As a performer of many years, I naturally had a lot of runcrew adjacent experience. It wasn’t til college when I join the Opera Theatre of St. Louis in the summer of 2024 as a member of the deck crew that I dived right in. That position entailed working in a fast paced repertory opera theatre environment. We assisted in the load in and building process, changed over the set up to two times a day, acting as a run crew member in 2/4 opera shows in the season, etc. Since graduating, I spent three months with Signature Theatre as a deck crew member for their production of Fiddler on the Roof.

I spent three of my four years of college undergrad as an employee in my university’s Electric’s Shop. I spent those years assisting the Mainstage shows in hanging, cabling, focus, and strike. There were also other responsibilities such as troubleshooting during tech week, instrument maintenance, and shop cleaning/organization. I had the opportunity in the spring of 2024 to be the Head Electrician for our Mainstage production of Dance Nation. Those responsibilities on top of the shop employee responsibilities included running dimmer checks before each show, running the board during focus, placing/mapping nodes, and being on call for any issues that may arise during tech/shows.

In order to get the opportunity of seeing theatre for free while in college, I often was a volunteer usher for both mainstage and studio productions. I ushered for over twenty different performances over the years in both a general admission seating and a formal numbered seat arrangement. In addition to this volunteer experience, I also ushered for the Opera Theatre of St.Louis when they offered the opportunity to get more hours. Both the volunteer position and OTSL front of house taught me how to: scan tickets, attend to accessibility needs, guide guests to their seats, hand out and restock programs, address audience questions/concerns, and being a friendly face for whatever an audience member may need.