Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2006 - 47

grams may not offer courses or experience for all the skills actually required by professional TDs. However, there was no body of research
done to establish a correlation between school programming and job requirements. While a comprehensive study of the issue might be done
with substantial investment of resources, it was considered possible that
a preliminary study might be done at a smaller scale that would identify
whether a potential for greater discovery existed.
A survey seemed to be a good way to collect a body of data for
analysis. Working TDs would be targeted directly and polled for their views
regarding their own education and job experience. This data would provide
us with sufficient analytical material to see whether a correlation could reasonably be drawn and therefore a case be made for further study.
Problem & Question
There appear to be two main forces that determine the curriculum in a
given field of academic instruction: first is tradition, and second is the set
of personal agendas and goals of the instructional faculty. Upon entering
a new teaching position, the new faculty member will be in most cases
obliged to follow existing curricular guidelines: a course that was taught
every fall semester will be taught every fall semester. Modifying a curricula within a larger program can be a daunting task, even for the longtenured, so the default response of some is to leave the program in place
and try to work within individual courses to tailor a program to an
instructor's strengths and vision. In a field as relatively young as technical direction, changes in the working conditions and job requirements in
the professional environment are inevitable. In a field that deals directly
with technology changes and the advancements brought by such
changes, how can we as educators make sure that our programs remain
structured to meet the needs of twenty-first-century TD students? This
question has broader implications than how well goes the recruiting.
Certainly we have much to learn from tradition. In some cases educators with decades of experience have developed and evolved the teaching programs in their care, and there is good reason to respect their
learning and experience. In smaller institutions with more recent programs, graduates of more established schools may be tapped to run their
programs: these graduates have as their model the programs they
emerged from, and therefore the history and traditions that went into
them. There may, however, be insufficient reason to wholly trust in these
traditions, since the role of the technical director arguably evolved so
much over the latter part of the twentieth century. Consider the changes
to this field brought on by the advent of personal computing. TDs now
may be called on to develop and train personnel on automated show
control machinery, computerized rigging systems and the like. Consider
also the shift in resource allocation from as recently as early in the twentieth century: labor-intensive processes (such as mortise-and-tenon
joints on flats) have shifted to a heavy emphasis on quickly-constructed,
more disposable scenery, with arguably fewer master craft skills. In the
same vein, more traditional forms of stock theatrical scenery-wingand-drop, box interiors, etc.-have given way to unique, purpose-built
designs and an ever-growing reliance on technology.
How do we determine if the courses developed in the twentieth century are still pertinent in the twenty-first? Which skills are still necessary
to be taught, and which ought to be phased out? What new skills that we
have lately come to need should now be covered in our courses? Are

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there courses or topics that have traditionally been omitted due to a misunderstanding of the necessity of the material? The purpose of the survey
was to determine whether higher education is, in fact, keeping up with
the changing needs of technical theatre training in the United States.
There is some evidence that people in TD-type positions "burn
out" at a higher rate than others. (See "Job Satisfaction Among Technical
Directors" by Dennis Dorn and Lisa Anne Schlenker Aitken, TD&T,
Spring 1989.) Insufficient preparation of academically trained TDs may
play a part. While solving the burnout conundrum is not the focus of this
article, better understanding of training issues may help us better prepare a work force for the jobs they will encounter.
Survey
To get to the heart of what technical directors really need to know on the
job, we asked professional TDs to relate their duties to their training. A
primary goal of the survey was to draw inferences about the efficacy of
the programs training TDs. We received responses from a wide crosssection of professionals, including professional, community and educational theatre TDs, as well as those in positions parallel to the technical
director in analogous fields such as advertising or museum display work.
The survey had three sections: training (education), job, and the
relationship between the two. A look into available training programs
across the country revealed dozens of technical theatre programs, which
varied widely in terms of the level of training offered. Rather than attempt
to define what a technical theatre training program is, or how the subject
is taught, the survey simply asked respondents to indicate their program
in terms of the field of study and the degree(s) they received. Questions
about their job included overall years of experience and years at their
job, hours worked per week, and size and type of company or institution.
In the final section, survey respondents rated thirteen different administrative, production, and other job duty areas in terms of how significant
those duties were to their job, and where they learned the skills needed
to perform them.
Respondents to the survey reported a variety of schooling: more
than one-quarter of the TDs we heard from had no technical production
degree, while the rest had either a bachelor or masters degree (or both)
in a technical production program, and many also had experienced an
internship as well. Respondents had been in the career an average of
14.5 years, ranging from 1 to 35 years with as many as 32 years in a
single job. While on the job, these TDs worked an average of 52 hours
per week. Interestingly, we found that TDs with a technical production
degree, particularly those with a masters degree, worked more hours
per week than those without.
Despite inevitable ambiguities in the survey design, the data collected nevertheless reveals some clear patterns and correlations, and
some unexpected non-correlations as well.
Analysis
Statistical software was utilized in a number of ways to help determine
whether or not correlations are statistically reliable. First, the hypothesis
was made that there is a relationship between the training sources the
respondents identified with the type pf organization they work in. That is,
we suspect that people with certain degrees are more likely to work in

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