James Whitehead, Technical Manager at New Theatre Royal Portsmouth, shares his advice on getting into technical theatre, why it’s such a great career (especially for young people) and the avenues that are available such as apprenticeships.
James attended the Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM) and did a degree in Music Industry Practice Musicianship Pathway. From there he worked at a local college as a Performing Arts Technician before joining New Theatre Royal. He started as a Venue Technician and has since moved up to become Technical Manager at only 24 years old.
In today’s theatre employment landscape is it important to be a multi-skilled technician as opposed to purely specialising in one area?
Absolutely. When you are working on larger events technical staff tend to have more defined roles but here at New Theatre Royal it’s important to be multi-skilled. We work with lots of different companies from community youth theatre to professional touring companies so it’s helpful to know all departments, and when you do everything it can help you to find your specialism. Certainly when you are on larger events such as festivals people tend to have a more defined role but it’s helpful to be capable in all departments and that’s the case in most theatres. It makes you a more integral part of the team if you’re able to fix issues in more than one place. Problem in sound? Lighting department can help! Many technicians are freelance and even our techs do little bits of freelance work here and there, so it is very useful to be able to do everything to help with employability. If you are a freelance technician you will be booked to do a show rather than work for a venue so you’d only have a period of work guaranteed until the show ends. Also if you understand everyone else’s role you can fit in with the team a bit more and create a better environment.
Technical theatre is quite reactive; if things go wrong, there needs to be a pool of people who can react and help. Even as a stagehand you might be required to help with fixing mics and dealing with a multitude of issues. As a venue technician and a receiving house (we don’t produce our own shows) we have new people come in with different specifications and requirements every week (sometimes every day!). These people don’t know what your specialism is and you need to be able to help anyone with anything really. This also means that a venue or company won’t have to bring in 4 people for every load-in and show where one person who can do everything will do.
How important is it to encourage and give opportunities for young people to learn about technical theatre?
It’s very important as there simply aren’t enough technicians. The fact that many of the skills are transferable to real life means that more people should do it. For example you learn how to change lightbulbs, plugs etc. The same can be said with sound, flying, stage work – all these transferable skills are great for life as well as if you wanted to retrain later in life as an electrician for example.
It’s a great way to learn to work with lots of different people with different skill sets as well as developing great people-management skills. Everyone works differently so technicians have to find a way of working together despite having different methods/experiences/backgrounds. This also helps people build strong communication skills as the hard deadline of curtain up helps to focus the team.
Why do you think apprenticeships are so important?
Apprenticeships are a great way to get into the industry and they give people an opportunity to learn the trade on the job. Theatre is a very experience-based industry so technical theatre apprenticeships are a good pathway to learn the trade and gain experience. They’re also a great way to meet lots of people in the industry which could be useful for work opportunities in the future. There are lots of opportunities at New Theatre Royal: one of our current Technicians started her journey as an apprentice and we also currently have a Technical Apprentice.
Have you seen a difference in the amount of people training to be theatre technicians in recent years?
After my degree I was a performing arts technician at Barton Peveril College and I knew nothing about lights or theatre. There was an absence of technicians then (2019) which meant I had to quickly learn sound and lighting and other areas on the job. At the college there was a lot of interest in technical theatre – I ran their student stage crew which was 2 hours a week of teaching technical theatre and then when the students did a big musical the students ran the stage crew doing operations, sound, scene changes, lighting and follow spots. I’ve found in this time that people are so interested in tech but the difficulty is finding a way into it. A lot of the time people don’t want to give up their evenings and weekends but such is the nature of the industry!
What do you enjoy about your role?
Actively putting the show on is the primary thing I enjoy, followed closely by seeing the audience enjoy it. I am also always getting to meet lots of new and interesting people who it turns out we often have a lot in common with and that is quite rare. I enjoy problem solving and as there are often many problems to be encountered in technical theatre this is a really useful skill! Fixing things and giving them a new lease of life is something I do often and is very rewarding – for example we had 7 ‘movers’ (which are movable lights) come in and none of them worked. I stripped them down to components and managed to get 6 working again.