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Acting Out

The Future of Theatre Majors

The future of theatre lies in sparking the interest of young people, and those young people are digital natives used to interacting with entertainment, from gaming to the rising trend of virtual and augmented reality. E-books are filled with clickable links, and read on devices connected to a plethora of knowledge, searchable at the touch of a button.

So how do we spark the next generation's desire to work in theatre? It’s about creating an atmosphere of collaboration, and a whole new type of production and presentation. So the future of theatre majors is not dead: it is just shifting.

International efforts have been mounted that specifically aim to encourage audience and staff engagement. Take Platform Shift, a European a larger scale cooperation project announced by the European Commission under their European Culture Funding Stream, Creative Europe. It consists of eleven partners from nine countries—“ten theatres all recognized as national leaders in the field of theatre for young people, and a university.” The leading organization, Pilot Theatre, is one of the UK’s most renowned companies at delivering performance work for young people and exploring innovative approaches to making and sharing work.

Their main goal is audience development through these steps:

  • Exploration and creation of audience development models through the use of digital technology.

  • Creating access to high quality training in digital technologies for theatre artists, staff and young people

  • Development of contemporary plays and concepts/theatre productions/creative projects by using digital technology as artistic inspiration for content

  • Facilitating transnational work and creative experience through co-working in real time and place and touring models in combination with innovative digital technology.

  • Providing artists with frameworks and opportunities to internationalize individual careers through mobility of artists and their products

  • Active stimulation and promotion of digital technology in all areas of theatrical activity.

  • Authorship of quality new theatre works (representing European literature) in transnational collaboration.

The steps themselves offer some insight into the next generation of theatre, and the future of theatre majors. Trust me, I’ve been through this transition as a writer as print has faded from the mainstream and almost everything has become digital, or at least dual, media. Don’t worry. Theatre, like books, will survive. But it will be different. Here are five areas where theatre majors can get a job. To land these jobs, you need to be prepared. So you may want to shift your educational objectives sooner rather than later.

A theatre major offers several career choices. As technology is integrated, these careers will change, jobs will be defined, and the industry will adapt as new audiences are reached and analyzed.

Virtual Reality
Theatre technology is no longer just sound, video, and lighting, although all of those will continue to be important. A major area of development involves virtual reality. With the addition of virtual elements to theatre productions, or even interactive tours, production trailers, integrated programs, and virtual behind the scenes extras, theatres are exploring the value and viability of virtual reality. With relatively inexpensive consumer headsets like Google Cardboard, integrating this technology into theatre production and marketing is now simpler and more affordable than ever.

Through this incorporation, not only does the theatre attract digital natives to be a part of audiences, but encourages them to participate as performers and employees as well. The attraction lies in the potential to create entirely new theatre experiences.

Lucas Wilson describes the nuts and bolts of virtual reality in a forty-minute long informative video. With the right software and app, the audience could see elaborate sets and backgrounds projected on what is essentially a bare bones stage. Enhanced costumes, sets much too expensive to actually create, and set changes all become seamless, and the audience is immersed in the production.

Virtually anything is possible, and for creatives there really are no “rules” per se. These are the early days of the VR revolution. Wilson calls it “the wild, wild west.” What are the positions where theatre majors can apply their trade? Production, story creation, and virtual set and costume creation are all future positions in these two areas. It’s just a different way to apply creative talents.

Theatre Development
What does development consist of? This not only consists of finding and hiring talent, recruiting volunteers, and running the business side of a theatre, but also looking to the future as well.

These duties include looking at technology integration, fundraising, grant writing, and collaboration with other theatre projects and disciplines locally, nationally, and internationally. Where this differs from simple theatre management is the addition of an eye toward innovation, although the jobs of development and management are often combined. The nature of this career choice means not only an understanding of acting, stage, and backstage production traditionally covered by theatre majors, but also a certain amount of business savvy.

audience in a theater
Main theatre of Muppet Vision 3D at Disney’s California Adventure.

Content Creation
We could call this position simply playwright, but that would imply that this position is not changing dramatically. The call of Platform Shift for creators to use “digital technology as artistic inspiration for content” sums it up succinctly. What does this mean? That the modern and emerging playwright cannot simply create a script and pass it along, but must instead think about how best to integrate technology and digital content into the performance of their piece.

The primary objective of theatre is to find, attract, and keep new and younger audiences, while not alienating their current audience. Content creators who understand the integration of digital elements can best achieve this balance.

Social Media Management
For theatre to establish a connection to a unique and younger audience, social media outreach is essential, and a position best filled by a theatre expert also well versed in the world of social media and digital marketing. While this is often a position combined with another one depending on the size of the organization, every business has to look at the reality of the need for social media management. It is vitally important for the social media manager to be intimately connected and have an intimate understanding of the organization they represent.

“The unique ability that we have through social media is to reach to people and for them to communicate back to us,” says Jeanine Guidry of George Washington University on using social media to accomplish your communications goals. “If we don’t use that we’re using a large part of the functionality.”

Essentially social media is a place to be social, and engage with a virtual audience, not for typical press releases and one-way shout outs in the way traditional media once worked. Using functions to simply “like” something have never been enough, and a thorough understanding of what digital outreach works and what doesn't is essential to gaining shares, likes, and other social media traction in a niche market.

Performance
There is no play, no film, and no television show that can be created without the performer. And the performer of tomorrow will have to be more tech savvy and more engaged than ever before.

While community theatres and smaller troupes often do not pay well, but as Platform Shift states in its goals, “providing artists with frameworks and opportunities to internationalize their careers through mobility of artists and their products” is achievable through digital media.

There are of course, the other more traditional careers available to theatre majors, from teaching, directing, community education and even drama therapy. Much like a creative writing degree, a degree in theatre is often thought to be less valuable than other more career oriented degrees.

You Can Make a Living
It is possible to make a living once you have graduated with a degree in theatre. As organizations make the shift from more traditional plays to a more digital world, money will be an issue, as it always has. But one thing you can control is adjusting your expectations for making a living. A house in the suburbs, two kids and one and a half dogs with a newer leased luxury sedan in the driveway might be a bit difficult to achieve.

However, redefining making a living based on realistic income expectations certainly helps, as does realizing that an apartment and a reliable, yet older, means of transportation might be more realistic. Working in a field you are passionate about is worth more than just money. While some of the above jobs are not necessarily high paying, they are invaluable in keeping theatre relevant going forward.

A theatre major offers several career choices. As technology is integrated, these careers will change, jobs will be defined, and the industry will adapt as new audiences are reached and analyzed. Through technology, development, content creation, social media management, and performance, any theatre major can find a place where their talents can be best applied.

Though it might involve an adjustment of what it means to make a living, following your dream and working in a field you are passionate about is worth it in the end. If people say your theatre major is just your way of “acting out,” tell them they’re right, but there is a future in it.

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The article is just the start of the conversation—we want to know what you think about this subject, too! HowlRound is a space for knowledge-sharing, and we welcome spirited, thoughtful, and on-topic dialogue. Find our full comments policy here

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I think most important in all of this is encouraging all theatre artists to be engaged in the advocacy groups that exist to shape the landscape of our field in cities and communities. Because of basic economic principles, industries in the arts and culture, as well as education, health and human services...we have to engage the financial system as a large group to help set up the field for success.

That means knowing whats going on, who the politicians that support arts and culture are, and participating in group efforts that may be tedious and slow to grow, but are immensely important to creating a sustainable arts making community, especially in the US.