#1—What brought you to Emma Willard School?

My husband got a job down here and I was looking for theatrical jobs in education that were similar to what I was doing at my previous position where I fell in love with the mentorship and the diversity of students at a school that mainly had military kids. Emma Willard School caught my eye being a girls’ school, having a rich history, being a very diverse school, and it sounded like a cool opportunity to be sort of one of the first dedicated tech theatre people!

 

#2—What is a typical day in the life at Emma like for you?

There is no typical day! The most typical thing about my day is I come in at 8:30 a.m. and usually have about 20 minutes to sit at my desk and figure out what I'm doing for the day. After that, I'm running around from meeting to meeting, to rehearsal(s), to different load-ins [the process of moving and setting up all the necessary equipment, props, and set pieces for a performance]. 

Every day is different. And the same goes for Revels season! I come in and have ten minutes to myself to check light focus or make any changes for light or audio cues, reset the stage, and then I pop in and out of different rehearsals as needed. I might also have student meetings in my office and make sure to reserve the locations where we’re having the play about half an hour before rehearsal so I can cut all the wood, pre-drill holes, and come up with a plan for what students are doing!

We have two technical support theatre classes. Tech Theatre Support One is where students are involved with all school assemblies (Morning Reports, Speaker Series, etc.), and that meets once a week for class. We go over different types of equipment, learn the ins and outs of that technology, and they get to apply it. It's always fun to see them the first time they're in Morning Reports and haven't learned any of the skills yet, to watching them transform as they start to understand how everything works and realize, ‘Oh, I can manipulate this myself. I know what's going on!’

Tech Theatre Support Two is a newer class this year. It is for students who have taken Tech Theatre Support and focuses on helping with the productions and the leadership of that work: stage management, assistant stage management, those kinds of roles. 

 

#3—What is one thing about working at Emma that would surprise people?

Even though there is a lot of work, there's a big support within the community for each other, which surprised me a lot! And we can make choices as faculty and staff members for how we do our job. There's nobody sitting here saying, ‘This is the exact way you're supposed to do it,’ but instead, it’s more like, ‘Here is what we would like to happen; figure out what works for you. If you want some more guidance on how we think you should do it, we'll give it to you, but we'll let you figure it out on your own first,’ which is great. 

 

#4—What were you like in high school?

I was the nerdy music and theatre kid who flowed between the popular kids and the not popular kids! I was everybody's friend. Everybody was also my friend, partially because my mom worked at the school.

During the winter months and leading up to AP tests and finals, I would feed the entire school with cookies. So even if I wasn't somebody's friend, I was their friend because they wanted the cookies. That was my archetype; I was the nerdy, friendly floater kid with a core group of friends and a bunch of acquaintances.