Know What Is Going On

One thing I try to do every morning as I wake is check out the news. I click the TV on CNN and listen to what is going on in the world, and then, when I get out my computer to check my email, I check three sites.

Playbill
Variety
NY Times

I read the headlines and some of the stories so that I know what is going on in the theatre world. This comes in handy more than you know. Nothing is more embarrassing than being in a meeting with the leadership of your company when they are discussing the latest show to open in New York and you have no idea what they are talking about.

Also, this knowledge could come in handy if you are with someone you want to impress; you can bring up something new that happened that day and be knowledgeable enough to discuss it with him. With today’s web-enabled phones, it is becoming too easy to have this information.

Tony Time

Today the Tony Nominations came out. A couple of big surprises were in the Best Musical category. I saw Shrek and it was not a best musical by any stretch. Rock of Ages got great reviews but I haven’t heard much about it.

Do the Tony’s really affect business? Well, I am going to NYC this weekend. I was going to see 9 to 5 but now I think I will see Rock of Ages instead. What are your thoughts on the nominations? Comment below.

You can check out all the nominations at Playbill.

Job Market Part 1

Today one of my colleges noted that he was looking to fill a position with our company. Someone else said it should be an easy time to fill a job because so many people are looking. I know in the DC area many theatres have had to lay off staff to try and make their fiscal goals. So I wondered what kinds of jobs are out there right now.

I have personally found only two sights to be really useful when looking for work. First, Playbill.com has a great jobs page but is geared more toward NYC and commercial theatre whereas Artsearch (my other favorite) is geared more toward regional and educational theatre.

Yesterday I went through the Artsearch site and looked at the job data to see what kind of jobs were posted this month. I split them into 11 categories and the descriptions and results are below. There were 101 jobs posted on Artsearch for the month of April.

27 Technical – TD, ME, Shop Managers, Crews, ect. (costumes included)
18 Education – Education Department for a theatre or Faculty at a college
13 Interns – Any kind of Intern or Apprentice
9 Leadership – Artistic Directors, Managing Directors, General Managers
8 Sales / Marketing – includes Group Sales, Marketing, PR, Box Office
7 Management – Production Man, Stage Man, ASM, Company Man.
7 Other – Random jobs that did not fit anywhere else
5 Development – Development Staff and Directors
4 Design – Costume, Scene, Lighting, Sound Designers and Assistants
2 Business – Accounting, Bookkeepers
1 Artistic – Directors, Choreographers

Are they posting jobs you are qualified for? Should you be learning more about the technical or educational fields? People ask why I am always looking at job postings if I am happy in my job, which I am. The reason is to know what’s out there and be aware of tends. Plus I like to be helpful and if I see a job that is right for someone I know I pass along that information. Being aware of the job market in my industry makes me an asset to my friends and to my network.

When I have more time I will do a bigger analysis of the jobs by expanding the time frame. Again this is from one site and that site caters more toward Educational and Regional Theatres.