Technical Director for school
Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Theater Administration
Forum Name: Running Your Theater
Forum Discription: General questions about how to make it work
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2321
Printed Date: 11/22/24 at 6:54am
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Topic: Technical Director for school
Posted By: MHickle
Subject: Technical Director for school
Date Posted: 3/29/07 at 12:35pm
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Hi, everyone - I'm pretty new here. I'm in my first year teaching Theater at an all-girls' independent school in the Baltimore area. Currently, the "department" consists of....me. I just met with the administrative team about the possibility of finding a Technical Director for our productions. They are open to the idea, but of course brought up the issue of money. They asked me to get a ballpark of what we might be talking for the job (of course experience is a factor, but we're just looking for an idea). The person would oversee lights, sound, and set design/construction for two Upper School productions, a Middle school musical, two "Arts Galas" (Middle School end of semester thing with choral, dance, and theater pieces), and a spring dance concert. I know this board is more about community theater, but sometimes the same ideas apply, and there is often a lot of overlap between people involved in community theater and school theater. Any input would be MUCH appreciated! Melissa  |
Replies:
Posted By: Aimee
Date Posted: 4/01/07 at 12:01pm
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I work as TD at a high school. The job you describe is pretty much what I do. The way our current program works is we get paid per show. I get a budget (laughable as it is) to build the set/ get the props and so on. Sometimes we rent costumes or borrow some from another local school to cut costs. As everything comes out of my pocket first I try (very hard) to keep my costs down and reuse as mush as I can and borrow what I can. Just PM me if you'd like more specific details, Aimee ------------- Aimee |
Posted By: eagle10
Date Posted: 4/16/07 at 5:09am
| Hi welcome to the teaching profession. I've been doing productions at school and been functioning as the TD as well with a full teaching load and you definitely have to get a TD on board so you won't burn yourself out. I think it's cool that in the US you can actually hire a TD for a school. |
Posted By: biggertigger
Date Posted: 4/17/07 at 10:37pm
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As a full time TD at the school I worked at I was paid pretty well for what I did. The theater I worked for handled all aspects and events from the various school productions and programs to being hired out to the community for thier needs. I had to keep copious records of billable hours for the different groups that rented. This is where a bulk of the money came to the school to keep me employed.
That having been said when outside groups used me they were charged $25 an hour. I was paid by the hour at a varing rate because of the amount of overtime I did. My base was in the field of about $15 an hour.
This was in a small area and my duties included teaching theater production to a few classes as well.
With the limited amount of work (as in the number of shows) you are requiring for the TD, you'll probably want to hire a parttime TD. This may help in negotiating a lower pay.
Good luck. ------------- The two greatest days in a theater persons life, the day you start a new show and the day the damn thing closes. |