Rico's TD Experience

During my Murrow theatre career, I have held many leadership positions as a student for several productions in our schools theatre. For our performance of Mame I was the student Technical Director. Being student technical director involved much more than getting the faculty TD’s coffee and pillow. The student technical director is the one who makes most of the cut lists, to do lists, technical drawings and does the majority of the carpentry and rigging supervision.

Text Box: Project Sheet:             This project sheet is from the Plantation Frames. Shown here is the cut list, crew and directions for building. A large picture was attached. The project sheets work by the crew writing their names on the top, and signing off when they are done. The “Rico seal of approval” is that large check on the bottom, showing my approval of the completed work.

             Project sheets are a very important part of my job. Each individual project gets a detailed sheet with a cut list and a technical drawing giving directions for the given project. Pictured below is a project sheet of mine used for the plantation frames.

 

            Being able to draw and read technical drawings are a very important skill that the technical director needs to have. The plantation was one of my first projects for the show. They were built with 1x3 and 1x4 frames in which the platform just laid on top. I came up with the drawing pictured below to show how the frames are going to look and be assembled.

Text Box: Pictured above is a scale drawing of the Plantation Framing system on graph paper. I drew thesgave them to the Assistant Technical Director to be sure he understood the framing process.

 

 

            Quick-Sketches and simple 3D drawings are also helpful to demonstrate an idea. Throughout the show, almost every item built had a 3D drawing attached to the project sheet. The turntable for example had almost four different pictures because the design went though many different stages. Pictured below is the Moon lift in its original design.

Text Box: Pictured here is the original drawing of the Moon Lift. The Moon lift had to hold someone, so we all made this contraption extra strong. In simple terms, it’s a very large see-saw.

 

            Carpentry skill is not the only skill that I needed. Organization was very important. To-Do lists are a wonderful thing. Each day, I had a list of work to be done in the theatre and in the shop. It was then subdivided by project and department. Pictured below is a To Do list of mine.

Text Box: Pictured here is one of my shop to do lists. Each project is subdivided and a line through an object means it has been completed.

 

Text Box: That’s me in the plaid shirt, hanging out with the crew working on the rotating platform.

             Leadership is probably one of the most important qualities I needed as technical director. Constant contact with my other student supervisors, and the faculty supervisor led to stress free environment and constant efficient work. I always found that joking around with crew, and being “cool” with them, helped everyone get along.

  

 

Text Box: Above all, teamwork is what made the show come together. Pictured here are the Periaktoi people covering a Periaktoi with muslin.

 

\

             On a more serious note, safe supervision of the carpentry and rigging was part of my job. It was my job to make sure everyone had safety goggles, tools were used properly and no “funny business” was occurring that could have been dangerous. The “Clear” holler was used when doing counter weighting, and I was always sure to put experienced supervisors to work on overhead rigging work.

            Throughout my time as technical director, I tried to use the best of my knowledge and supervisory skills to get the most work done safely and efficiently. On recollection I suppose at sometimes I was like a Hitler or Mussolini but the crew was always tolerant of my behavior. It was an excellent experience, which I truly enjoyed.