Interviewing SCR pt. 1

Today is another productive and work-filled day for me in DC because I have a phone interview with South Coast Repertory this afternoon and a casual networking opportunity to look forward to tomorrow. I recently applied to the SCR Stage Management Internship for their upcoming 2012-2013 season. The question of why I'm doing so hardly needs to be asked, in my opinion at least. I think I'm a good match for this. Not to mention the fact that I've seen the quality of work being produced there for several years now and I heard about the stage management and production assistant opportunities through the grad students and faulty at UCI. So why wouldn't I want to work for SCR?

When I got an email from the Production Stage Manager to set up a time and date I turned to one of the professors for help with my preparation and for a mock interview. Professor Clark is a career development specialist and he's in the process of coordinating a UC Alumni Mentorship Program for the UCDC students who expressed interest... (more to come later on how that pans out for me). I showed up at Professor Clark's office on the 3rd floor feeling unprepared because I'm not well-versed in answering "Tell me a time when..." types of questions. The entire mock interview took about an hour so that he could give me feedback throughout. He said that he got the impression I was knowledgeable and that I seemed to have reflected upon his questions before. I was surprised by his use of the words "sophisticated" and "well-articulated" because that's not what I hear when I listen to myself. Several of the questions were pertaining to the nature of stage management which were easy because I have put a decent amount of time and thought into that. But I still can't help but doubt the questions I will get will be difficult because they will be coming from someone who already knows what stage management is and what skills, experiences, and qualities are necessary.

After finishing this interview I was reminded of how powerful a medium theatre is. He asked me to talk about my experience studying abroad in Italy and I told him about a production I'd seen called I Cavalli alla Finestra (Horses at the Window). I told him that in spite of the obvious language barrier I was impacted emotionally by the circumstances in which the actors were playing. I had picked up cues from their reactions and the design of technical aspects in addition to whichever phrases of dialogue I had managed to catch. The performance overall had overtaken my understanding of the language and transcended the importance of relying upon words in my engagement with the art.

In the end I told him that I want to be a stage manager because I want to assure my cast and crew that their efforts will be rewarded when the show opens and that their challenges are meaningful in the eyes and readings of their future audience. Not in those words exactly but something like that.