The LDI2021 session, Today’s Young Professionals: The Need To Diversify Your Skill Set, took place in the Industry Business Lounge and was live-streamed on Instagram. The four panelists have a wide variety of backgrounds and have taken different paths to where they are now. Colleen Bonniol is the founder and CEO of MODE Studios, Price Johnson is Associate Professor of Theatre: Lighting, Sound, and Projection Design and Director of Theatre, Colorado State University, Bill Digneit, is Department Head, Theatre & Dance, Northern Michigan University and production director for LDI, and Kassidy Coburn, is associate production manager for LDI and lighting supervisor at Florida State University.
Bill Digneit opened the session saying that (other than Kassidy Coburn) they were no longer young professionals but could provide some insights into the mindset that would help them succeed. He offered, "We all hire, coach, and mentor young people so reach out to us for advice."
Colleen Bonniol, who, along with her husband the designer Bob Bonniol owns MODE Studios which creates immersive environments around storytelling for events, described what drew her into the live events community. She says, “I was playing truant from class one day and sitting on a darkened stage when someone turned on the lights. I said, I want to do that! And I became a theatre major. Some time later I was at a concert for Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA tour and I grabbed the hoodie of someone working backstage. When he turned around to yell at me I gave him my resume and said I want to work with you. The next week I was on the tour.”
Price Johnston entered the business almost accidentally. He started out as an outdoor education major in college and was teaching theatre at a summer camp when a friend needed help pushing boxes at a show. He volunteered and ended up erecting truss and doing odd jobs until someone came up and asked if he would join a national tour. He says, “The tour turned out to be for Sawyer Brown, the first winner of Star Search, and I ended up sleeping in the coffin bus and learning the rigors of the road. After that experience I went back and got my theatre degree.”
Kassidy Coburn had always been a dancer and loved photography and art but she didn’t know anyone who had made a career as a creative. She began a degree in psychology but was miserable until a friend who was the costume shop manager at her university gave her a tour of the theatre department. She though, “WHOA! Why did no one tell me about this?” The next day she changed her major to technical theatre. She says, “While at Florida State I was production manager for Mac Miller and the Chain Smokers, among others, because she said, ‘Yeah, I can do that.’ Coburn believes, “You just have to have confidence and learn on the job.” While getting her MFA she began working as an intern at LDI with Bill Digneit and realized conferences and trade shows are where she thrives. Next month she will become a full time exhibition production manager.
Bill Digneit first got a taste for production when he and his twin produced their high school prom in Detroit and hired a DJ. The DJ charged $5,000 and showed up with broken lights and a blown-out sound system. The Digneits decided they could do better and invested $15,000 of college savings in equipment. They charged $500 and two cases of beer for their first gig, and while unboxing their brand-new equipment at the venue, the client nervously asked if they had done this before. Bill answered, “Sure, we have another gig at the same time and we wanted you to have the new equipment.” According to Bill that’s rule number one: Never let them see you sweat.
The brothers made back the initial investment in three months and poured all the profits back into the DJ-ing business which celebrates 20 years next year.
All the panellists considered self-confidence and commitment to be key attributes for a career in technical theatre. Bonniol suggests that belief in yourself means, “Always stand up for yourself, never feel that you can’t say ‘no, this is not working for me.’ There is always something else waiting for you. When I was working at a theatre in Providence, Rhode Island I quit because they were moving backwards and had fired the artistic director. Two weeks later, a film came into town and I became a film electrician. You should be able to adapt, I’ve been a lighting technician, lighting designer, film electrician, and now a producer.”
Digneit agreed, ”A diverse set of skills can open doors you didn’t know existed.” He continues, “We are in a world where the expectations for our surroundings increase daily. I was in a White Castle yesterday and there was a videowall. Someone is designing the content and maintaining it. There are opportunities all over. It is important not to be mono-focused, there are very few opportunities for just a lighting designer or sound designer. It’s OK to specialize but you should be able to say yes to all kinds of crazy-ass idea and have a wide enough skill set to do it.”
Price agreed, “When students learn the interconnections between disciplines they can follow multiple roads and a whole different world opens up to them. For example, knowing projections will make you a better lighting designer.”
According to Coburn, at Florida State students are encouraged to take ownership of projects rather than brining in professionals. That way, they get to make mistakes and learn from them. “When you stumble you learn to figure it out and are not afraid to try. We had a costume designer who wanted to do wearable LEDs and I said, ‘Sure, we can do that.’” That project became a runner up in a national competition.
Being willing to try something different is a key to creativity according to Digneit. He describes seeing a TED Talk on climate change which failed to engage the audience and therefore didn’t make any impact. To make the information more palatable he put together the climatologists with dancers and put the talk into an immersive environment with dance, video, and projections. “I always say the weirder the better but whatever you do, you must engage people,” he explains. “Think outside the four walls of the theatre, I mean, Shakespeare is cool but that’s not how I live my life.”
Volunteering and Interning
Two panellists have had great success volunteering and with internships. Price describes how he moved to Chicago and walked around to every theatre he could handing out resumes saying he wanted to volunteer to help with load-ins. The next day he was loading in a show and networking.
Digneit stumbled into a life-changing moment when he went to a Q&A at the opera in NY. He asked the speaker if there was anyone he could talk to about sound. They said sure, come back and talk to a guy called Abe tomorrow. Digneit says, “It was Abe Jacob. I got a two-and-a-half-hour tour of the theatre with the Godfather of Sound. I was from a small university in a small town and I had no idea I was talking to a legend.
Jacob gave Bill a guest pass to Live Design’s Broadway Master Classes and while he was there he saw technicians running cable and volunteered to help. Through that, he was introduced to visual designer and educator Jake Pinholster who then took him on as an intern at LDI where he learned show production.
While self-confidence is great to help you network and get into the profession, Price says you have to know when to ask for help. “You do have to know what you don’t know. Often you get into a situation and can wing it but ask questions of people who have done this before so that you get it right. In this industry you need to be a life-long learner.” And networking will only go so far, Bonniol cautions that you have to follow up. She says, “I offer to help people and 80 percent of people don’t contact me again.”