraging to know that they are not dissatisfied , but I also know that I am in no way perfect and have a lot of learning left to do.

Tommy, on the other hand, has worked as a stage manager in addition to his directing experiences. He is interested in the field, hence his work with our Arts and Stage Management course. As I work with Tommy, we would be trading experiences and feedback from stage manager to stage manager: the type of feedback and guidance that I’ve been searching for this entire semester. I know that working with Tommy will allow the open dialogue and learning that I desire as a stage manager – not necessarily recognition, but advice and encouragement that will help me to grow and improve as a stage manager, as well as build confidence in the skills I have already developed.

The development of this opportunity has been a sort of light at the end of the tunnel, as cliché as that is; a sign that I can, in fact, win every once in a while. I can’t wait to get my script and start working…

Realization

Following my appointment to discuss my journals and the seminar to date, I had a few important thoughts.

We discussed my need for recognition and attention, and my desire to suppress that need. And we discussed the certain lofty level on which I hold the idea of “leadership.” I think they are very much connected.

I placed leadership on a pedestal because of the Roberts Fellows. I never really thought I was a leader, or that I could handle being a leader, until I started contemplating my application to the program. Once I was accepted, I felt required to lead – like if I didn’t, I wasn’t living up to what Donna Roberts hoped for us as Fellows, or what the selection committee saw in us. That is why I struggled so much with the first chapter: stage management is not leadership – it is facilitation, structure, management. I felt that I was somehow not fulfilling my “duty” to the program. I felt that I had to find “leadership” in everything that I did in order to meet the expectations of the program.

Initially, I was searching for something against which I could measure my potential or my abilities – something I’d been missing in my theatre classes. Of course the professors give you grades in your class work or attempt to guide you through time at SVSU, but I didn’t feel challenged or “attended to,” for lack of a better phrase. I didn’t feel that I could go to a professor and receive pure, honest feedback as to where I was at in my development as a stage manager. That is why I craved recognition so much. It wasn't that I needed the compliment – but I had nothing to measure myself against. I do hours upon hours of work, but still have no idea where I stand on my path to becoming a professional stage manager. Acceptance to the Roberts Fellows was something that could act like a “check point” or proof that “I still had it.” It was something that could measure achievement and then push me to achieve more. The title of being a Roberts Fellow was something very lofty in my mind and with that, leadership became very lofty as well.

Perhaps I was missing the point, but I think I understand it better now. It’s perhaps not about achieving more, but about discovering more. The point is to discover the ability to reach ones highest potential. The point is to open avenues to success, whatever that success may be to each individual person. By actively pursuing my dreams and goals, succeeding in them, and becoming successful in my chosen path, I am fulfilling my expectation, both of myself and of the program.  Maybe I am building a path towards leadership; maybe I am opening a door to mentorship of those around me; maybe I am simply focusing on myself – my own achievement and happiness – while letting the rest fall in to place. In the end, I think that is something greater than the lofty idea of leadership that I had initially acquired.