9 Ways a Theatre Degree Trumps a Business Degree

Reblogging this from http://changeagent.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/9-ways-a-theatre-degree-trumps-a-business-degree/, because it's amazing and I think all theatre people need to see this.

9 Ways a Theatre Degree Trumps a Business Degree

September 13, 2013 — Brian

Some of you may know this about me, some may not. Despite having spent the last 15 years as a PR & communications professional, my college degree is in theatre. I have never in my life taken a marketing class, or a journalism class, or a business class. Yet, by most measures, I’m enjoying a successful career in business.  ”So what?” you ask… read on.
I was having a conversation with a friend this week. She’s an actress. Like most actresses, she also has a Day Job that she works to pay the bills between acting jobs. This is the reality for most working actors in LA, New York and the other major centers of the entertainment industry. She was pointing out to me that she viewed her theatre background as a weakness in her Day Job career field, and that it was holding her back. She asked for my advice.
My advice? There IS no weakness in having a theatre background. There is only strength. Here are just a few skills that a theatre degree gave me that have served me enormously well in business:

1. You have advanced critical thinking and problem solving skills: taking a script and translating it into a finished production is a colossal exercise in critical thinking. You have to make tremendous inferences and intellectual leaps, and you have to have a keen eye for subtle clues. (believe it or not, this is a skill that very few people have as finely honed as the theatre people I know. That’s why I listed it #1).
2. You’re calm in a crisis: You’ve been on stage when somebody dropped a line and you had to improvise to keep the show moving with a smile on your face, in front of everyone. Your mic died in the middle of a big solo musical number. You just sang louder and didn’t skip a beat.
3. You understand deadlines and respect them: Opening Night is non-negotiable. Enough said.
4. You have an eye on audience perception: You know what will sell tickets and what will not. This is a very transferrable skill, and lots of theatre people underestimate this, because they think of theatre as an ART, and not as a BUSINESS. I frequently say (even to MBA-types) that theatre was absolutely the best business education I could have gotten. While the business majors were buried in their books and discussing theory, we were actually SELLING a PRODUCT to the PUBLIC. Most business majors can get through undergrad (and some MBA programs, even) without ever selling anything. Theater departments are frequently the only academic departments on campus who actually sell anything to the public. Interesting, isn’t it?
5. You’re courageous: If you can sing “Oklahoma!” in front of 1,200 people, you can do anything.
6. You’re resourceful: You’ve probably produced “The Fantasticks” in a small town on a $900 budget. You know how to get a lot of value from minimal resources.
7. You’re a team player: You know that there are truly no small roles, only small actors. The show would fail without everyone giving their best, and even a brilliant performance by a star can be undermined by a poor supporting cast. We work together in theatre and (mostly) leave our egos at the stage door. We truly collaborate.
8. You’re versatile: You can probably sing, act, dance. But you can also run a sewing machine. And a table saw. And you’ve probably rewired a lighting fixture. You’ve done a sound check. You’re good with a paintbrush. You’re not afraid to get your hands dirty for the benefit of the show. In short, you know how to acquire new skills quickly.
9. You’re flexible: you’ve worked with some directors who inspired you. Others left you flat, but you did the work anyway. Same goes with your fellow actors, designers and stagehands… some were amazing and supportive, others were horrible and demoralizing to work with (we won’t name names). You have worked with them all. And learned a little something from every one of them.

These are the top reasons I’ve found my theatre degree to be a great background for a business career. What are yours?

Starving at Midnight, with a Beautiful Opening Show!

Yes, I am absolutely starving! I have gotten sick of being soft around the edges, ever since I turned 18 I gained about 25 lbs and have maintained between 155-165lbs, so now I'm watching what I eat! More on that later. To the main event, my show Hello, Dolly opened tonight! Yay! I'm so freaking excited, it was awesome despite a few mishaps, my hair was gorgeous and people came that I knew and I absolutely love love love being on stage! I forgot how good it feels to be part of a cast, telling a fantastic story. Storytelling is built into our blood as humans, we tell stories to remember and to learn, also for entertainment. I can't describe the euphoric feeling when I'm on stage having done something really well or in the middle of a performance, it's like flying!

As mentioned in my previous entries, I have 5 costumes, which was expanded to 6 tonight as i had to step in for someone who wasn't there. It was ok, we made do and I got to dance an extra song! I lost one of the props I was supposed to bring on though, a roller chair that is absolutely crucial to a song, and I only have about 5 seconds between taking a table off and bringing the chair on that I can afford to spend. I spent about 2 minutes looking for this stupid chair in the dark backstage though, meanwhile they have started into the courtroom scene and Horace is sitting on the steps without his chair! Finally I found it, some bright soul decided to put the thing onstage BEHIND the huge group of people crowded to stage right. I snuck on, got it, then came out and placed it on stage for Horace to sit on, Phew! Later I was told that in my rush to find the chair, my police outfit didn't get buttoned up and my tie was on crooked so I really looked like a mess. Stuff happens though and it was definitely worth it!

About 2 months ago I streaked my hair bright pink thinking that it would wash out by show time. It mostly has, there are 2 or 3 spots where it is still highly visible in kind of a flamingo pink. I curled my hair in little tight ringlets and when I was done, there were three curls of pink! Nothing I could do about it though, so I was the slightly pink-haired cast member. No one could tell from the audience but my cast members found it highly amusing!

I love being on stage, there is absolutely nothing that compares to it. I think you either love or hate performing in front of people. Now, there's a big difference between speaking in public and performing in front of an audience. Most of that is preparation time, but I have a deathly fear of public speaking. there's a point though, when I've rehearsed enough and suddenly the butterflies are gone, and it's like soaring. I guess the best way to describe it is when a huge bubble rises up and bursts little rays of sunshine in your chest, it's just amazing! I wish I could sing better, there are so many musicals in Utah that if I could sing well enough, I'd have parts coming out my ears. It was awesome though to be in the ensemble and to have people tell me afterwards that I was like a ray of sunshine onstage, the others were smiling but I was beaming and I kept drawing people back to look at me. I love it, and I guess it shows!
Now I'm hungry and still wired. This is a really long blog, but what ev's, love ya'lls and let me know what cha think of being on stage!

Oh, and in hungry news, I just watch what I eat and maintain enough calories per day to lose about 1.2 lbs per week, which is all I can really lose because of my sedentary job and I'm not supposed to eat less than 1200 calories per day. If I don't exercise, about 1350 will let me lose 1 lb per week and somewhere around 1500 is maintaining. If I exercise, I can eat more (although I found I tend to triple the amount of calories that I burned through exercise if I don't watch this, don't know why) My biggest thing is I tend to overdo dinner and then go back for midnight snack. I'm learning to put my food on a plate so I can see how much I'm eating exactly, and to eat a larger breakfast with snacks so I don't get to starving mode and want to scarf everything. Harder than it sounds after a rousing rehearsal, but I ate 3 brownies already and if I eat anything else, I will be over my calorie limit, and I've already eaten so healthy today! Oatmeal and a lettuce sandwich (lettuce instead of bread, still had the meat and tomatoes) and home-made ribs so they're healthier and a potato and asparagus salad. So delicious and healthy! Just gotta watch those evening and late night scarf sessions!

No Time Except the Lunch Hour, and more Bruises

Part of being an adult is that you work up to having no time for hobbies
Perhaps I'm generalizing here, but I used to love to read, run, bicycle, hike, play mild sports, do theatre, and pretty much anything that was new and sounded fun. Now I have time for my job (it's not a career, but a job) and whatever I make time for. Right now, that's a theatre show which is currently crowding out a social life, exercise, writing, sleep, food...yep, that about covers it.

I have a new bruise from rehearsal though, which is kind of cool. I was working on a new dip with my swing-dancing partner because we had one that required me to lean most of my body out over the edge of the stage, let go with one hand and pray I didn't hit the floor before his teenage muscles realized that they were supposed to be holding me up. I decided to do something else which ironically resulted in the injury (trading falling off the stage to falling onto the stage, I guess one is marginally better) It was supposed to be a simple dip down in which I would bend my knees, go almost horizontal with the ground, and all he'd have to do was keep me from hitting the stage. Of course, the first time we practiced he didn't realize that if both of our arms were extended, I would go down with a resounding thunk.
"Okay, you ready?"
"Sure"
"Just keep your arms tight while I go down and then pop me back up."
"Sure"
"Okay" *thunk*
And voila, lovely black and blue shoulder blade! I call the condition my swing dancing partner has, jell-o arms. He puts absolutely no tension into his muscles, preferring instead to let me lead his flapping arms where they are supposed to go, which only creates a problem when that's supposed to keep me from spinal injury. I suppose jell-o could be nice to land on,  but it makes a terrible spotting tool.

Anyway, I digress, two subjects at once. Point being, I will be either living at work or on the stage for the next two weeks, neither of which is necessarily a bad thing. If I wasn't a responsible adult, I'd have my day free instead of working to support this strange theatre habit which my non-existent retirement fund begs me to quit. It's okay though, I'm still young and fairly stupid so I'll either figure out how to mesh the job and hobby to become career...or I won't.

Bruises Just Mean You Worked Hard

Yesterday was the beginning of what theatre people affectionately call, "Hell Week" for my show. For the uninitiated, Hell Week is the week prior to the first show and is filled with extra long rehearsals including 1st and 2nd dress and Tech. The characterizations of Hell Week are as follows:
     -Extremely long hours
     -Last minute scrambling for costumes
     -At least 4 meltdowns of various actors
     -Countless bruises and other injuries due to unsafe conditions
     -The losing and finding of almost every prop
     -Various other insane situations that cause the director to age 5 years before your eyes

While the cast of Hello, Dolly here at Farmington Woodland park is great, they are also inexperienced and young. This creates a perfect catastrophe when no one knows what they're supposed to do! Regardless, rehearsal was a lot of fun last night and I now have the following list of costume items (in addition to the two dresses and police uniform I already have!) to assemble by tomorrow:
     -Black bow tie
     -white button down dress shirt
     -mauve button down dress shirt
     -pantaloons
     -cane
     -mauve full circle skirt
     -white hair ribbon
     -police hat
I play 4 different characters and need at least 5 costumes for this show. Let's see if I can name them all. I'm Mrs. Rose, a Sunday Clothes dancer, a Swing dance performer in the Parade, a Waiter, and a Policeman.

As we were practicing the waiter's gallop last night, we have a toss right in the middle that scares the bejeebers out of most of us. I'm on the catching team, and my left forearm was repeatedly pounded by the poor girl being tossed through the air. I have a nice welt and a bluish bruise today that will undoubtidly continue to swell. I also have a skinned knee from slipping on the cement, torn dance shoes, multiple bug bites and you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way.

Thoughts of the day

So today I'm just going to ramble on for awhile. I have a lot of thoughts and it seems that they need to be put down on paper.

It's summer, and I'm working a lot and trying to fit vacation in. I have a lot of things I want to do like get in shape, learn to sing well, act, and write a book. I have come to the conclusion though that only rich people can do everything they want to do, because 90% of my time is at work or asleep, I don't really have a social life except for a few activities if I can manage to squeeze them in and people I talk to on the phone or Skype.

Thinking about dying my hair pink again, I had pink streaks before and I think I want a few more after my show, Hello Dolly gets done. It will be fun to try again anyway!

My show, Hello Dolly as mentioned above (Hello, Dolly! to put in properly) is running July 30, 31st and August 1-4 at Woodland Park in Farmington UT. It's an outside show, so come prepared with a blanket or a lawn chair, I think entrance is $5 and it starts at 7pm or something like that. I don't really know, I just show up for the rehearsals :)

I have decided that my body solidly protests losing weight, and I will always be a mildly overweight slightly pretty girl. I have worked out for 2 weeks and eaten healthy and all I have succeeded in doing is gaining 3 lbs. I can do that when I'm sitting on my butt doing nothing so lets see, to work out or not to work out... Options here seem to be pointing on not working out. Life is unfair in that way, I'm going to keep running and stuff for another two weeks and see if I get any results.

The Aurora, CO theatre shooting just happened, and that's scary. I was at the midnight showing of the same movie in a theatre far away, and it's just surreal to me. I have friends that live in Denver and Aurora, so luckily no one I knew was there at that time.

I say theatre because that's the proper theatre way to say theatre. Don't mess with me on this.

Finally, if you love someone, is that enough? I mean, say you really really really loved someone, but there were certain differences in your belief and wants out of life that were keeping you apart. And say that other person broke promises to you. Is love enough to fix all of that? I don't know, I actually don't think so, it's like love taunts me saying, "Look, you were happy and sad and stressed all at the same time, want to be that way forever?" Not really. If this is about you, I'm rambling, it's nice to say something and have fictional people listen. (nobody reads this blog anyway)

So yeah, that's my thoughts for today. Sorry for anything depressing, comments on working out, how to create more hours in a day, hair, theatre shows, and love are all appreciated. Comments on politics not so much.  Thanks!