From 2007 to 2017, I worked as a Scenic Technician for the Theatre Company at the DCPA. Being a full production shop, I helped build on over 100 shows in the span of those ten years, sometimes working on 15 productions a year. My main responsibility was in the carpentry shop building set pieces, props, and staging, though I would assist in other departments such as paints, lighting, and stage crew. The carpentry shop specialized in wood construction, building most of the scenery with traditional stagecraft methods, but it also utilized a full metal shop capable of cutting, welding, bending, and milling steel or aluminum.
I worked alongside some of the best technicians in the industry building for five different stages. I learned to be fast and accurate with my construction skills as deadlines and budgets were tight. Perhaps the most important ability I honed was my problem solving. Every set was one of one, requiring different techniques and sometimes radical ideas to achieve a designer’s vision. Putting together so many different environments and structures has given me a large variety of experience, which I constantly pull from to solve problems and approach designs from many angles.
In the shop, I built walls, platforms, molding, stairs, doors, windows, roofs, signs, furniture, sculptures, trellises, and more. The job also required knowledge in stage automation, rigging scenery to move using pneumatics, hydraulics, and cable wench motors. My ten years at the DCPA tested and trained me to take on any challenge, and I have used that knowledge in almost every project since.
